Puppy Steps by Libby Rockaway

Rating: WORTHY!

I found this to be a cool title from an author with an amazing name! How cool is 'Rockaway'? Yeah! The book is intended as a practical guide to raising a dog to be well-behaved and sociably-adjusted, and from the start it was obvious this was not only written competently, but also well intelligently thought-out. This girl knows what she's doing. I'm not a dog owner at present, but I have owned and known many dogs and I've never been a fan of the training-your-pet-as-a-circus-dog, but that's not what this is about. It's about building a relationship with your pet so that you both maximize your comfort and fun, and become true companions, not over-bearing master and timid slave. It's about raising a healthy and emotionally well-balanced pet who heeds you without you having to get heavy-handed, domineering, or frustrated.

The book is replete with lists and charts, hints and tips, and is set out in a smart and orderly fashion,. It features step-by-step instructions towards the end of the book, on how to achieve specific goals. This is where the 'Puppy Steps' title was so great. The steps start small, when your pet is young, and they don't demand too much of you or your dog - except in that you need to stay with the program or you're not going to get results.

Note that this involves spending a lot of time with your pet, especially in the early stages. But then why get a pet if you're not going to spend lots of time with it? This kind of training cannot be done with a five minute session here and there; it does need time and work on a daily basis. I like the way the author maintains a positive attitude and a good sense of humor, and explains things in easy-to-grasp way without being condescending or talking down to the reader. I'm a visual person - I often grasp things better when I can see it being done and have notes to fall back on than I do with only written instructions, and we're covered there, too: the author has several videos on YouTube.

The thing I liked most about this is the emphasis on positive reinforcement, which is not always what you might think. It's not just a matter of having the dog do something and rewarding it. Sometimes the rewards come when the dog is doing nothing, but is nonetheless behaving and doing what you would wish them to, such as staying out from under your feet. It's also not a matter of leaping from no behavior to good behavior. You have to take the puppy steps and do them in the right way so your dog gets a clear and positive message. I like the way the training is about having fun with your pet and making sure your puppy also has fun. You're working with the animal, not against it. You can take shortcuts to good behavior when you're using the animal's own behaviors and instincts to get messages across about what you expect.

I liked this book. I liked that it made sense, that it was clear, instructive and well-written. Obviously I haven't tested out these guidelines with a puppy of my own, so I can't say this worked for me, but to me the training makes good sense, and I think this book does too, if you and your puppy are going to grow to get along with each other! The You Tube videos are evidence enough for me, and I recommend this book as a worthy read and a useful tool for dog owners.

The Spell Thief by Tom Percival

Rating: WORTHY!

Set in fairy-tale land, this book for children really stirs things up. Yes, we have the regulars here, Jack (of the Beanstalk - and can those beans talk? Well yeah, if you eat too many!), Rapunzel (of the hair today, gone tomorrow method of escapology), Red Riding Hood, and so on. But there's a new kid on the block: Anansi, who is visiting from far away. Jack also has a talking hen called Betsy, but she only seems to squawk "Whaaat?" so frankly, I'm not 100% convinced that she can actually talk at all....

From the off, Jack is suspicious of Anansi, who seems to be way-too-friendly with trolls to be on the up and up, so Jack makes a pact with the local mer-witch who can sell him a magical trick or two which might help expose the Anansi boy. But is Anansi as bad as he's lamented, or is he merely caught in a web of his own troubles?

I loved this story for the craziness, and the chicken, and the mermaid, for the sly wit, and for Jack's schemes always seeming to trip themselves up. Story unrelenting with great ending? I recommending!

Back Online by Laura Dower

Rating: WARTY!

I was offered a chance to read this because I'd apparently liked a previous volume in the series, but I honestly don't remember reading the earlier one and I cannot find a review for it on my blog or on Goodreads. I have nothing by this author on my blog, which may be on Google because their search engine sometimes fails to find things I know are there! But the story sounded interesting, so I decided to take a look even though I'm not a fan of series, except in a few rare cases.

The first third of this novel, featuring middle-grader Madison and her family and friends, was actually quite interesting and very readable, but starting in the middle third and continuing, it really went downhill. I reached ninety percent and gave it up out of sheer boredom and out of an increasingly strong conviction that I knew exactly how this was going to go down. It's the tired old story of the girl (in other stories it's the guy) who doesn't recognize that the best friend is 'the one'. It's been done to death. It speaks sadly of the blindness or stupidity of the main character and quite frankly, like Robert Frost, I yearn for the road not taken. I long for something a bit different, off the beaten track, with new or inventive things to say about people or relationships.

Madison too soon became a rather whiny one-trick pony with an annoying OCD centered around two boys. This then became virtually the only thing she had on her mind, the sole topic of her conversation, and the only thing she could focus on. It was not only annoying, it was boring! I don't have any daughters, I'm sorry to say, but I have sons in this age range and while they do tend to focus on things rather tightly, they also maintain a variety of other interests, and are nowhere near as blinkered as Madison is rendered here.

I can understand that girls and boys get hard and painful crushes on one gender or another, but to pigeon-hole them one as one-track minds, with nothing more there than their obsession is an insult. While I'm sure that there are girls who tightly focus on crushes, I am equally sure that all save the worst of these girls do not focus on them to the exclusion of very nearly everything else as Madison does. I can't speak for the age range this is aimed at, but for me, a girl who has more going on in her mind than this is far more interesting than Madison is. I think girls have enough to deal with without being painted as Madisons in every novel that comes out, and this is why I can't recommend this one as a worthy read.

Spot the Duck by Gerald Hawksley

Rating: WORTHY!

If you liked Gerald Hawksley's Don't Juggle Bees, or his If You Have a Hat, both of which I liked, then you'll also like this one, unless you hate endings with a twist - and this one has a doozy!

This is Chuck. He's lost his duck. And if there's one thing about chuck, it's not bad luck. Off he goes through the town, face all covered in a frown. He has to find his duck he says, and he looks for Spot always. But can he find his ducky friend? You'll have to read it to the end.

Written and illustrate colorfully for young children and anyone they can find to read it to them, this is an amusing and entertaining story that has a fun ending. I recommend it.

Einstein by Corinne Maier, Anne Simon

Rating: WORTHY!

I got this from the local library and it was a fun read. It's a great introduction to Einstein, and though it feels that we're rushing through his life while reading this, he did lead a long, full, and very complex life. This bio touches on every important aspect of it, including those which do not present Einstein in a brilliant light. It conveys a little bit of his science, but in a very soft way. This is not the place to really learn anything, even in a simplistic form, of what he accomplished.

It is a good starting point if you're interested in Einstein, his era, or why he became such a renowned figure. In that regard, a small bibliography would have been nice, but there isn't one! The story is still interesting, covers a lot, and is a great lead in to further study or reading. The color drawings are quite simplistic - more scribbles than art, but still they serve their purpose. The authors of this one have written at least two more, about Freud and Marx. It sure would be nice if they wrote a similar number about women.

That said, I recommend this for children and even adults if they want to get an introduction to the man and a very basic groundwork of what he achieved and what he stood for.

Will & Whit by Laura Lee Gulledge

Rating: WORTHY!

I found this in the library and it looked good at first glance. The artwork was cool and interesting, and the story looked entertaining. When I started in on it this morning, it proved to be every bit as entertaining as it promised – which is always a nice feeling to have delivered between the covers! I have to say, full disclosure, that the author suckered me in. The story is set in Charlottesville, Va, where I’ve lived, and within the first few pages there was not only a mention of Doctor Who, but a quote from one of my favorite characters from that show, Sally Sparrow! Way to lure me!

It wasn’t all plain sailing though. The ending was a bit trite and predictable, and seemed to center around the main character miraculously getting over herself and finding validation from nothing more than a guy liking her, which rather sold her out in my opinion, but other than that, it was entertaining and the artwork remarkable.

The main character, Will, is nyctophobic, and has been ever since childhood. She sees some really interesting shapes in the dark, very few of which are out-and-out scary, but some are definitely on the creepy side. Others are truly works of art, and if I saw them, I’d find them fascinating, but Will doesn’t seem to pay that much attention to them despite her fear. Or maybe it’s because of it.

Talking of which, apparently no one locks their doors in this town? That wasn't my experience I'm happy to report! Will is able to go over to her friend Autumn’s house, enter the house, go upstairs, and wake up her friend. That really creeped me out. I seriously hope people do not live in that manner. That person entering the house and going to the teenager’s bedroom might not have been one of her friends.

There was more than one incident of this warped nature. Three friends, Autumn, Noel, and Will take a trip down the river on air mattresses with Noel’s thirteen-year-old sister Reese, who can’t swim. She’s tipped into the water by Noel, who thinks it’s a great joke. The water is extremely shallow at that point, but Reese didn’t know it, and Will never said a word to Noel about how cruel that was, despite her own experience with fear. I have to say that made me wonder about Will. Overall, I rather liked her, but she made that hard to do sometimes, especially when she appeared really dumb with regard to this guy liking her. She was blithely unaware of it, despite herself having advised Autumn of Noel's liking for her, of which Autumn was blithely unaware. What’s with the too-dumb-to-see motif?

We need to get away from the tired trope that girls are too stupid to realize a guy likes them. Yes, I'm sure there are some who are, but you'd think it was every other woman if you judged them by how many times this cliché is played out in novels. It's tedious and it makes the girl look stupid. Maybe you can argue that Will is so self-absorbed by grief over her parents' deaths (a year previously) that she's inured to the attention, but she sure didn’t seem like she was that badly-off for the most part. Besides, this behavior says a volume of other things about the character that are equally off-putting, and if she's that far enveloped in grief, then she sure as hell isn’t going to get over it in the course of a couple of days, as is depicted here!

That said, this novel was interesting, the people were pleasingly and refreshingly not your usual run-of-the-mill types (apart from the stereotypical blindness to attention from the other gender), and the story worked, so I consider it a worthy read.

Bell's Big Move by Tom Shay-Zapien, Matt Wiewel

Rating: WORTHY!

As part of the international Christmas in July celebration that I just made up (I guess that makes it a decelebration?), This was a fun and charming book for young kids who are fans of wint'ry days and warm furry dogs (and who isn't?!). It's evidently part of a system whereby there's also a plush puppy which costs an addition thirteen dollars or so, and is electronically linked to the book so when certain words are spoken out loud (and assuming the toy is within range), it reacts, presumably by barking or whatever. I can see parents loving that after the first fifty thousand such barks! It's yet another example of electronics creeping into every corner of life. I haven't made up my mind if it's a good thing or a bad one yet! I guess I shouldn't complain too much since I work for a corporation which is entering the home electronics market, although were not making plush toys. Not yet!

This is evidently part of a series, and I am reviewing a companion book separately today, which appears to be a kind of prequel to this one. This one is narrated nicely by Matt Wiewel, and colorfully illustrated with what actually looks like painstakingly posed toys and models. The images are quite remarkable and are evidently taken from a stop-motion animated show. The story follows Bell, the husky dog, who is having to move to a new home during the winter with her friend Sofia. Will they like their new home? Will they miss the old place? Perhaps meeting Jingle, who looks like Bell's twin, in the new town will be the start of a beautiful friendship? If not, there's always Rick's place, where everybody goes....

This is another books with an accompanying sound track, and the great thing about it is that it engages all the senses. You can swipe the screen with fingers (this book worked well on my smart phone which is very convenient), you can listen to the voice-over, you can enjoy the artwork, you can taste the adventure, and you can smell those electronic circuits warming up as you read...wait, maybe not so much on that last one. I thought it was a great way to get kids listening and reading. You can even engage them in seeking out interesting animals and items in the pictures. I recommend it.

Jingle All the Way by Tom Shay-Zapien, Matt Weiwel

Rating: WORTHY!

As part of the international Christmas in July celebration that I just made up (I guess that makes it a decelebration?), This was a fun and charming book for young kids who are fans of wint'ry days and warm furry dogs (and who isn't?!). Narrated nicely by Matt Weiwel, and colorfully illustrated with what actually looks like painstakingly posed toys and models, this little picture book follows Jingle, the husky dog, who is spending Christmas not only alone, but also out on the street! Ulp! (Do dogs say ulp? It's been a while since I've teamed up with one, but I don't recall mine ever saying that). The interesting thing is that Jingle isn't actually as alone as he fears. There's this guy in a red suit roaming around, and he has some ideas about matchmaking this year.

This is another of those books with an accompanying sound track, so young kids can read or listen or both. It's also sync'd to a plush toy dog which costs an additional thirteen dollars or so, and which barks in response to key phrases (supposedly. I haven't tested that, and I'm not sure how many parents would really want a kid controlling a yapping dog, but there it is). I'll bet if I were a kid I'd want it! LOL! The narrator is Matt Weiwel, who seems to have the contract for all of these books.

The great thing about it this is that it engages all the senses. You can swipe the screen with little fingers (this book worked well on my smart phone which is very convenient), you can listen to the voice-over, you can enjoy the artwork, you can taste the adventure, and you can smell those electronic circuits warming up as you read...wait, maybe not so much on that last one. I thought it was a great way to get kids listening and reading. You can even engage them in seeking out interesting animals and items in the pictures. I recommend it.

Cassidy and the Rainy River Rescue by Keely Chace, Nikki Dyson, Diane Marty

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an interesting and charming book for young kids who are fans of horses (and who isn’t?!). Narrated nicely by Diane Marty, and colorfully illustrated and colorfully and boldly illustrated by Nikki Dyson, this little picture book follows young Cassidy (and what a great name for a horse? No? yes? I liked it) as she roams around the ranch looking for fun and adventure. She finds it. She’s a bit too young to take part in the cattle Round-Up. Why anyone would want to spray weed-killer on cows anyway is a mystery to me (that was a farming joke). She does find out that she’s perfect to help a little calf-pint who’s in trouble down by the river.

This is likely part of a system whereby there's also a plush pony which is electronically linked to the book so when certain words are spoken out loud (and assuming the toy is within range), it reacts, presumably by neigh-saying or whatever. I can see parents saying aye-aye after the first couple of hundred whiny whinnies!

The great thing about this book is that it engages all the senses. You can swipe the screen (this book worked well on my smart phone, FYI) with your fingers, you can listen to the voice-over, you can enjoy the artwork, you can taste the adventure, and you can smell those electronic circuits warming up as you read…wait, maybe not so much on that last one. I thought it was a great way to get kids listening and reading. You can even engage them in seeking out interesting animals and items in the pictures. I recommend it.

Lady Midnight by Judith Lewis aka Cassandra Clare

Rating: WARTY!

This is yet another argument against series. This was a humongously long novel, and the reason for that is that the author evidently graduated Summa Cum Loudly from the Stephen King Endless Education in Verbose Yearning (SKEEVY) school, where it painfully obvious that the golden rule is" "Why use one word where fifty will do?" No one gets out of bed in this world unless it takes a paragraph of minutely detailed description to convey the 'action'.

This is truly sad, because I liked the idea of the novel and was waiting for the novel the blurb described, and it never arrived. The reading voice was that of no less than Morena Baccarin, one of my favorite actors, but ever her dulcet tones couldn't rescue this. She also, on occasion, read too fast. Not that I blame her given the size of this tome, but it made some of the text rather difficult to understand.

Emma Carstairs is, we're told, a Shadowhunter who lives for battle against demons, yet in the one half of this novel I could stand to listen to, there was precisely one brief battle and that was it! The rest of the time, she's leading such a tediously un-entertaining and mind-numbing life that makes my own relatively sedate one look like a summer action blockbuster movie. I honestly could not believe that I was listening to such a herd of paragraphs that were better not heard, but still they came, one after another of soul-deadening detail and palaverously prolix prattle! See, anyone can do it!

I was so sick of hearing about the minutiae of Emma's life that I simply gave up and ditched the book back at the library. I cannot recommend even half of this first volume, let alone a whole series of this. Life's far too short to waste it on the mundane even on a Monday!

City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, Dallas Middaugh, Niklas Asker

Rating: WORTHY!

I tried this novel in the form of an audiobook not long ago and was disappointed in it, which itself was a disappointment because the premise is an intriguing one. When I saw the graphic novel version on the shelf at my lovely loquacious local library, I decided this was the way to go, and I was not wrong. I really enjoyed the novel in this version. The story was adapted by Dallas Middaugh, who evidently hails from the Slash & Burn school of adaptation, because this was stripped right down to the bone. This might not appeal to everyone, but it appealed to me because my biggest problem with the audiobook was how much it ramble and meandered. The art work by Niklas Asker was fine.

The story is, I assume, aimed at middle-grade readers, since the main characters featured here were quite young. Whether they match the age as envisioned by the original author I can't say. The City of Ember is in perpetual darkness and relies on an increasingly unreliable electrical system to keep it lit during the "day." The citizens lead deprived and unhappy lives, constantly unhappy and often short of food. Corruption is rampant. They're assigned work at a young age, and have no choice in their occupation. Our two main characters, Lina and Doon (Lorna Doone anyone?!) however, buck the system and exchange jobs, both getting the one they preferred, but their collaboration doesn't end there.

The two of them start feeling like there are secrets being kept and that living this life in this city isn't all they and their fellow citizens were meant for. They pursue their suspicions and discover an amazing secret. Amazing to them, that is! It's pretty obvious to the reader by then what's going on. The 'ending' was beautiful. I put it in quotes because of course it's not an ending: it's the start of a series. Yet despite that awful and debilitating drawback, I recommend this graphic novel as a worthy read.

Good as Lily by Derek Kirk Kim, Jesse Hamm

Rating: WARTY!

This is a graphic novel which is well illustrated and decently written but I had some problems with it. For one, there is a disconnect between the cover image and the interior images. If this were a novel, I could understand such a difference (between the cover and the character description inside) because the author has no say in the cover and the cover artist (in my experience) either has no clue what the novel is about, or simply doesn't care.

This is why I pay little attention to the cover of a novel, but with a graphic novel, it's different: the creators also do the cover, so why the cover image shows one body style and the interior a completely different one is as inexplicable as it is inexcusable to me. The cover image matches the text in that the main character, Grace, is "chubby" (to use a term employed in the novel). The interior images show a slim main character, which makes no sense when she's described (even vindictively) as chubby. Did the artist not read the novel until it came down to finally painting the cover?! Given this disconnect, parts of the story make no sense.

I'm typically interested in time-travel novels, and this one is a such a story in a sense. Grace is evidently a 2^nd gen Korean teen living in the US. Her parents speak an oddball brand of English which I associate with racist stereotypes. Yes, I know the author, at least as judged from his last name, may well have Korean ancestry, but this doesn't excuse him from employing racial stereotypes. The mom and dad also run a convenience store. Seriously? Could we not get away from that and have them do something non-stereotypical or must everyone be pigeon-holed? This story makes the same mistake that stories featuring western characters do: it's all Caucasian, with only a token sprinkle of Asian and African. This story puts that in reverse: it's all Korean, with a token sprinkle of Caucasian. That doesn't make things better; it makes them just as racist.

On her eighteenth birthday, Grace breaks a piñata, and soon discovers that she has somehow unleashed three other versions of herself: a six-year-old, a twenty-nine-year old, and an elderly one. Despite the fact that Grace's life seems to be well on track and she's heading to Stanford after graduation, she seems to be inexplicably in disarray. She's unhappy with her lot, yet we're offered no valid reason whatsoever as to why this is. The only hint comes late in the novel and is embedded in the title: Grace had an older sister, Lily, who died young. I guess Grace felt like she never measured up to Lily, but since Lily died young there never was anything to measure up to in any practical sense, and nowhere in the novel do we ever get any real sense that Grace's problems lie with her parents' love or with her prematurely-deceased sibling.

The novel is very much like the movie Heart and Souls, wherein several recently deceased people attach themselves to a still-living guy and he, resentfully, has to help them complete unfinished business before they can move on in the afterlife. The same thing applies to Grace's three visitors. They have something to do and it's not clear what. At random points in the story, they disappear one-by-one having completed whatever it is they needed to, but the story is so vague about what it is, we get only the haziest notion of what they accomplished that helped them graduate, and so we receive no solid sense of closure for each of these phases of Grace's life.

For me, the biggest problem though, and why I'm rating this negatively, is Grace herself. We're told that she's going to Stanford, but never does she come off as very smart, or creative, or imaginative. Never do we get any idea as to why she's so down on herself and she never tries to figure it out, smart as she's supposed to be. When the school play production runs into a roadblock, she fails to apply her intellect, and fails to solve it. We're never told why so much money is needed to put on this play, or why inexpensive minimalist solutions wouldn't work.

When the school budget is cut and the golf team survives while the arts are cut, no-one organizes any sort of protest. The 'solutions' run to juvenile car washes and bake sales instead of having people simply approach local businesses and ask for donations of time, talent, or necessary items. There's no way they can earn thirty thousand dollars this way, and there's no justification given as to why thirty grand is better spent on producing this play than in being applied to a more worthy or more encompassing cause.

Grace is also pretty dumb about the guy who's interested in her. It's the tired old chestnut of lifelong best friends not realizing they're destined to be together. It's been done to death, and we're offered nothing new or original here: no twist, no great insights, no passion, no creative interactions, no imagination, and no romance. It's boring and uninventive, and I can't recommend this novel.

Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction by Mary Ellen Hannibal

Rating: WARTY!

I normally rate science books highly, but here is one I'm afraid - and sorry - I cannot get behind, because I was never convinced this was doing what it set out (according to the blurb) to do. I know authors cannot be held responsible for their book blurbs unless they self-publish, so I don't blame the author for this, but for me the promise in the blurb of a "wide-ranging adventure in becoming a citizen scientist" was not met. I wasn't even sure who it applied to: the author? the reader? the people featured in the book? For me it seemed like there was very little about actually becoming a citizen scientist, and certainly not in the manner of offering very much in the way of pathways or advice in pursuing such an ambition.

There were some stories about people who are citizen scientists, and some of these were quite interesting, but they were few and far between, and they were buried under the overwhelming volume of what was, to me, extraneous information about anything and everything that had little or nothing to do with citizen science. This first came to my attention when I noticed how much the author talked about losing her father to cancer. I can sympathize. Both of my parents are dead, and it's an awful thing to lose a loved one, but it really has nothing to do with scientific study, much less citizen science. If it had been mentioned briefly, that would be one thing, but the author kept coming back to it as though it were central to the theme of the book. I kept waiting for a point to be made in keeping with the book's title, and it never came.

All of the first five chapters were of this nature - either starting out off-topic, or starting out on topic and then meandering far from it. For example, the entire 20 pages or so of chapter 4 is about author's father and about Lewis & Clark, and about the California gold rush. There was nary a word about modern citizen science, how to become involved, what they do or why or how they find or make the time for it. I simply didn't get the point of chapter four at all. Chapter five began in the opposite way, by launching a story of cellphone use to track and report illegal logging, which was a great example of citizen science, but there was not a word in there about how this operation was brought together.

The chapter then switched to Google's admirable outreach program, which has led to advances in detecting and neutralizing land mines, and other such important and vital community projects, but just as I was starting to appreciate some citizen science here, the chapter veered off completely into a lecture about people protesting corporate malfeasance in logging and mining, which to me is not actually citizen science. It may employ science, and of course a corporation is now legally a citizen, isn't it? But realistically? No! To me this was the biggest problem - the book was not a guide or an exploration, but a tease. We were offered burlesque-like glimpses of the flesh of the topic, but we never got a full frontal! Each time we thought we would see something wondrous and beautiful, down came one of the seven veils and hid it from us while the spotlight was whisked away to another part of the stage.

Some of the arguments seemed to me to be poorly thought through. For example, one part of the book discussed the disappearance of whales and what a huge hole (both practically and metaphorically to my mind) they leave in the environment. This is a tragedy and the people who have been carrying out the genocide on whales are the ones who really need harpooning in the ass, but the argument about whales being valuable because they sequester carbon - embedding it into their thirty to one hundred tons of flesh and then carrying it to the bed of the ocean when they die - was not a balanced one. Worse, it was a wrong-headed one.

The author seems to have forgotten that whales are air breathers and as such output carbon dioxide throughout their lives - lives which may extend in some species to a hundred years. I read somewhere that whales as a whole, output some 17 million tons of carbon a year. That said, they also help decrease carbon by stirring up iron in the water, which then supports plankton growth. The science is not exact; it's still under study, but it seems to me that the best we can say is that some species of whales could be carbon sinks or at worst, carbon neutral.

The study - as far as I can tell - was not exactly scientific either, in that it failed to take into account whale farts! This might seem frivolous, but whales pass gas and that gas contains carbon dioxide and methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas. Some more work needs to be done, but as far as I can see, removing whales from the oceans, as humans have so mercilessly done for centuries, is a capital crime, yet it would seem that it has no overall effect on global warming, as the history of the last forty million years has shown! We need to save the whales not because they are carbon sequesters, but because they are sentient, feeling beings, period.

Digging deep into history might be interesting for some readers, but it offers not a whit of help for anyone who was interested in learning what opportunities there are for citizen scientists and how potential volunteers might avail themselves of these. This is far more of a memoir and a history book than ever it is a useful guide to citizen science, and I felt saddened by that. It seemed like a great opportunity was squandered here, and what was here was certainly not something I would want to read some four hundred pages of! I can't in good faith give a positive recommendation for this book, although I thank the publisher for the opportunity to read it, and wish the author all the best in her future endeavors.

Life's a Witch by Brittany Geragotelis

Rating: WARTY!

This one sounded interesting, and the author's name sounded amazingly interesting, but it (the novel not the name!) rather quickly proved to be unimaginative. Indeed, it felt most like a rip-off of early Harry Potter, inexplicably aimed at YA readership. Weird! I guess the author thinks her audience is deficient in reading skills or something. The witches were in school - seventeen or younger - and part of a coven which their parents ran. When the parents were wiped out by a group of evil witches, the kids go on the run. Their leader, Hadley (no I didn't make that up, although I can't vouch for the spelling being spot-on), is supposed to be the special snowflake Harry Potter-style liberator, but in actual fact she comes off as a spoiled, privileged brat who is irresponsible and clueless. That was how she was in the first three-eighths of this novel, after which I gave up.

There's nothing new here at all (including, boringly, that this is book one of the inevitable series, because why come up with something original each time you write when you can keep spewing out the same tired old stuff every time, with a minor tweak or two and call it a new volume?). There are direct rip-offs from TV series like Charmed (speaking spells in Hallmark-style rhyming English and using antiquated words like 'thou', and also from Harry Potter, where two words in Latin and a swish of a wand or the fingers can deliver an immoblizing spell. The evil witches are exactly like the ones in Harry Potter: attacking by tossing out minor injuries and jinxes instead of delivering a death-blow. Another rip-off from Potter: the house that can only be visited by people who already know where it is.

It's told in worst person voice which is almost an automatic fail for me these days, and the woman who read this (Joy Osmanski), didn't sound too bad to begin with but after a while her delivery really began to irritate, I'm sorry to report. Even had it not, I would still have been put off by the amateur, fan-fic level of the writing. It was all tell and no show, and was especially no-show in the inventiveness department. Witches in covens? Thoroughly evil villains who do't do anything transcendingly evil except bully the kids? The prima donna descended from one of the Salem Witches? Spells are aimed and sometimes miss? Despite having enormous magic power, all the characters typically do everything in exactly the way we non-magical people do it? When someone gets injured, not a single person knows a single thing about magically stopping bleeding or healing bruises? Seriously? That's probably a good thing because this author would probably think you 'staunch' bleeding, not stanch it!

I almost quit reading this after the prologue - which I normally wouldn't read anyway, but it's hard to know what you're getting into in a audio book. Rest assured it confirmed what I've said all along: prologues, introductions, prefaces, and forewords are a waste of time. And can we not find an author who is imaginative enough to get away from that appalling abuse of women in Salem and come up with something new for once? And what about the un-original idea that a table (or some other such object) can block a magic spell? if that's the case, how come all the witches are not wearing some sort of body armor to prevent themselves being hit by spells? See what I mean? It's thoroughly unimaginative, and I can't recommend it.

Becoming Zara by Lillianna Blake, P Seymour

Rating: WARTY!

This novel is about a purportedly overweight woman and her life, one which frankly seems rather privileged to me. There's a whole series: Single Wide Female, which I admit is a cool title, but I'm not a series fan, and after reading about half of this volume, I'm not at all inspired to read on. The first problem is first person. This is supposed to be a novel which, I assume, character Lilliana Blake wrote to fulfill one of the items on her bucket list (write a novel), but it's not well told and I found I wasn't really liking the character because she felt very fake to me.

She was born Catherine - or rather not - she was born with no name and named Catherine by her parents, but she rejects that name and calls herself Zara (with 'Warrior Princess' added sotto voce). Why she needs a title, I don't know. Why she changed her name at all, I don't know. She never really explained that to my satisfaction. She's constantly going on about accepting herself, yet the first thing she rejects is something which is very basic and central to herself: her name! It wasn't logical, and this seems to be a character flaw of Zara's. But she;s maybe not as flawed as her "Love doctor" who is talking about about Zara projecting sexual energy on first date? How about projecting being a warm and interesting person that some guy would want to hang out with and see again, instead of selling her out as a slut on day one?

She has a well-paid job in a bank, owns her own condo, buys new clothes often, and eats out routinely, so she's hardly strapped for cash, yet she never considers this to be an advantage, or seems grateful that she's so much better off than many other people, overweight or not, who have less than she does. She's been working on fitness and getting along famously with the hot personal trainer, and of course she's oblivious to his attentions, which tells me she's not very smart. Here's an example: "For some reason that I couldn’t explain, I was always a little too happy when Braden told me about his non-love connections." Duhh! Personally I care a lot less about how much a woman weighs than I do about other factors such as how easy-to-get-along-with they are, how good of a sense of humor they have, how trustworthy they are, how intelligent they are (which I don't equate with academic achievements necessarily), and so on.

One thing which struck me about Zara is that she doesn't seem to have a whole heck of a lot of friends and spends a lot of time alone. Her one date with a female friend gets canceled because the friend's fiancée's back in town. Her sister, who once matched Zara's weight, is constantly on her case about how much weight Zara has(n't) lost. It's like the only thing they have in common, which is pretty sad! Her best friend seems to be Bernard, who is her fitness trainer, and it's clear there is something there, yet Zara is oblivious to it or in denial about it.

At the same time, Zara is focused almost solely on dressing-up and thinking about Bernard. She seems to have no thought processes other than these! She and her sister failed the Bechdel test - that is when they got together, all they could talk about is men. The clothes seem to be comfort 'food' for Zara, because if she really is losing weight, they're not going to fit her for long. Oh, and Zara never seems to go to work. She talks about her job quite often but never shows up for it. I'm serious. In the half of this novel I read, never once was she at work. I guess she's too much of a princess - or a warrior - for that.

The curious thing to me about this Zara character is that I never was convinced that she was overweight, or 'fat' or 'obese' as she herself alternately terms it. I don't think she really understands what 'overweight' actually means - and even then it has nothing directly to do with body mass index, which is a better scale of your health For this, I don't blame Zara given that she grew up in the US which is simultaneously one of the most overweight, yet poorly fed (nutritionally speaking) nations on the planet on the one hand, and on the other, which worships impossible 'ideals' of what a woman should be - basically a Barbie figure in real life. Yawn.

The problem here was that it was hard to get intelligent numbers from this novel. From what I can tell, Zara is five feet seven and two hundred pounds, which to me isn't 'fat'. I guess some might call it chubby, or big-boned, or give it some other such euphemism, but to me Zara, were she a real person, would look fine at that, not unhealthy (assuming she ate intelligently and exercised, which she does). Certainly it's a lot more healthy-looking than some anorexic runway model, all of whom look underfed if not diseased to me. What is unhealthy in Zara's life is her super-tight focus on her master plan and her weight (regardless of whether she feels positively or negatively about it), to the exclusion of pretty much everything else.

I get that she's (or the author is) trying to make it clear that while being notably overweight is unhealthy, it's also unhealthy to worry yourself to death if you're not significantly overweight and if you don't have weight-associated health issues going on, which Zara doesn't appear to suffer. It's just that I'm not convinced she's going about this the right way! The character is going on and on about a positive body image, and staying healthy and strong, but she seems to have no interest in anything other than her visits to the gym, and her work-outs with this trainer, and occasionally buying clothes. In short, she's really not very interesting, and comes off as shallow, and that, for me, was the worst problem she exhibited. Consequently I couldn't continue reading, and I can't recommend this novel.

The Merchant of Venice (Manga Shakespeare) Richard Appignanesi, Faye Yong

Rating: WORTHY!

I found this at my most excellent library just sitting on the shelf begging to be read. It was adapted from Shakespeare's original and illustrated in an odd elfin-style by Faye Yong. The story was adapted (this typically means trimmed) to fit this format by Richard Appignanesi.

The story was eminently readable and for the most part delightfully illustrated, although the occasional image here and there seemed a bit off to me. The drawings are black and white line-drawings with some grayscale shading, and with a handful of color introductory pages at the beginning, to identify the cast.

The story begins with Bassanio, a Venetian noble, trying to marry Portia, but he has no money. Most of it he spent on wine, women, and song. The rest he just wasted. I'm kidding. Or maybe not: he did squander it one way or another, and now finds that he must get his hands on 3,000 ducats to woo his chosen maiden. Ducats were so named because they were the Duke's coinage and this courting price was something like 80,000 dollars in today's currency (assuming my math is any good, but be warned that it usually isn't). Those Belmont stakes are pretty high you know!

Antonio, the Merchant of Venice, agrees to bail his friend out (yet again), but all his money is tied-up in his shipping ventures. He does agree to underwrite him if he can find a money-lender who will take on the debt. Thus we meet Shylock, a Jewish "banker" who agrees as long as Antonio, who liked Jews about as much as Heinrich Himmler did, guarantees the loan and agrees, famously, to allow Shylock to take a pound of Antonio's flesh if Bassanio defaults.

Over in Portia territory, Bassanio has to contend with Portia's father's will, whereby a suitor must chose from one of three caskets labeled with a taunt rather than the contents. One casket is gold, one silver, and the third lead. Only one of them, however, contains any treasure, in the form of an image of Portia. If the prospective husband picks that one, he wins her hand. Those Venetians, I swear to gold!

Italian loving, had me a blast!
Cruising canals, happened so fast!
I met a girl crazed as can be!
She had me chose, from caskets three!
Venetian days drifting away to, oh oh those Venetian ni-ights!
Tell me more, tell me more, what was top of the picks?
Tell me more, tell me more, like did you get the pix?

The gold casket is labeled: He who chooses me will get what many men want. The silver is inscribed: He who chooses me will get what he deserves, and the lead one says: He who chooses me must give and risk all he has. The Prince of Morocco chooses the gold casket and fails ("All that glisters is not gold"). The Prince of Arragon tries his luck with the silver and discovers that only felt the shadow of joy - Joy, not Portia! Both men are sworn never to reveal their choice or the casket's content. Bassanio of course selects the lead, and thereby wins Portia's hand.

So far so good, but Antonio's ships all founder, and his is now in default to Shylock, who is now particularly pissed-off with Christians after his daughter Jessica ran off with one (Lorenzo), ditching her faith, but replacing it with a boat-load of Shylock's treasure. This turns out to be totally Tubal-er when a messenger arrives with no news of Jessica's whereabouts, like for shore! The vengeful Shylock brings Antonio up before the magistrates in the court of the Duke of Venice.

Meanwhile, Portia and Bassanio having completed their nuptials, but not their wedding night, immediately take-off to Venice to bail Antonio out with Portia's money. They travel with Gratiano and Nerissa, who is Portia's handmaid. Despite Bassanio's very generous offer of twice what Shylock is owed, the latter insists upon his pound of flesh, and all seems lost. Bellario, unable to attend the case himself, appears to have sent a representative named Balthazar. Of course, in true Shakespearean tradition, it's a woman in disguise: in this case, Portia herself. Her assistant is also a woman in disguise: Nerissa, evidently representing that prestigious law firm, Trans, Vestite and Nailem.

Portia begs Shylock to show mercy, but hell-bent on revenge for all the abuse he has suffered over the years, some of which came from Antonio, he flatly refuses. As he is about to scythe his flesh from Antonio, Portia points out that his contract specifies only flesh - not blood. he must, she advises him, not spill a single drop of Antonio's blood, not take a one sliver more than his pound, lest he himself breaches the contract and loses everything, including his life.

Shylock belatedly realizes that he should have accepted Bassanio's generous offer, but now that he seeks to resort to this, he finds he has lost there, too, but Portia points out that he's already on record as rejecting it. Worse than this, as a foreigner (read Jew), who has sought to take the life of a Venetian citizen, he now must forfeit everything, although the Duke does pardon him from his death sentence, and even allows him to retain half his fortune as long as he converts to Christianity - a fate worse than death, it would seem, from Shylock's perspective.

Bassanio gets himself into trouble by rewarding the "lawyer" with a ring he had promised Portia she had given him which he in turn vowed he would never give up. Nerissa achieves the same sort of gift from Gratiano. These guys are morons. Their wives refuse them any bed time until they recover the rings!

Kris Longknife: Redoutable by Mike Shepherd aka Mike Moscoe

Rating: WARTY!

Redoubtable! What an amazing word this is! Doubt means to lack trust something or to have little faith in its credibility, so you'd think, if language made sense, that redoubt would mean you have no more faith the second time than you had on the first consideration, but redoubt is precisely the opposite of that! It means strong and resourceful - something in which you could have faith and trust. How bizarre! I love the English language. The problem is that re-doubt (about the author's abilities) is exactly what I had, having read this novel and found the quality of it doubtful at best.

This is the eighth in a series which has thirteen volumes out so far, and I'm going to review only the first eleven of these since they've felt like they’ve been going downhill over the last two or three, and this one didn’t halt the slide at all. Of course, some may argue they've always been downhill and I can’t completely disagree with that. I read them once before (except for volume 11), and I thought they were okay for a mindless read, but this second read-through, looking at them with a reviewer's more seasoned (and cynical, I have to add!) eye, makes me see them in a rather different light. They've come to exemplify the reasons why I'm not a fan of series unless they're exceptionally well-done, and evidently I've learned a heck of a lot about quality writing from my reviewing.

In this particular story, Kris is helping her one-time arch enemy, Vicky Peterwald (who now has her own series consisting of three volumes so far) to resolve some of her issues. The Peterwald empire is rather like the Soviet Union, and on the planet of interest in this story, the cities are even named after Russian cities. How that worked out is unexplained, but what's even more unexplained is that everyone on this planet apparently speaks Spanish! I have no idea what was going through the author's head when he cooked that up. Not world-building, that's for sure.

The weird thing is that in the previous volume in the series, the big deal was linking-up with representatives of the alien empire - the one they had been at war with eighty years before. The aliens, known as the Itechee, had been losing spacecraft while investigating a new star system and came to the humans for help, but then all that was forgotten! Instead of taking this opportunity to break new ground in his novels, the author ditched that story and retreated safely into tried-and-tested territory: villains subjugating a planet and Kris rides to the rescue. It would have been more realistic if she'd been in charge of air (or space) cavalry instead of marines given how monotonously she rides to the rescue. Not that it makes sense that a lieutenant in the navy is in charge of marines anyway.

This new novel is still ignoring that interesting alien topic and focusing on the fried-and-molested recipe: like how the honorable, upright, democratic and capitalist empire which Kris represents is going to help out the evil, corrupt authoritarian empire which Vicky represents by beating-up on evil villains who are keeping the poor folks downtrodden. LOL! Like I've said in some of my reviews, you kind of have to turn off parts of your brain to cope with these novels. Every one of them pretty much boils down to the same overall plot with a variation here and there - such as the name of the planet and the name of the villain. They're a bit like Bond movies but nowhere near as inventive or exciting.

The stories make little sense if you think about them too deeply. Some make no sense with minimal thought being required: such as why a princess is doing this to begin with. How she's even a princess, and her brother isn't a prince. How a king gets elected. Why Shepherd's entire universe is based solely on the USA (with the villains being based on the old USSR). Why, given that it's based on the USA writ large (and the empire is named the United Sentients, so every ship gets to be the US something-or-other), yet despite this addiction to the US, it's still a monarchy.

The questions abound: Why is Kris Longknife still not a captain after ten volumes of unrelenting and overwhelming success, much less an admiral, yet is in now charge of a small fleet of vessels in space? Even Kris herself doesn't have it clear when she's supposed to be a princess and when she's a Lieutenant-Commander. Why is there no clear chain-of-command in her little operation? Why is she the only Wardhaven military detachment which is doing this job? The questions abound. LACs can't land on land?! Their designers are too stupid to filter reaction mass, so when they use water the ducts immediately get clogged with pond weed? They can't use air for reaction mass?! Why are they in Greenfield territory in the first place? And the real humdinger: why is the midnight to 0400 shift quiet IN SPACE?! Seriously?

Given that she runs up against violent, merciless evil on every trip why is she addicted to using "sleepy-darts' instead of simply gunning down the bad guys? Why is she so well-equipped with super-smart nano-probes, but doesn't have a single drone to do her dirty work, which instead requires her to send in the marines every time, over which she frets endlessly about risk to life? Why is there a sentient personal computer which she travels with everywhere, but not one single robot anywhere in this universe

How does anyone manage to make any money out of interstellar haulage given the massive costs of space travel and the piss-poor return on the shipping simple everyday products to planets which can make or grow them themselves? Why is every single planet on the outer rim - without even one exception - under the thumb of villains who are without variation through-and-through evil, and which she has to take down usually - although not this time - against impossible - or at least extremely adverse - odds? Why does every planet's population consist of good-old-boys who adore her, and cardboard villains who hate her? Why is she always able to carry out these operations with almost no pain or cost?

I guess Shepherd found a formula that works and sticks to it because he can't think of anything else. No doubt his publisher is proud of him, but this repetitiveness and complete lack of inventiveness and imagination is why I really don't like series. It doesn't help when Kris herself comes out with bizarre phrases like, "I want that store torn apart with a fine tooth comb." Seriously? Where is the editor here? Or is the publisher so mesmerized with the sales figures that Shepherd does whatever he wants and no-one dare tell him he's wrong?

If the lieutenant had been painted as a dumb-ass from book one, who typically mangled such phrases, then that would be one thing, but she never has been rendered in that light until she spouted this ridiculous phrase in this volume. That right there was what got this a negative rating regardless of whatever else was in this book, and believe me I 'tore it apart with a fine tooth comb'.

Once again this story dumps her into a ridiculous situation, and she wins out. There is an added (but not new) twist to this one in the form of a kidnapping. This niece of her maid, Abby (who is also army intelligence and says quaint phrases like "Baby Ducks"), is so stupid that she sneaks off the space craft and goes wandering around alone on a hostile space port. Why this twelve-year old is even on Kris's spacecraft is a mystery. Kris routinely runs into danger. She's repeatedly talked about getting the child off the ship, yet despite there being several opportunities to leave her at Wardhaven where she'd be safe, and could get a good life and a good education, she's toted around like a mascot and taken repeatedly into danger.

It's as inexplicable as it is inexcusable, but these novels never have exhibited a whole heck of a lot of common sense despite the author touting quaint down-home catch-phrases as though they're all-powerful amulets against evil, which is another issue. Kris is always righteous, and has a whole passel o' quaint but extremely tired-old-phrases to express it, and woe betide any negative word be expressed about her super heroic and saintly space marines who are inevitably successful in every adventure. Where's the tension? Where's the unpredictability? Not here, Baby Ducks!

So no, not this one, and the way things are going, probably not the next three either! How my tastes and standards have changed in such a short time!

A Night at the Animal Shelter by Mark J Asher

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a short and thoroughly adorable novelette which frankly brought a little lump to my throat by the ending. I'm not kidding. I've worked at a vet's office as an assistant caregiver, so I understand how it goes. It's not the same, of course, as the questionably named 'animal shelter' by any means, but I get the idea so I could relate.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I bought this, thinking maybe it was a young children's picture book, but it's not - it's all text all the time, and it can be a young children's book or a fully mature adult's book. It begins with the humans settling the animals down for the night - on Christmas Eve. Once they're left, the animals start talking to each other and it was at this point that I wondered if I could really read this, but the conversations are interesting, and not over-done, not sappy or dumb, and there's a nice thread of humor.

Of course this isn't just any Christmas Eve, and the animals have a few innocent adventures to get under way before the big day dawns. I loved the story, I loved how it was written, and I dearly loved the ending. I recommend this one completely.

The Zebra Said Shhh by MR Nelson, Tamia Sheldon

Rating: WORTHY!

Well, it's time once again to review some children's literature! I have two wonderful ones for you. This is a beautifully illustrated young children's book aimed (and good luck with that!) at getting your young 'un off to sleep at night! I actually think this has a good chance of succeeding because it has a mantra-like, almost hypnotic cadence as the zebra finds himself, stripe me, having to shush, in turn, all the other animals in the zoo which, apart from one reptile and one bird, seems to be exclusively devoted to mammals.

So once he's talked in turn to those pesky monkeys (and you know what those guys are like after they get high on peanuts!), risked hurting the lion's pride, repeated himself to the parrot, asked the tortoises to slow down for the day, managed, at a stretch, to convince the giraffe, and on and on, suddenly, everything seems remarkably quiet. Hmm!

I liked this story and adored the images, and the book works well even on a smart phone in the crappy Kindle app, FYI. They look awesome on the iPad in landscape mode, even in the crappy Kindle app. I think Nelson and Sheldon are a team to be reckoned with. Assuming they continue to get a good night's sleep. Shhh!

Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress by Sarwat Chadda

Rating: WARTY!

Yes, it's talking book Thursday and here's my third review of an audiobook today.

I really enjoyed Sarwat Chadda's The Devil's Kiss which I guess I read before I started blogging reviews, since I find it nowhere on my blog, but if I'd known this was the start of a series titled 'Ash Mistry Chronicles', I would have left this audiobook on the library shelf. I have sworn-off reading any book (single or series) which has 'chronicles' in the title (or 'saga' or 'cycle', and so on). The very name Ash Mistry is a warning. The novel turned out to be every bit as unappealing as I would have expected for a chronicle

Mistry and his daughter and Indian who have grown up in England, and are visiting the city of Varanasi here they run afoul of the evil Lord Savage (I kid you not with these character names). The main reason for this is that Ash is a petty thief. he damages an archaeological site and finds an arrow head made of gold. Instead of turning it in to the people running the dig, his first thought is that the can sell it and get some money. His selfish thoughtlessness directly leads to the death of an aunt and uncle, and he sheds not one tear nor offers a single expression of regret for them. Not in the part I could stand to listen to.

Worse than this, the novel is genderist. When Ash and his younger sister lucky are in hiding, someone offers to train them in the fight against the supernatural evil that Lord savage controls. One of the two gets to be a warrior - Ash. His sister gets to be a caregiver! Not that there's anything wrong with being a caregiver by any means, but why is the male the warrior and the girl the 'nurse'? Could they not both have been warriors? Or nurses? Could they not have chosen for themselves what they wanted to do rather than be assigned traditional gender roles? it was at this point that I quit reading.

The story was read rather melodramatically and breathlessly by Bruce Mann, which didn't help my stomaching of it. Also, if I'd known that this had been recommended by Kirkus reviews, I wouldn't have wasted my time on it at all. Kirkus pretty much ever met a book they didn't adore, so their reviews are utterly worthless. I cannot recommend it.

Sixkill by Robert B Parker

Rating: WARTY!

Last trip to the library to pick up a requested book, I happened upon this audiobook, which is about a private dick named Spenser (and yes, he's for hire!) who is investigating the murder of a movie star's one-night stand. Over in the young readers section I happened upon a second audiobook also by Robert B Parker, titled Chasing the Bear, which was about the same character but when he was younger. I thought it would be an interesting study to compare and contrast.

Was I ever wrong! Nauseating was a more apt description, and the major reason for it was that this author sucks at writing prose. His problem is that he has all the individuality and inventiveness of a metronome when it comes to writing conversation between two people, and he writes a lot of speech with nothing to break it up. It's like listening to two automatic tennis ball throwers trying to play tennis with each other, and every bit as engrossing.

Of course this was first person because god forbid anyone should ever deign to imagine that it's legal under US law to write a novel in third person! Here's an example of this author's appalling conversational writing, from the beginning of chapter one. Note that this is a transcript of the audiobook, so my punctuation (and spelling of names) may differ from the printed page:

"Care for a coffee?" I said.
"Got some!" Quirk said. "Nice of you to ask."
"You ever read Frazz?" I said.
"What the fuck is frazz?" Quirk said.
[small descriptive section omitted]
"A comic strip in the Globe," I said. "It's new.'
"I'm a grown man," Quirk said.
"And a police captain," I said.
"Exactly," Quirk said. "I don't read comic strips."
"I withdraw the question," I said.
Quirk nodded. "I need something," he said.

Said, said, said? Has this guy never heard of words like, "asked"? Or exclaimed? Or "interrupted"? Or of simply adding no attribution once in a while? I quote this novel shortly afterwards in sheer disbelief that a grown man could write so god-awfully badly. It didn't help that Joe Mantegna's condescending, and I felt insulting version of an American Indian accent was vomit-inducing, and worthy of American western movies of the 1940's and 50's. I used to like Joe Mantegna.

I do not like this author and after listening to the opening portion of two different novels about the same guy at different stages of his life, I've come to the conclusion that there's no difference! I also have to ask how this thoroughly obnoxious lout - the accused murderer in this novel - ever became a major movie star. It's simply not credible. The story makes no sense at all. I'm all done reading Robert B Parker, I say.

Chasing the Bear by Robert B Parker

Rating: WARTY!

Last trip to the library to pick up a requested book, I happened upon an audiobook titled Sixkill by Robert B Parker, which is about a private dick named Spenser (and yes, he's for hire!) who is investigating a murder. Over in the young readers section I happened upon a second audiobook also by Robert B Parker, which was about the same character but when he was younger. I thought it would be an interesting study to compare and contrast.

Was I ever wrong! Nauseating was a more apt description, and the major reason for it was that this author sucks at writing prose. His problem is that he has all the individuality and inventiveness of a metronome when it comes to writing conversation between two people, and he writes a lot of speech with nothing to break it up. It's like listening to two automatic tennis ball throwers trying to play tennis with each other, and every bit as engrossing.

Here's an example from the beginning of chapter nine. Note that this is a transcript of the audiobook, so my punctuation may differ from the printed page.

"Not what you had hoped for," Susan said.
"In those days," I said, "I knew less about why women cried."
"And now?"
"I understand why men and women cry," I said.
"The advantage of maturity," Susan said
"Being young is hard," I said.
"Being grown is not so easy either," Susan said
"But it's easier," I said.
She nodded. We were quiet for a moment; then Susan said, "You hunted!"
"Sure," I said. "We all did."
"You don't hunt now," Susan said.
"No," I said.

Seriously? Good God! What is wrong with this guy? I quit this novel right around that point, because quite literally, I could not bear to listen to another word. I moved on to the adult version of Spenser only to find it was no better! I'm done with this "author"! The reading of the novel by Daniel Parker (the author's son) wasn't bad, I have to add, but neither was it anything special, although to be fair, you'd have to do a super human job to make this garbage palatable.

Machinations by Hayley Stone

Rating: WARTY!

erratum:
"I walk like I belong her0e." That zero clearly doesn't belong! Did the machines put it there?!

Not to be confused with Machinations by JS Breving!

I should have listened to the blurb! It told me right there that it was "Perfect for fans of Robopocalypse" - a novel I detested! I had hoped that this wouldn't make the mistakes that one did, and my hope was rewarded in a sense, because this novel made a whole different set of mistakes. I made it only twenty-five percent through it before I gave it up as a lost cause.

I know people might decry giving up at that point, offering forlorn and misguided claims that if you don't read it all, you can't be sure it won't win you over, but I'm sorry - I can. I've read scores upon scores of books and if one doesn't get me by the time the first quarter is over, I know for a fact that it's not worth wasting more of my time on, not when there are still scores upon scores of other novels out there which are just begging me to turn that first page so they can grip me and thrill me.

The first problem was first person (and it's evidently the start of a series, I'm sorry to report). This is nearly always the wrong choice of PoV for a novel, and I cannot for the life of me understand the OCD which causes so many writers, particularly young adult and new adult authors, to be so irremediably addicted to this voice. It is so limiting and so irritating because it's all about "me" all the time! Hey lookit me! Lookit what I'm doing now! No, pay attention to meee! It doesn't help at all when the narrator is the self-obsessed, incurious, whiny and retiring wallflower that this one is. She's supposed to be a leader - a commander - yet she evinces nothing to make me believe she is or ever was such a person.

Nor does it help when she has nothing else to offer a reader. She's not interesting. She's not smart. She's not curious about anything. She's purportedly a trained soldier but the first thing which happens to her is that she gets shot, and not in some heroic way' but in the same dumb way extras in the form of cops and security guards always get killed on TV shows and in movies - in the most ridiculously unrealistic way possible.

Rhona is brought back to life as a clone in a process that is never explained (not in the portion I read) and which, absent any explanation, completely lacks any credibility. Perhaps some explanation for what happens appears later in the narrative, but from what we're given in the first quarter, it looks like the author believes that when you clone someone, not only do you get a fully-grown adult body in short order, you also get that person's complete memories. Sorry, No! Cloning doesn't work like that! If you want me to accept that it does in your world, then you owe me some sort of explanation as to why this process completely overturns the laws of biology, biochemistry, and neuroscience in your world!

Like I said, maybe there's a better explanation later, but that was the problem with this novel - there were no explanations for anything. We get dumped into this world, humans v. machines, with very little guidance as to how it ever got into this state, including why humans appear to be on the verge of extinction. I kept reading-on hoping for some background to filter through in the narrative, but it never came. Naturally no one wants a bald info-dump, but instead of listening to a twenty-five-year-old mooning over her lost love like she's a fifteen-year-old, I would much rather have had those maudlin paragraphs cut and replaced with some background.

That brings me right into another problem with this novel. Admittedly the author has nothing to do with the blurb unless she self-publishes, but the blurb for this novel is trying to sell it to readers as an "action-packed science-fiction" novel, when the truth is, based on what I read, that it's really a romance novel with thin sci-fi veneer. There's very little action packed into the first quarter of the story, and what we do get is limp and mundane. I obtained this as an advance review copy from Net Galley, and I do appreciate the opportunity to read such books, but it would make me happier if I felt I was getting what I thought I was requesting rather than something else entirely!

I had some hesitation in choosing this one because it seemed a lot less like it was Robopocalypse and much more like it was something of a mashup of two Schwarzeneggar movies - Terminator and The 6th Day, because it has humans fighting the machines, and what appears to be instant cloning. The narrator, Rhona, who appears to be in her mid-twenties, and is a soldier fighting against the machines, is killed in the first couple of pages, but then she's revived and discovers that she's been cloned. Her old body has died, and this revival is supposed to be not only a physical duplicate, but a mental one, as well.

It's implied that because the process is somehow interrupted, she doesn’t have everything she had before, at least not to begin with, but what she remembers is bizarre and makes no sense. Without any kind of explanation as to exactly how she's been cloned and how her memories have been retained, I can only speculate. It appears that what's missing is most of her personal stuff - she seems to recall everything else, including how to fight. Her muscular coordination is spectacular because within a few minutes of waking up, she's on the run, and can move her body without any physical issues: - no muscular atrophy or weakness from being a fresh clone, and no tiredness. It simply wasn't credible.

On top of this she understands and speaks perfect English, though her clone's body has never learned it nor spoken it using that clone's vocal tract. She recalls a huge amount about the war and about how to be a soldier, yet nothing personal comes to her easily? It seems to me that your personal memories are the ones you'd have embedded most deeply, and the skills you learned later in life would be the ones which were harder to retain. This is why older adults can recall things from their childhood better than they can recall things which happened a few days ago, so this made no sense to me, and with no explanation being offered by the author as to what was going on, it wasn't possible to arrive at any satisfactory conclusions.

This being kept in the dark for the first quarter of the novel became truly irritating very quickly, especially when Rhona finally makes it back to HQ and we discover she's the commander of these forces, such as they are, yet she's locked in a prison cell for no apparent reason other than that she's a clone? What? At first, I thought that maybe there was some suspicion that she might be an agent of the machines - that they might have reprogrammed her or something, but no one ever suggested anything like this.

Instead, there was simply this irrational, baseless suspicion and detestation of her by pretty much everyone she encounters, including her old lover - or more accurately, the current lover of her old body! Again there's no information about how she was cloned, how cloning is viewed in this world, who suggested cloning her, who authorized it, or who actually did it (and Rhona shows no interest whatsoever in learning the answers to any such questions! That was a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot right there. It made no sense whatsoever.

When it came down to a bizarre fight, with some subordinate physically attacking Rhona, I quit right there because it had become too ridiculous for me to take seriously anymore. It was especially sad that an experienced soldier like Rhona was getting her ass handed to her on a plate by this subordinate. That was too much for me and I gave up reading because it was requiring to much work! I might as well be writing it myself for as much effort as I had to put into it to try to work out what the heck was happening!

The lack of information was bad enough, but the fact that Rhona - a purported commander - was the most incurious and retiring person on the planet with regard to trying to learn what was going on, how the fight was going, and who cloned her and why, was simply beyond the bounds of belief. Never once did she take charge. Instead, she behaved like a girl starting out her first day at a new school, but even such a girl would have a bunch of questions. Rhona had none. She constantly let others - all males - push her into a back seat. It was pathetic and disturbing to see.

If she had come back in a machine body with her human brain, then a lot of this story would have made sense. It would still have been a romance disguised as a sci-fi story (and a lot more interesting romance for that, I would argue), but it would have made more sense than it did, because it would have accounted for the universal suspicion under which she was held, but that's not this story. This story gives us nothing to work with. I mean how did a twenty-five-year old girl become a military commander in the first place? We learn nothing of that. Was she in the military? Was she a known leader from the start or did she rise to prominence through bravery, ingenuity, and success? Were there no other leaders left alive? What was happening in the rest of the world? Or do Americans not care? It would have been nice to have had a word or two about all of this, but we get nothing.

One more thing which bothered me was trying to determine which side was the dumbest - the humans or the robots. The humans get the dumb award for designing guns which have a power 'clip' just like with a clip in a regular automatic gun, but these soldiers have to remove the power 'clip' to see how much 'ammo' they had left - in this case, what the power level is. That struck me as poor design. Why wouldn't you be able to read the power level while the clip is still in place? You disarm yourself every time you have to remove it! This kind of thing in a novel makes me wonder if there's a purpose for it, or if it’s just not been very well thought-through by the author.

In the case of the robots, the stupidity came with the soldiers' use of EMPs to take down the machines. We're told the machines are getting better at cycling back up faster after an EMP strike, but why don't the machines simply build themselves with a Faraday cage around their body, built into their armor, to stop the EMPs getting them at all? If the machines are that dumb, how is it that they're winning? I guess because the dumb humans have to keep disarming themselves to check their power supply....

I'm not a fan of authors using dream sequences and we get more than one here. In each case it's a huge info-dump, but it dumps info which doesn't really tell us anything interesting, and which certainly fails to explain how the world got to where it is. All we get are details of life when things went south for humanity which contribute nothing to the story and which fail to clue us in as to how things went south. In this case there was a really long dream sequence the first time Rhona sleeps after awaking to the realization that she's a clone, and it was as boring as it was confusing because it went on and on and turned into a flashback. I’d rather Rhona had simply woken-up and told Samuel (briefly) of her dream. That would have made more sense.

So in short, and given the list of grievances I have against this novel after reading only twenty-five percent of it, I can't in good faith recommend this one. I do wish the author all the best in her career, but I can't say that I personally want to follow it base don this sample.

Return To Sender By Julia Alvarez

Rating: WARTY!

This one sounded interesting from the blurb, but it quickly turned into a clone of all the other stories of illegal immigrants in the American South - or in this case the Northeast. Eleven-year-old Tyler's family hires migrant Mexicans to work on their Vermont farm. They don't worry too much about whether the workers are legal. Tyler gets to know the migrants' oldest daughter until he learns that she's there illegally.

I got to about one third the way through this and quickly lost interest. This story is nothing more than a duplicate of every other such story, showing Mexicans as struggling, trying to build a better life for themselves, which no one can blame a family for, but just like all the other stories, it depicts the Mexicans as religious, family-centric, and it tosses in cozy Hispanic family words like Tio and Abuelita. But if every story of this nature depicts Mexicans as just like all the other Mexicans, isn't that racist? It sure seems that way to me. Why are these writers not interested in telling a different story: in stretching themselves and pushing the envelope instead of parroting the precise same thing all the other writers have already spewed ad nauseam?

I'm sorry but I'm not going to rate a novel as a worthy read when it's a Xerox of every other story and rather male-centric to boot. I do like it for the idea it gave me, but that's as far as I can compliment it!

Bearded by Jeremy Billups

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a charming and weird rhymed tale of a bear with a beard. The redheaded child is telling us about this bear. The bear is apparently a beard-wrestling champ, and rumor has it he may have even beaten Santa Claus himself! If you sign up for the author's newsletter, you can even get free coloring pages from the book, for your kids to color between the lions...er lines. There are no lions. Perish the thought. Who even said that?

This bear, and we know he's not bare-faced, so I'm assuming he's not a bear-faced liar...has been knighted even though he may (or may not) hang around with pirates! The redhead likes to travel far and wide with her bear, and it was pleasing to see that this author knows whence bearded dragons hail!

I loved The End! I heartily (yes, people still say that!) recommend this one for young children and their parents and guardians and grandparents and baby-sitters and older siblings. It's crazy enough that it doesn't even have to be educational, which I normally look for in children's books, but even though it's crazy, it will still tell you where bearded dragons can be found! I discovered that most children's books are shockingly mum on this topic, and even seem to be dragon their feet....