Legion by William Peter Blatty

Rating: WARTY!

This was Blatty's attempt to get back some of his former glory after The Exorcist supernova had faded. I thought that original offering was a great novel and I really enjoyed it, but this one, which I read some time ago yet did not realize until today that I hadn't reviewed it, was a poor, poor sequel.

Often when a writer has a huge hit it's hard for them to get anywhere near that point again. We've seen it with runaway best-seller writers like JK Rowling after the Harry Potter marathon, and Suzanne Collins after The Hunger Games and its sequels. Inevitably they're drawn back to retread old tires because efforts to go in other directions are met with indifference. Typically retracing steps is a mistake and it fails.

The plot for this is very confused, resurrecting people who clearly died in the original novel and turning the demon into a limp and unoriginal serial killer, jumping from living body to body to leave trademark serial killer crimes scenes but with different fingerprints. The book was clearly very badly-written, very confused, and not worth the reading. A better take on this idea is the Denzel Washington movie Fallen which did not perform well at the box office but which I think far outstrips both this novel and the movie that was made from it. I can't commend this particular novel as a worthy read.

Bright Dreams The Brilliant Ideas of Nikola Tesla by Tracy Dockray

Rating: WORTHY!

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

I'm definitely not one of these people who thinks Nikola Tesla was a god and worships him, nor do I buy into the inane conspiracy theories that have grown up around him, but I do admire his brilliance, and I have to say that this well-illustrated and sweetly-told story about his life is a great way to introduce children to an important inventor.

It begins with his interesting childhood (it starts at birth! Where else would a biography start?!), and covers his youth and his travels, and follows him to the USA where he really became a name to conjure with. It pulls no punches, either, not shying away from the sad parts of his life and the times where he was exploited by unscrupulous men. The thing was that he was so good at inventing things that he nearly always bounced back.

I enjoyed reading this and the only issue I had with it was the question of his digging ditches. Yes, it's true that for $2 a day he was forced to do this, which he accepted stoically until he could get back on his feet again, but whether those ditches were for Edison's cables or some other purpose is the issue I think it's folklore rather than authenticity which poetically has him do this for Edison's cables. Maybe it was, but I'm not convinced it was specifically for that. There were lots of other reasons for digging ditches back then.

But this is a minor thing that people can disagree about, and it takes nothing away from he overall power and charm of a story that I enjoyed and which I commend as a worthy read for young children.

Mister Invincible Local Hero by Pascal Jousselin

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This graphic novel was great! It featured a superhero named Mr Invincible, and it was amusing because the creator of it had 'cheated' on the way such stories are typically told, and I loved it. Written and illustrated by a Belgian creator, and published natively as Imbattable: Justice et Legumes Frais ("Unbeatable: Justice and Fresh Vegetables<"), this book will be available in English come September.

In small ways it reminded me of the time in one of my rat books that Louise and Thelma saw themselves performing on stage in a presentation they were doing. There is also a running story that I have yet to finish where these letters escape from a speech balloon and were running around in a couple of books. I think in the next one I do in alphabetical order, I'll bring that story to a conclusion. It's always fun though, to see others exploiting this kind of out of the box - or out of the panel - thinking.

Normally a graphic novel proceeds sequentially in a series of small panels filling each page, but Mr Invincible's power was that he could move from one panel to another out of sequence, and use things in later panels to help himself in an earlier one. In one story, for example, there was a cat stuck in a tree, so he reaches down from one row of panels into the row below and easily plucks the cat from the top of the tree; then he it hands back to its owner. Of course, the owner now has two cats and must surely ponder whether a cat in the hand is worth a second in the bush, but there's a solution to that!

I don't want to spoil the joy of reading this, so let me confine myself to revealing that there are stories where speech balloons are in play, where comic book colors are exploited, and where even the page itself cannot stop the action! And not all of his stories end well. Of course you can only play these tricks in so many different ways before you run out of truly original ideas, so I have to say it was a credit to the writer that he was able to think up engaging ways to exploit this. I'm not sure how you could sustain a series like this indefinitely, but maybe that's not his plan. I definitely became hooked though, so maybe there is a great future for such storytelling.

It's also a credit to the writer that he could figure out what were rather complex and inventive story executions in some of these stories. I had access only to the e-version of the book which took away from the power of some of the stories. I imagine it would work better in a print comic than it did in the ebook, but still it made for a fun read, and it was definitely different! I commend this fully as a very worthy read.

Just a Stage by Corey Majeau

Rating: WARTY!

This book was entirely inappropriate for young children - or anyone. it had an attitude that the environment is there for the pillaging and wasn't even remotely ashamed of it or apologetic about it.

The story in short is that there's no place like home. A house on stilts is the main character, living on a rock in Newfoundland. The house is described as a fisherman (note the gender-bias), but it's one which fishes indiscriminately, apparently having no use for the fish, but just pulling as many out of the water as possible. Never mind the fact that fisheries are collapsing worldwide because of over-fishing. Just pull them thar fish out as fast as you can.

As if this isn't bad enough, the house gets bored and, leaving its trash on the island, it moves to the pristine Canadian forest which is described not for its beauty but in terms of its natural resources to be exploited: trees, a stream, and plenty of animals. The house immediately starts clear-cutting the forest.

Next it moves to a desert, but presumably there's nothing to exploit there, no even oil, so it leaves. The next location is displeasing because, and without a hint of irony, the house finds it 'dirty'. Eventually, it harnesses a whale (no kidding) to swim back to its original location riding on its back, where it settles on the back of a poor turtle and starts fishing again. WTF? I'm sorry but this book is probably the worst children's book i ever read. It's completely anti-environmental and it sucks. Trump, in active process of rolling back no fewer than 100 environmental regulations, will probably buy this by the truckload for his grandchildren. Me? I actively dis-commend this toxic trash.

Her Perfect Life by Rebecca Taylor

Rating: WARTY!

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

I made it about a third of the way through this book before I gave up on it. The story is about a wealthy author who apparently commits suicide on a beach right as her latest novel is hitting the public eye. It's also about her sister who lives a rather more impoverished life, apparently receiving no assistance from her rich sister, and who gets an unexpected call from her distraught brother-in-law. I immediately suspected that guy rather than suicide, but since I didn't finish this novel, I have no idea if I'm right.

Eileen flies to her sister's home, and that's where I gave up on it. The story did nothing to move me at all. In fact it felt like a depressing and dreary read, but two things really turned me off it. The first was the screeching halt to which the story was brought to by flashbacks. I cannot stand flashbacks. I can't think of a better way to annoy your reader than interrupt what had begun as an interesting story to explore tedious family history. When I read a story I want to get on with the story. I do not want to be constantly and irritatingly interrupted by the author forcing me to go back in time, giving me whiplash by suddenly - in Chapter three, for example, forcing me back two years ago. Tell the story now for goodness sake!

Neither did it help by the tennis-play chapters - now we're with Eileen, Now we're with Simon. No, it's back to Eileen. Wait a sec! Now Simon has it. Slap! Look left. Slap! Look right! Sorry, but no. No. NO! I was initially attracted and intrigued by the idea of Eileen reading Clare's latest novel and finding clues in the writing as to what happened, but he author seemed defiantly intent upon putting me off that story altogether by screwing around instead of getting on with it. The more I read, the less I felt that the payoff would be worth the work of reading this, and work it was.

One of the most obnoxious parts of the book was that I once again had to read a female author describing a woman and putting beauty first in the list, like no woman has any higher calling or more important trait than being beautiful. I have seen this time and time again in reading books by female authors and I find it sickening that they cannot value their fellow women - not even fictional ones - for anything apart from beauty first.

I read, at only 6% in, "Clare Collins was beautiful...." Yes, it went on to describe other qualities, but beauty was always foremost. 28% in: "...beautiful, talented, and simply awe-inspiring sister...." Yep. Beauty first. Again. How beastly. 37% in "...her beautiful face...." 40% in: "...her beautiful surface...." 41% in: "Clare was beautiful...." Oh wait! at 51% in we get a change! Clare is "...vivacious and..." on no! "Vivacious and beautiful...." There it goes again. 61%: "...beautiful and talented...." It was tediously repetitive.

This is tiresome, obnoxious, and awful writing. People who write about women like this are a part of the problem and I cannot commend a book that persistently devalues women to a skin depth and little more. The book description has it that this is "a page-turning debut" but for me it was a stomach-turning one, and a cover-closing one so I could move on to the next read on my list which hopefully will feature characters who are not valued only for skin which is 'bright and clear' which is what the name Clare means. I can't commend this based on the layout of the book, the demeaning of a female character, and the content of the third of it that I managed to stomach.

The End of White Politics by Zerlina Maxwell

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Erratum:
"Kamala's 2020 presidential campagin." - campaign

This book ought to be required reading for anyone involved in getting the Democrat party up to speed for the November election. Zerlina Maxwell is MSNBC's political analyst and also a SiriusXM radio host and she tackles the big issues head-on in this sweeping book that efficiently and competently covers a lot of ground.

The Trump racist presidency has never been exposed more starkly than it has in the last couple of weeks since George Floyd's appalling death at the hands of clearly uncaring white police officer who already had multiple complaints against him, but there is more to that disgrace to the White House than this. Trump's election was, as the author argues, a backlash (or a white-lash if you prefer - and let's face it - when in US history has the black population not felt the white lash?) to eight years of having a black guy in the White House. Well that backlash to eight years brought us eight minutes of cruelty which in turn has spawned weeks of demonstrations which have spread like wildfire around the world.

Far too many insecure white men and women didn't like having a black man in the nation's highest office, and the Democrats mistakenly thought politics à la mode would suffice. They neglected the black vote, specifically the voting power of black women, and the whole country has paid the price for four years now, by electing the least competent president ever elected by majority - or in his case, a minority - vote: a man who is openly abusive of everyone who doesn't kowtow to him, who is misogynistic, racist, homophobic, blinkered, anti-science, bigoted, hypocritical, and unremittingly devoted to the narrowest of self-interest.

Rather than drain the swamp, he expanded it and once again put the Trump name on it. He has shamed the office and the nation causing rifts across the world between the US and every nation that isn't a dictatorship. He's caused untold misery and hobbled the USA in its place on the world stage.

As we saw the most diverse field ever of potential Democrat candidates quickly winnowed down to the business-as-usual old white guy, Maxwell's hammer rings loudly on the anvil of necessary change. This book handily tackles the self-destructive 'Bernie Bros', the problems with Biden, discriminatory public policies - and lack of anti-discriminatory ones - the marginalization of important and downtrodden communities, and the inescapable but ignored fact that, just seven elections from now, the majority of the US voting population will be non-white.

Biden recently embarrassed himself yet again with another thoughtless gaff (words to the effect of: "If you ain't voting for me, you ain't black") that was so mind-numbingly godawful on so many levels. He can't win by being stupid. Stupid is already in the White House and the nation is sick of it. Smart is what's needed. What he ought to have been thinking was that "If I don't steal a few carefully-selected pages from Donald Trump's playbook, I ain't elected." He needs to tackle the man head on and not in the divisive way that Trump does it.

Although very recently, he's stepped-up a bit more, Biden's been largely invisible while Trump has lumbered imposingly around the world stage laying down his law, and despite the overpowering presence of Coronavirus hampering campaigning, it did not have to be that way. Biden already knows (supposedly) Obama's playbook and he isn't even using that one. When will he wake up? Not until after he reads this book. This book is his new playbook and if he doesn't learn from it, and he doesn't change tack, he's going to lose come November because as this author makes clear, he cannot win without winning the black female vote - the one voting block that has been marginalized and undervalued for far too long, and in my opinion he should pick Keisha Bottoms as his running mate - assuming she's even willing. I commend this as not just a worthy read, but as an essential one.

Utopia by Thomas More

Rating: WARTY!

Originally published (in Latin in 1516!) as A truly golden little book, no less beneficial than entertaining, of a republic's best state and of the new island Utopia this book proved to be as boring as the title. It began well enough, but though it's fiction, it is by no means a story as we would imagine one in modern times. It's much more like a lecture that will put you to sleep, so don't listen, as I did, while driving! Although I survived it, the lethargic and droning delivery could prove fatal in some circumstances!

I made it about 60% of the way through, and I was planning on finishing out the week with it, but after listening to it while driving home on the Thursday I grew so deadened by it that I couldn't stand to listen to it on the Friday, so I ditched it for something else. The reader, James Adams has a voice that doesn't help. My Latin is barely existent, and although this is fortunately in modern English, it's possible to imagine that More himself is reading it. It started out well enough, but over time, it became repetitive, plodding, and tedious to listen to.

Utopia is supposedly an island, although it actually was a peninsular though which a canal was cut to separate it from the mainland. The problem is that there's nothing Utopian about it. Life is highly regimented and there is slavery and a death penalty, so how this remotely resembles any idea of a utopia we may hold today was a mystery to me.

The "islanders" have rejected money as any sort of local currency, although they do use it in foreign trade if necessary (trade, after all, literally meant a trade - one item of goods offered for a different item in return), but the society itself is pretty much a communist one along the lines of everything being held in common, with each giving according to ability and receiving according to need, although there is more to it than that in this case. The thing is that while all this may have been original five hundred years ago and may even have impressed some people, clearly it impressed precious few since it never took hold. Today, it's nothing more than quaintly antique, and it offers nothing special, or new or interesting.

In some parts it was unintentionally amusing, being rather reminiscent of the board game The Settlers of Catan where sheep and bricks are traded, and little else. I've never played that game but I am familiar with it, and it was amusing how limited this 'vision' was - about as limited in scope as the game. Though I can't commend this at all as a worthy read, my recent migration through reading/listening to antique works continues to at least to one more volume - but by a different author. I'll post that review anon.

The Machine Stops by EM Forster

Rating: WORTHY!

Edward Morgan Forster published this very short story (only some 25 pages) in 1909, and I came to it by way of an article online that claimed (as does Wikipedia) that the novel is eerily prescient of life today under Coronavirus, but that's bullshit!

There's one thing and one thing only that's similar which is that the story depicts a society where everyone typically lives in isolation from others, communicating using a video system. But that's it. In this story people are not forcibly confined to their homes under threat of a virus! They choose to live that way from habituation, and they're not struggling with it any more than they are struggling to provide food for themselves! Every single thing is laid on for them; they're spoiled rotten. There is no comparison whatsoever to the world today and it's insulting to claim there is.

A much better comparison is to the short story is Pixar's movie Wall-E, where humans are carried around on chairs and everything is done for them. True, there's no isolation, but in every other regard it's pretty much the same story. They're confined to a spacecraft whereas in Forster's story they're confined underground, they live in fear of the surface of planet Earth, and are totally under the thrall of technology. Forster's story is a tale of caution against too much reliance on machines and therein lies the comparison to modern day living.

Predictably the story doesn't end well with the machine breaking down. It's right there in the title. What I find mysterious is how, in 1909, the author managed to tell the story at precisely the time that this event came to pass. Was he psychic? Was he simply a great predictor of events? Or was he just very lucky? I'm kidding! Of course he'd tell it then because otherwise where's the interest?

All kidding aside, I commend this story as a decent read. It's of its time and unrealistic in the sense that far too many dystopian novels are: they show everyone conforming whereas in real life such a thing would never happen because there are far too many rebellious and non-conformist souls who would never submit, but it does carry a valid warning about too much dependence on machines and that resonates now more than ever with technology occupying such a huge proportion of our lives today.

Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

Rating: WARTY!

This was written in the eighteenth century and published in 1798 the year after the author died. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the earliest feminists in the UK, and was the mother of Mary Shelly. In a way this is a sort of fictional sequel to an earlier book, Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published six years earlier.

While writing that earlier treatise very quickly, it seems Wollstonecraft struggled with the fictional form, and had not finished it when she died from septicemia after giving birth to Mary in late 1797. Her husband, the philosopher William Godwin cobbled together what she had written and added a commentary here and there explaining that parts were missing and some parts were confused in that Wollstonecraft had perhaps wanted to tell it one way at the beginning, but changed her mind later and told it a different way, but never had the opportunity to go back and correct the earlier part.

The story tells of Maria, and begins an asylum for the insane, where Maria's husband, George Venables has had her placed so he can avail himself of her money. He also took away her child and the child died in his 'care'. The story begins with Maria managing to contact a fellow inmate, Henry Darnford, via an intermediary named Jemima, a helper at the asylum. The two begin by exchanging messages, and then Maria gets access to the man's books and eventually, the man bribes the guards to allow him to meet Maria face to face. This part is fine, but after a short while, the story devolved into a diatribe about the way society demeans and devalues women, and I'm sorry to report that it starts falling apart then.

For me it felt far too preachy - even while it is accurate. It just rambles though, and provides precious little in the way of engagement for the reader. The main character is shown to be weak and easily dominated even as the author tells us she is strong, and in the end, she clings to a man. For me this was the wrong way to write this book, and I felt it cheapened Maria's story and devalued it, which is precisely what society did back then to women - and still does today in far too many ways. This is why I cannot commend this as a worthy read despite my admiration of, and support for, the author.

Death in a Hansom Cab by Kerry Segrave

Rating: WARTY!

Errata:
Having missed being at the track on the Monday and Tuesday, he last sighting was on the Sunday when he was spotted in a restaurant with Randolph" - His last sighting? The last sighting?
"While her performances in Floradora do no seem to have garnered any critical reviews" - do not
"Them he grew neglectful, despite her protests" - then he grew
"continued her statement by stated she first met" by stating / by relating?
"and no bullet hold in the coat pocket" hole? This is a quote, so it may be original, but there was no attempt by the author to clarify.
"left lung and lodged in the fourth vertebrae." - vertebrae is a plural. The word should have been vertebra.
"this account at least correctly the false reports" - corrected?
"Soon Mrs. Young head abut the affair." - heard about?
"Young "wrecker" his home" - wrecked?
"and give it out that she was one of the members of the Floradora chorus but had tired on the stage." - gave it, tired of?
"Patterson knew abut the Europe trip and possible separation" - about
"reported that Nan had no eaten" - not eaten
"Throughout the period of Nan's incarceration it was regularly noted, from time to time" - regularly or from time to time? It can't be both!
"and I am amazed that the man should pursue such a coarse." - course - again this is quoted speech with no confirmation of original
"before thee Smiths finally resurfaced" - the Smiths.
"Smith had said to her; "You will have to do it," ad she answered; "I won't." - and she answered
"where the water from a simple faucet dripped into a wooden paid." - pail?
"Another long article abut Patterson appeared" - again with about
"Over four month in Washington Patterson was said" - four months
"Nan responded to rumors that he husband Leon was going to divorce here by saying such speculation was untrue." - one sentence, two errors, both of which should read 'her'
"That a report surfaced from Cincinnati that Nan had been named as corespondent" - then a report, and correspondent is misspelled.

The impression I got from this author is that she has access to a bunch of newspaper archives from a period of time from around 1850 to around 1950 and she scours them for book ideas. She's written about drive-in theaters, vending machines, shoplifting, police women, and many other topics. It felt like at some point she came across this death in perusing the papers, and decided to write about it. The problem with this particular book was that there were so many errors (I list a score of them above) and so much repetition in it that despite my initial interest in the curious story and my bias in favor of reading it, it quickly became rather tedious to read at times.

Some of this repetition was due to poor editing. For example, I read:

"Whenever Miss Patterson disapproves of a talesman who is satisfactory to both counsel [each side], her lawyers promptly reject the man."
side], her lawyers promptly reject the man."
year-old retired merchant.

Clearly this is poor editing, and the book would have been immeasurably better if it had a spell-checker and a grammar check run on it. Most of the errors I report above would have bene caught by such a precaution. It's really a lot to ask a reviewer to approve a book when it's in such a sloppy condition.

Another instance is where I read,

third point was that on the afternoon of June 3 Young took a pistol away point was that on the afternoon of June 3 Young took a pistol away caliber revolver; fifth point

There is duplicated text here, and the fourth point is missing completely!

Some of the text was just plan rambling:

Nan Patterson was called to the bar for once again, to be tried for murder in the first degree, for the third time.

It's tautologous to use 'once again' and 'for the third time' - only one of these is needed. Later I read:

Forty-two of the 60 peremptory challenges allowed to both sides were used (30 allowed each side) with the defense using 24 of its peremptory challenges while the prosecution used 18 of its challenges.

This is just repetitively rambling, as is this:

Another over-the-top exaggeration about Nan and her reaction in court supposed came on April 24 when the defendant was supposedly overcome

The basic story is that in early June 1904, a man by the name of Frank Thomas "Caesar" Young was riding in a hansom cab with his lover, an actor by the name of Anne Elizabeth "Nan" Patterson. Young was married and supposedly on his way to board the Germanic, a White Star Lines cruise ship heading for Europe. Germanic was a precursor of the Titanic which would be built starting just five years later.

The ship was supposed to depart at 9:30 am, so the author says, but another account I read indicated 9 pm. The author never addresses any question of whether it was a morning departure or an evening departure and goes with the morning. I take her word for it since it seems that such ships would tend to leave in the morning or mid-afternoon, not at night.

One thing that is certain is that Young was not with his wife on the dock. Instead, at 7:30, he called Nan who was staying with her sister and her brother-in-law at a hotel. He picked her up in the cab at Columbus Circle around 8:00. The plan, she understood, was to travel together to within a block or two of the ship, and then drop her off. Young's wife knew of the affair, and since she controlled the purse strings, she was ordering Young away from Patterson. How that thing with the purse strings happened goes unexplained, since Young was the one with the fortune, but his wife was insisting on this trip to try and break up her husband from his mistress.

The cab traveled alarmingly slowly apparently, because according to this narrative, Young insisted they stop on two different occasions to get a drink at a bar, and on a third occasion to buy a straw boater! This conflicts with an earlier account in the book, in which the author tells us the cabbie claims nothing untoward happened on the journey until the shooting. It's quite a ride from the Paul Hotel where she was staying, down to the pier from which the ship would depart. How he hoped to board in time is a mystery, but the author never addresses this. Perhaps he had no intention of boarding.

The incident occurred around nine, at a time when you would think the ship would have pulled up the boarding gangways and be making ready to depart, but there's no word about what Mrs Young was doing at this time. The author, in her focus on Patterson seems completely uncaring about what was happening with Mrs Young. The cabbie heard a muffled shot, and it was discovered that Young was dead, shot in a way that made it look like suicide was not an easy explanation, although suicide is how the case was treated initially, and which partially explains why forensic evidence was so poorly attended to.

Later, Patterson was arrested, and despite three trials over the next eleven months, the prosecution was unable to get a conviction, and Patterson was let go, but not acquitted. She was not tried again, and ended up remarrying the man she had left for Young, although that guy apparently took ill and died, and Patterson seemed to show no interest in his welfare. The author glosses over this in her laser focus on this supposedly wronged woman, who later married again, and then fell into obscurity and likely died a pauper's death.

The author is right in that Patterson was hounded and smeared by the newspapers none of which thought an actor could possibly be a person of decent or moral character. The author makes a big deal throughout the story of calling out various assertions about Patterson as lies, but without offering corroboration as to how these lies were exposed. For example, I would read, "or so the account would have its readers believe. It was a lie." There is no evidence or argument offered to explain why it was a lie; we're simply expected to take the author's word for it.

This sort of bland assumption appears often. For example, at one point, I read this:

"Certainly no account ever appeared anywhere else about a constantly raucous and unruly crowd of spectators. Thus the above story was another fabrication and perhaps was published only to display the not so subtle misogyny of the newspaper."

There really is no ground whatsoever for making such an assumption! First of all, the author herself does report other instances where the crowd was unruly, but she makes no real distinction between reports of unruliness inside, versus outside the courtroom, thereby confusing things.

One glaring example of biased reporting is the disappearance of Patterson's sister and her husband for several months. The author makes much of how the police on the one had are supposedly tailing them, but on the other do not seem to be able to arrest them, but she makes no inquiry whatsoever into why the sister of a woman accused of murder would disappear, together with her husband right when Patterson is going to trial - nor why they are gone for so long.

To me, this is highly suspicious because it relates to the question of a man and a woman purchasing a revolver in New York City which was likely the one discharged in the cab. The author simply assumes, with little evidence, that it was Young's gun. She never once asks why, when Patterson is in dire trouble, her sister, with whom she'd been living, was nowhere to be found. Not only is that suspicious in and of itself, it's also suspicious as to why the author fails to ask hard and obvious questions about this bizarre behavior on their part.

It's this bias and the lack of any sort of gray-shading that spoils the value of the reporting here. The repetitions and the score or more of grammatical and spelling errors further detract from the story, taking attention from the woman who the author would like to gently place at the center of this story and focusing it instead on the problems with the book. In view of all of this, I cannot in good faith commend this as a worthy read.

Without Hesitation by Talia Jager

Rating: WARTY!

Erratum:
"Empress' face" - this needed an apostrophe S - 'Empress's face' since it's a possessive and empress is not a plural.
"but there were still quite a bit I didn't recognize" This needed to read either 'were still quite a few', or 'was still quite a bit'! It can't be both!

I liked this book to begin with, because it's not a bad story at all, and in some small ways it reminded me of my own Femarine. Set a millennium into the future, when Earth has been rendered uninhabitable (that part is getting here already), this sci-fi adventure tells the story of two women who encounter each other as antagonists out in the reaches of space where human colonies have been taking over habitable planets wherever they are found. Faster-than-light travel (although in reality precluded by the laws of physics!) is the means by which these far-flung societies maintain contact.

Everleigh is the captain of a mercenary outfit which has been tasked with capturing the Empress Akacia, who rules over one of the colonized planets. I'm not at all sure how she got to be an empress. She's not royalty. She rules over a relatively small and homogenous colony on one planet. It's hardly an empire! But there's no information on how this works exactly. Was she appointed? Was she elected? We don't know. It seemed a bit much to me, but I was willing to let that go for the sake of a good story.

After a failed kidnap attempt, Everleigh and Akacia were thrown together by accident, and I have to say I was surprised that Akacia trusted her so readily, but then there is that attraction between them. At times that was a bit much, like when the Empress describes her kidnapper (during the kidnap attempt!) like this: "She was beautiful" The kidnapper is likewise enthralled: "The Empress had a weapon I had never encountered before. She was beautiful." That also was a bit much. His is where the story really began to go downhill for me.

The book description assures us that "Labels and stereotypes are a thing of the past and gender and sexual identity are as fluid as love", but here we have two female characters in a book written by a female author reducing two women to the shallowness of skin depth. It was worse during a scene where one of them was injured and I read: "Did she have a head wound? Was she hurt? And how did she manage to make that look sexy? Oh, God. There I went again with the whole sexy thing." I said to myself, "Seriously?" when I read that! No labels, huh?! This really felt inappropriate to me.

I don't like that kind of writing because it isn't realistic. Maybe when she recalled the incident later she might have added that thought about how sexy she looked, but at the time, when someone is injured, you really don't think like that - not if it's someone you honestly care about. You think about what bad things could happen and what you can do to prevent those things. So to me it was not authentic. Any one or two small items, I would be willing to let go, but this book kept adding to the tally of things I wasn't willing to let go in the end.

What kept me reading for a while, was the story in general and the hope that it would flourish, but it kept failing me. In many ways it was very unsophisticated, even simplistic, like it was written for a younger audience. Part of its initial charm was the plan text, that told the story without trying to fly to any great literary heights, but after a while it seemed too simplistic. Normally I rail against first person voice, and twin first person is twice as irritating. I didn't like that approach, and it only got worse, particularly when the empress falls into the hands of those who would abduct her and she's tortured. This is written in first person voice and it seemed so completely unrealistic that I gave up on the story right there. No one realistically writes about their own torture in such a way. It felt fake and shallow, and constitutes only one of a score of reasons why first person should be avoided like the plague unless it's deemed truly and absolutely necessary to telling a story. The best plan is to not use it.

I'm not a fan of flashbacks either, which bring any story to a shuddering halt and typically make me lose interest. I read the story to find out what's happening now and every time the author defeats that desire by rambling on about some past that's typically irrelevant or contributes little, it just pisses me off, so this was another strike against it. In this case, the Empress starts her story three years earlier, when she was sixteen, but she's older when the main action takes place. I honestly could not see the point of doing that. Any such reminiscences could have been slipped lightly into the text as it flowed, without halting it.

While on the topic of the Empress's age, I have to wonder how she gauges it! We're told early in the story that her planet "had almost no axial tilt, giving it a mild, almost boring climate." No axial tilt means no real seasons. The winter/summer roundabout on Earth is caused because the globe is tipped on its axis by 23.5 degrees, making the northern hemisphere garner less sunlight for half the year, and more sunlight the other half, exactly alternating what the southern hemisphere gets. This is what delivers both hemispheres a winter and a summer every six months.

A planet with no axial tilt would be very much the same climate year round, so there would be no noticeable winter - or other seasons - at all. It would be a little bit like living on the equator for everyone, with the temperature varying only by latitude, not by season). Why then does the Empress open with this clause: "Three years ago, when I had passed my sixteenth winter..."? On a planet where winter isn't a thing, wouldn't there would really be another way of measuring age? Certainly a non-existent winter couldn't be used as any sort of measure of a year's passage! The author evidently didn't think the consequences of her (lack of) axial tilt through very much! Little things like that can matter in story-telling. For me this wasn't in itself a story-killer, but added to all the other issues it became one more thing that turned me off the story.

The same thing applies to the use of 'earthyears' as a measure of time. I don't see how that would work a thousand years from now when Earth is a distant memory for everyone. Who would care about Earth years, really? This tells me the author really didn't think this through properly. Some to the text was a bit weird to read too, such as, "From her long neck to her supple breasts" I'm by no means convinced that supple applies to a woman's breast! How exactly is a breast supple?! 'Supple' is an adjective meaning that something can bend and flex. It would seem right for an arm or a leg, or even a back, but a breast has no real muscle or bone in it. I wonder of the author maybe was looking for something like 'ample'? or maybe soft, or fulsome? I dunno. Supple just wasn't right.

I read a description of Akacia given by Everleigh, which read, "She smelled like honey and...milk" That seemed a bit off to me. Like Akacia was a baby! Another instance was when I read, "I seized her lips and deepened the kiss. When Akacia pulled away the tiniest of moans escaped my mouth. A smile played on her lips that I swear tasted like honey." I'm not sure how you would seize someone's lips when kissing! Carpe labia! But the idea of a smile tasting like honey is just off.

Like I said, I made it to the torture scene and that was just too much. I could make no more excuses to continue reading this and ditched it. I need something better than this - more depth, more realism, even if it's fiction. I can't commend this as a worthy read.

I, the Jury by Mickey Spillane

Rating: WARTY!

I believe I saw the Armand Assante movie based on this novel, and evidently I found it unmemorable. I started reading the novel and it was so bad that I could not get into it at all. I know it's a novel of its time (1947), but seriously? Frank Morrison Spillane was working in a department store and he got his start in writing through concocting super hero stories for the comic book industry right before Pearl Harbor. Maybe it was his military experiences that hard-boiled him, but Mike Hammer's debut was penned in just 19 days when Spillane was looking to make some money to buy a nice house.

I think that two-week gestation shows in the writing, but it's the Trumpian treatment of women which bothers me. "She had million-dollar legs, that girl, and she didn't mind showing them off...[she] wore tight-fitting dresses that made me think of the curves in the Pennsylvania Highway..." Hammer leaves his girlfriend at a party, going off into the woods outside to have sex and then returns. Spillane's books are racist, homophobic and misogynistic. I can't commend this one and I'm definitely done with this author.

The Girl Who Fell Below Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M Valente

Rating: WARTY!

This sequel really wasn't needed, but you know there's pressure from Big Publishing™ to milk a successful title for all it's perceived worth. This is why ten years after The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins is coming back to milk it some more with a story that's pretty much the same thing over again. Doubtlessly it will be made into a movie. That's not my world at all. I only started in on this one because I already had it in my possession. If I hadn't already bought it when I bought the first one, impressed by that one's title, I would never have read this.

This story was even less engaging than the first, which is entirely unsurprising. It felt like a series of sketches rather than a story - a litany of set pieces which really had no real connection with one another. The basic plot is that September misses fairyland, and jumps at a chance to return, but she finds it a different place to the one she left: her own shadow is now queen of the underworld. She goes by the name of Halloween (now there's an original) and is stealing everyone's shadow.

Why this is even a problem, I have no idea, but of course just like in Peter Pan (yawn), shadows have personalities here. Why September's own shadow is evil, again I have no idea. It makes no sense. Maybe it's explained in the story, maybe not, but I'd be willing to bet that any explanation offered is as limp as a shadow. Fortunately she hasn't yet stolen the shadow of the dragon which September befriended in the first story, so at least she has a friend.

That reminds me of a funny picture taken by comedian Rick Gervais of his wife and tweeted to his followers, and that one image had more soul than this story. I can't commend this any more than I could the first one, and I am done with this author.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M Valente

Rating: WARTY!

I am not a fan of series, but I loved the title of this middle-grade book, so hoping against hope, I bought both it and the sequel since they were on sale at a bookstore. I gave both of the titles a shot, but neither impressed me.

I think I made it about a third of the way through this one, but the story was so rambling and dissipated that it felt like it wasn't so much a story as it was a boring sort of a diary. Apparently the author crowdsourced funding to work on this. I should be so lucky! Then she put it online for free and it was discovered by a publisher, so a success story in that regard, but the story itself left a lot to be desired for me.

Taking a leaf out of wizard of Oz, the author starts her story out on the plains, in Nebraska, though, rather than Kansas, and has her young girl whisked away by a powerful wind, to a fairy-tale land. The child is a 12-year-old named September, who is apparently the only one who can fix a problem. Why this is, I don't recall, assuming it was ever revealed. She needs to recover a talisman, and of course she does and all is put to rights - until of course things necessarily break down in order for a sequel to be written.

The story didn't entertain me despite my gamely plowing into it quite a ways - about a third or so, as I recall. Despite the author's attempts to add whimsy and novelty, it was still your typical story, requiring a cis girl to meet a boy (named Saturday - seriously?) and solve the problem. I couldn't get into it and I cannot commend it based on what I read of it.

The Adventures of Rockford T Honeypot by Josh Gottsegen

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This middle grade chapter book was a little long and involved for my taste, with two voices and two tenses, so it's not your common or garden simple story, but for the avid young reader, it should provide a wealth of adventurous pursuit and engrossing reading.

Rockford T Honeypot is your usual reserved and retiring chipmunk, albeit with a healthy respect for germs and hygiene, but circumstances are about to throw him into an unwilling and unwitting adventure that will change him all-around and make a ground squirrel out of him! Until he ruins the family business and is abandoned by his strict father and ne'er-do-well brothers, the only adventure he has is reading of his favorite fictional hero. Little does he know he's about to personify that spirit he so admires and make a story all of his own.

Framed by an older Rockford looking back on his life, and told over the course of many chapters, with occasional interruptions, Rockford learns to fly (sort of), learns to fight, learns to be fearless, and to face problems head on. He learns to spot business opportunities and to supply a need when he sees one, as well as mastering exercising his brain in solving problems. He travels and has adventures, makes friends and meets the girl of his dreams. And he creates the perfect roasted hazelnut recipe.

The adventure has thrills and chills, danger and amusement, and tells a whopping great story about the little guy winning through. I commend it as a worthy read.

Cat and Rat by Melinda Thompson, Melissa Ferrell, Doug Oglesby

Rating: WORTHY!

Illustrated sweetly by Doug Oglesby, this is part of a series of books aimed at beginning readers, and this one focuses on short vowel sounds. The book set has 100 or so pages divided into eleven books, and begins with a rat trying to steal a piece of cheese. I'm very fond of rats, not so much cats, so I admit to a serious bias here! I have my own The Little Rattuses™ series which is a about halfway through its run before I move on to something else.

Having seen some of those ambitious subway rats on various videos taking a whole slice of pizza with it, I have to say that this is a very fair rat! It's not taking the whole chunk of cheese, just a small piece. Unfortunately, the cat happens to see this. Rats aren't known for their negotiating skills (except in my series!), but everything seems to work out well in the end for all parties.

The second book focuses on the verb 'see' and follows the story again, repeating that word and inviting the child to see everything in each picture. The third set repeats and amplifies this, but focuses on the rat - see the rat! You can't not see a rat. I found this amusing because just yesterday I was watching an episode of the TV series House, a series which has now run its course, but which was popular and usually entertaining in its time. It featured a rat in part of the story. It was clearly a domesticated rat - not a wild one at all - which was to be expected of course.

Anyway, having seen the rat, we move to book four where we see the cat. Book five introduces a new verb, 'can' and book six focuses on person: 'you'. Book 7, focuses on the verb 'look' and the preposition 'at'. Book 9 covers 'and', Book 10 'stop', book 11 'that', and in each book the sentence structure becomes a teensy bit more complex, slowly leading the child into full sentences, questions, observations, and story-telling. "Can the rat stop the cat? Look and see" and so on.

The books are highly structured and repetitive, which helps a child put everything into a clear context, and not just learn the word, but really understand what it means. My kids are way beyond these books now, and this is my first experience of this style of 'book-leaning', so I can't speak from personal experience of using this method, but to me it seems smart and logical, and I commend this as a worthy read.

Egyptomaniacs by Nicky Nielsen

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Erratum:
"the tri-factor of ancient Egyptian mysticism and the occult." I think maybe the author meant 'trifecta'? Very strictly-speaking, trifecta isn't the correct term and there are three factors listed before this phrase, but the way the phrase is worded seems to make trifecta a better fit that tri-factor, which is not commonly-used terminiology.

Like many people, no doubt, I've long had an interest in ancient Egypt. I've written a middle-grade humorous novel about a young Cleopatra (Cleoprankster), and there was a section in one of my mature sci-fi novels (Tears in Time) set in ancient Egypt. I also plan on writing at least one more set wholly in ancient Egypt, but trust me when I say I am far from an expert and wouldn't even try to pretend I was. I have read many books on the subject, enjoyed many documentaries, and often enjoy fictional films about it. I was thrilled to be given the chance to view this one and then to review it, and I did not regret it.

I have to say up front that I am always suspicious of authors who put their credentials along with their name on the cover. Often this means they're charlatans, especially if they're talking about new diet regimes! You don't get authors like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins putting 'Dr' in front of their name or 'PhD' after it, but in this case it's fine because the author, originally from Denmark is, to quote his bio page from the University of Manchester, "...a Lecturer in Egyptology teaching both traditional undergraduate units as well as distance learning. He is also the programme director on the MA Egyptology programme." He did his PhD research at the University of Liverpool investigating subsistence strategies and craft production at the Ramesside fortress site of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, obtaining his PhD in 2016. This guy knows what he's talking about!

The book is pithy, with a light tone, but a serious intent. It pulls no punches and suffers no fools, and I love that kind of writing! I especially loved the way he took down the "pyramidology" and "ancient alien visitors" garbage. This kind of scientific fraud and appalling ignorance, which nearly always (but not exclusively) seems to come from the right wing curiously enough, is particularly harmful at times like these when we have a serious and deadly virus literally rampaging across the globe and idiot hucksters standing up and recommending unproven 'miracle drug cures' and 'the injecting of household disinfectants to clean out the virus' - and that's just the president of one country.

But I digress. Egyptian obsession, as the author details, goes back way beyond our current era, and it keeps renewing itself every few years as some new discovery triggers a resurgence of interest. The fact is, again as the author makes clear, that the actual reality of ancient Egypt is fantastical and enthralling enough. Making up fake stories about it, like the ridiculous mummy's curse of Tutankhamen, and inane claims like the one that the pyramids of Gizeh were built to store grain by the Biblical Joseph is not only unnecessary, it's an insulting lie that doesn't even gild the lily.

The author covers these topics from the building of the pyramids and the growth of Egyptian culture and power, right up through modern day. The text is wide-ranging, covering not only scholarly works, but also how this work is viewed in the media and by the entertainment industry. There are eight chapters:

1. The Classical Experience of Ancient Egypt
2. Cabinets of Curiosity
3. Death on the Nile
4. A Tragic Case of the -isms
5. Tutmania and the Media
6. The Mummy, The Mummy, and The Mummy Again
7. Ancient Aliens
8. Who Owns Ancient Egypt?

Not all was plain sailing. This book was only available to a reviewer like me through an ebook, and once again the publisher kow-towed to the monolithic, almost monopolistic power of Amazon, and once again Amazon turned the printed word to Kindling. I flatly refuse to do any sort of business with Amazon. I do not care if it costs me sales. I would rather have peace of mind that I am not supporting the Amazon business model in any way, shape or form.

The text itself wasn't so bad, but unless your work is essentially nothing more than plan vanilla text, Amazon will slice, dice, and julienne it. Amazon hates pretty. It hates organized and neat. It hates drop-caps, for example, and will instead drop your text to the next line. In fact, it will quite randomly put a new line in and drop your text to the next line whether you intended it or not at any point in the book. Some of the text was blood-red for reasons I've never been able to figure out, but I've seen this frequently in Kindle books.

There are photographs included in the back of this book which surprisingly survived the process remarkably well, although I think Amazon ditched at least one of them. I was unaware of the pictures until I finished the book, so I'd already looked-up some of these images online where I could find them. This is mostly tied to the section discussing artistic portrayals of ancient Egypt.

The book had an extensive notes and references section and an index, although none of this was clickable - you can't, for example, go to the note from the text, nor can you return to the text from the note, be warned. Same applies to the index. I'm guessing this book was never intended to be an ebook and was simply dumped into that format for reviewers. It's never a good idea to treat reviewers so cavalierly! It might come back to bite you!

The content list is a mess; it's completely unformatted, with some chapters being clickable (although once you click to a chapter there's no way to click back to the content list, which you may wish to do since the list is so closely printed that you could well tap the wrong chapter and wish to go back and start over. The chapter titles are all on separate lines except for five and six which are jammed together on the same line (Chapter 5 Chapter 6).

Chapter 8 is the only chapter title that is clickable, but it doesn't take you to chapter eight! I never read epilogues and prologues so it wasn't an issue for me that they're not clickable, but the text heading for each chapter wasn't listed with the chapter header ('Chapter 1' and so on)! It was listed separately after all the chapter numbers had been listed - and some of those were clickable! Very confusing. Amazon are idiots. I'm sorry, but they are.

Note that I also checked this out in the Bluefire Reader and Adobe Digital Editions versions, which are far better formatted but much less easy to read on a phone which is where I do most of my reading since I always have it with me. The problem with the PDF version though is that it's an exact copy of how the print version will look and people who know me will also know that I do not approve of the wasted space on these semi-academic print books.

Trees are the only entity on Earth which is actively engaged full time in combating the greenhouse gases causing climate change, so hacking them down to produce books is a thoroughly bad idea, and worse, not respecting the dead trees by leaving acres of white space on every page in a print book is a disgrace in my opinion. Naturally no one wants the entire page to be obliterated with densely-packed text! Readability alone requires some sort of intelligent formatting, but it's still not necessary to have massive margins and extra insert pages identifying part this and part that. Please! Respect the trees before it's too late for all of us.

Those are technical issues though that can be fixed, like, for example, the fact that the book description on Net Galley has the book title wrong! The title on the cover and the title of the page are correct, but the description thinks that the book title is: "Pyramidiots: How We Became Obsessed With Ancient Egypt." I prefer the actual title to that one. As far as the content of the text is concerned though, there's nothing wrong with it. I loved this book and I commend it unreservedly except for the Amazon edition!

The Electric War by Mike Winchell

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a great audiobook read by Greg Tremblay. It appears to have no connection with the movie The Current War starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, and Nicholas Hoult. While they both cover roughly the same ground, they tell rather different stories, with the movie predictably focusing more on flash and drama, and the book going into some interesting detail without belaboring anything.

The story covers each of the main three men described in the subtitle: Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse, giving each a brief biography from birth until they came into the public light in the so-called "Race to Light the World," and then going into more detail about the interactions between the three of them as the contest between Edison's stubborn insistence upon the inadequate direct current as a power source on the one side, and Tesla and Westinghouse's goal of powering life with alternating current on the other side. Edison lost.

I've never been a big fan of Edison and did not come out of this liking him any more than I did to begin with, which is to say not much. I already liked Tesla, and I knew little about Westinghouse, but I grew to like and respect his abilities and conduct, except for the one instance where he really screwed Tesla out of a living. Tesla had generously agreed to give up his contract which was making him very wealthy, when Westinghouse was struggling financially, but Westinghouse never came back with a substitute offer when he was back on a sounder financial footing, despite Tesla once again helping him when it came to the Niagara falls project. Tesla's life was very sad and he deserved better than he got.

The book is educational and interesting and I commend it as a worthy read.

Geist by Philippa Ballantine

Rating: WARTY!

I could not get into this. I made it through three chapters and it was unfurling so painfully slowly that I looked at it and the thought of suffering three hundred pages of this was too much. The author seems to be channeling Stephen King, but the fact is that if the only way you have to make your characters pop is to detail their life history even unto the third and fourth generation, then I'm sorry but you're doing it pedantically wrong.

The book description tells us that "The undead are here and only the Deacons stand in their way," but it really doesn't tell us a damned thing about who or what deacons are, how they get to be in such a position, and what they actually do. Everything is so unnecessarily mysterious and after three chapters of that, I was tired of not knowing anything./p>

These deacons are supposed to be "guardians against ghost possession," but the author never showed us what a deacon would do with one of these ghosts, or undead or whatever-the-hell-they-are. Instead we're introduced to the anomaly of a host of them without ever being shown what the norm is, so it really means nothing because we have nothing with which to compare it! This is the first book in a series, naturally, and that's the first problem because it means the author thinks she has four books at least to tell this story.

She really doesn't. If she fails to tell an engaging story in volume one, no one in their right mind is going to want to read further. So it sure doesn't mean that she can coast through the first volume without doing any work. I can't commend this based on what I suffered through.

What Do You Do With an Idea? by Kobi Yamada, Mae Besom

Rating: WORTHY!

This is the other book I read by the artist Besom and writer Yamada. In this one, the story is again about a young kid who has this idea. It looks weird, and people point at it and make fun, claiming it will never go anywhere, but no matter what he does, the kid can't seem to shake it and this idea not only stays with him, it starts following him around everywhere!

I can relate to this big time! Once a story idea get into my head I have a hard time letting it go. Sometimes the idea is so bizarre, it's probably better to let it go, but if I did that with everything, I'd never have written Cloud Fighters or Cleoprankster. Of course there are also times when the idea just catches me in the right mood at the right time and I drop everything and run with it. Not that that typically gets me anywhere, but the exercise is good for me!

Printed in large format hardcover and with great big illustrations, this was another fine read from this pair, and I commend it.

What Do You Do With a Chance? by Kobi Yamada, Mae Besom

Rating: WORTHY!

It's time to look at a couple of print books I discovered (although I'm sure others discovered them before I!) that really were quite charming. Beautifully illustrated by Besom and written with passion by Yamada, the story here is about this young kid who espies a chance fluttering around him, but he's too afraid to take it.

Nervous, unsure, fearing of failure, he lets it go, and even though other chances come by, he grows very reticent to have anything to do with them, but then he begins to fear something worse: that no chance may fly his way again, so he resolves to grab the next one in both hands. What happens? Well, I guess you'd have to read the book to find out!

Printed in large format hardcover and with great big illustrations, this was a fine read and I commend it.

Gringo Love by Marie-Eve Carrier-Moisan, William Flynn, Débora Santos

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Subtitled "Stories of Sex Tourism in Brazil" this was written by William Flynn and illustrated by Débora Santos, and based on the research of Marie-Eve Carrier-Moisan. Published by the University of Toronto Press, this was a look at the delicate politics of 'women of the night' in city of Natal in northeast Brazil, who interact with European tourists in interesting ways that lie all around the blurry line of outright prostitution.

The book was based on real people and interviews the researcher had done with them, and although it was a graphic novel it actually wasn't graphic in a sexual sense; it merely depicted the kind of lives these women led and their aims and dreams. Is it worth noting that this did not pass the Bechdel-Wallace test when the aim of the book was expressly to discuss sex tourism? It's hardly a surprise that it failed, but I have to say that it would have been nice to have learned more about what these women aimed to get out of these relationships. It was touched on but only, it seemed, in passing.

The story is supported by extensive notes and references and contained a glossary of the Brazilian terms used by people in this life. The author of the story visited twice, one in the mid-oughts, and then more recently about six years ago, and the changes were marked. She couldn't even find many of the women who she'd talked to originally since they'd moved on or moved away.

The relationship between the sex tourists and the local women was an intricate dance and not all women viewed it in the same way or pursued it with the same steps and rhythms. There is a constant beat though, and that is the desire and need to escape the poverty trap far too many of these women are born into. Selling sex, or more reservedly, entering into a mutually profitable relationship with the male visitors wherein the guys get sex with able and attractive women and the women receive money or gifts in return, is a way these women have of raising themselves up.

Some of them look toward marrying a visitor, others look to saving money and getting a college education, and changing their life that way. But constantly in the background was the desire of some locals - mostly the ones who live in the alto district as opposed to the girls, who live in the Ville ghettos - to stamp out the sex tourism. The problem is that the protestors seemed to pursue this not only hypocritically, but mindlessly. They had no plan as to how to help the impoverished women once their rewards from their own enterprising endeavors petered out. This is why these protests are ultimately doomed to fail in my opinion.

This was a fascinating study and a novel representation of the results, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, even while feeling depressed that once again, we're seeing economic disparity causing serious problems that are not being intelligently addressed. I commend this as a worthy read.

Felix After the Rain by Dunja Jogan, Olivia Hellewell

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Written sensitively by Slovenian author Dunja Jogan who also illustrated this book, and translated into English by Olivia Hellewell, this is a story about carrying too much baggage, represented literally by poor Felix, who has this huge dark suitcase he feels forced to carry around with him, and every time something goes wrong, the weight of it gets worse, but as he travels, and worries he might not be able to pursue his dreams while dragging this heavy weight around with him, he learns that he can let his baggage go. It's a beautifully told story and finely illustrated, and I commend it as a worthy read.

The Time of Green Magic by Hilary McKay

Rating: WARTY!

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

This is a middle-grade novel set in Britain. I'm normally a bit biased toward such novels, and this one started out for me in great style, with Abi from one family, and Louis and Max from another being brought together into one big family when Abi's father Theo marries the boys' mother Polly. They move into a larger house, which has a lot of character and Abi finds that her immersion in novels becomes a little too literal. She'd be reading Kon-Tiki and the book would end up wet, with the water tasting of salt. She'd be reading about an Arctic adventure and almost get frostbite.

That would have been adventure enough, but there was also other stuff going on that seemed unconnected with Abi's experiences - like the large cat that young Louis encounters, or the paranoia that Max experiences, alongside his interest in this French art student who occasionally babysits. On top of that, Polly's work calls her away from home for a couple of weeks (I'm not sure why the author wanted her out of the way), and Theo it seems is hardly home, so the kids are left to their own devices a lot. At once there seemed to be both too much going on and not enough.

The story was going in so many different directions that things were becoming confused, and also being skipped: like how these kids were getting along given that one of them was entirely unrelated to the other two, and how little information is imparted about the books they're reading. The kids seemed to have no inner life, and the novel reached a stagnation point about halfway in. I began quickly to lose interest in it. It did not improve and I gave up on it at seventy percent out of sheer boredom.

Again, it wasn't written for me, and middle-graders might get more out of it than did I, but I've read and enjoyed many middle-grade level books and found them highly entertaining. This one wasn't in that category, and while I wish the author all the best in her career, I can't commend this particular novel as a worthy read.

Birds of a Feather by Vanita Oelschlager

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This is described as "A Book of Idioms and Silly Pictures" and it certainly is! It takes some phrases that are so commonly used that people don't even think about them anymore, and takes them quite literally, so the dog, for example, really is barking up the wrong tree and the cat is quite happy about that! Ants in your pants doesn't make anyone happy, and goosebumps are just embarrassing!

I've enjoyed nearly all of the Vanita Oelschlager books that I've read, so I was happy to see this one available for review and I didn't regret it. It was fun, engaging, amusingly illustrated, and goofy enough to be entertaining as well as a little bit educational. I commend it as a worthy read.

But I Need Your Help Now! by Bryan Smith, Lisa M Griffin

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Illustrated in fine style by Lisa M Griffin, this book aims to teach younger children how to appropriately attract attention when they encounter a problem or need help. Young Isaac is in the second grade, and evidently his parents somehow failed him somewhere along the line, because he can't seem to determine how properly to attract attention when he needs it. Part of his problem is that e has trouble judging how critical a situation is. Naturally, everything is important to him, and when he's struggling at school with a math problem, he just yells out. Later he causes a problem at a store, but at school the next day when there's a real emergency, he tries following the patient procedures he was reminded of the previous day and still gets it wrong!

It's just not Isaac's day, but he learns. Each new situation is examined in Bryan Smith's steady text, and the appropriate course of behavior is highlighted. It turns out there isn't a fixed rule, and you have to make judgments on the fly! This is why it can be so trying for young children. Isaac finally begins to learn these important truths. The book explains simply and patiently and takes the reader through permutations, each of which is designed to teach a little something, adding up to a big something: an improvement in a child's behavior.

I first foolishly tried reading this on my phone where I read most of my books, but it was only available on the Kindle app. Why publishers of children's illustrated books make this insane choice, I do not know. Amazon's crappy ebook conversion process produces not a Kindle book, but Kindling! It mangles anything and everything that isn't plain vanilla text. This is one of many reasons why I personally boycott Amazon. Pictures are often cut up into shreds, but in this case, even on an iPad where there was more screen real estate, the Kindle app screwed-up everything. The pictures appeared with no text in them, and blank speech balloons, and the text was assembled above and below the image. Not all of the text is there. At one point I read, "Make eye contact, raise appropriate - approach." Raise appropriate what? I didn't find out that until I read the book in the Bluefire Reader app on my iPad, where it was rendered perfectly.

I commend this as a worthy read in everything except Kindle format!

The Secret Explorers and the Lost Whales by SJ King

Rating: WARTY!

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

The secret explorers are a group of young children who investigate the natural world and help right wrongs. It's a series, so not all the kids go on every mission. They each have specialties and are selected because of what they can bring to making the mission a success. In this one, my first encounter with this series, Connor and Roshni are the underwater crew investigating why a pod of humpbacks seem to have lost their way. In process of pursuing the investigation, they encounter problems and issues that need to be worked through, and learn things about ocean life.

I was disappointed in this book for two reasons. While I appreciate its aim of trying to engage young people in developing an awareness of the natural world and the human-caused problems it faces, the natural world really needs to be left alone. The problem isn't the natural world, it's decades of human callous indifference to it that has caused the problems, and this is where efforts need to be applied. A Band-Aid and an aspirin isn't going to work where major heart surgery is urgently required. And you know, there's not a lot of point in saving one pod of whales if the Japanese or American Indians are going to hunt and kill them anyway.

The other problem I had with this ebook is that it simply did not work. I'm talking technically here. The book hung up on me around fifty percent in and crashed the entire app. I tried it in two different apps: Bluefire Reader, and Adobe Digital Editions. Both of these normally work perfectly, but this book failed at the same point in both apps, which tells me it's the publication, not the app. Just now, before I finalized this review, I tried it once more on both of those apps and the book wouldn't even open in ADR. It hung up the app. In BFR, it opened, but immediately hung the app.<.p>

I don't know if it's the intention to put this out as an ebook, or if that's simply how review copies were distributed (for my sins, I'm not the sort of reviewer who gets the hardback copy!), but given the poor quality of the e-copy, which prevented me reading half of it, and my misgivings about the priorities being set in this story, I can't commend it as a worthy read. Your mileage may differ.

Radical Wordsworth by Jonathan Bate

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Erratum:
"He said that he would soon be was on his way to Coleorton." 'soon be was' is obviously wrong!

Published for the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth’s birth, this was a tome in which I felt very much at home because I grew up in and around many of the places mentioned here. I can only publish my review on the 210^thanniversary of the poet's youngest son's birth, a child also named William, but that'll do, right?!

While I'm not much of a fan of poetry despite having published a book of verse and short stories myself, I am interested in the creative lives of artists, and also in life as it was lived by people in more primitive times. This book amply fed my interest on both scores. It was exhaustively researched, but not exhausting to read because the author knew when to share his research and when not to flood the reader in a showy, but unhelpful fashion.

Wordsworth was close friends with poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he of "Ancyent Marinere" fame, as well as a contemporary of many other well-known writers, such as Robert Southey, who Wordsworth, in later life, succeeded as poet laureate. The biography covers Wordsworth's entire life, his extensive travel, both in walking tours of England, and Scotland, and in his travels in Europe.

I had no idea he'd been such a rebel in his time, and especially no idea that the British government sent a spy to keep an eye on this radical - something which Wordsworth evidently found amusing. It also covers his close relationship with his sister Dorothy, who herself was no slouch with a pen. She's not the only female writer mentioned and some of those mentioned in passing in this book were interesting enough to me that I'm looking to find some of their material to read.

Call me mercenary, but personally I would have liked to have learned a little more about how Wordsworth paid his way in life. He received a substantial settlement on debt owed his family from the First Earl of Lonsdale, to the tune of some £4,000 which was a substantial sum back then. It ain't exactly chicken feed now! This money permitted Wordsworth to marry, but it didn't seem like it was enough of itself to keep him going throughout his life and permit raising several children.

He earned some money from his writing, but not as much as you might think, not when we learn for example, that when "The Lyrical Ballads was published by Longman and company in May 1807, in an edition of 1,000 copies, 230 of them were remaindered." He obviously did all right for himself, but he was hardly a sell-out artist. In passing, Lonsdale was of the lineage which lent its name to the boxing award - commonly known as the Lonsdale Belt, although it was the fifth Earl - much later in the lineage, who inaugurated the belt, not the one who paid Wordsworth.

Wordsworth did publish other work of course, and later in life he had official 'jobs' to do, which undoubtedly helped him financially, even as his writing star seemed to fade, but I found myself periodically wondering throughout my reading of this, how he could afford to keep moving his household, and to travel so much in Europe. How did he finance it?! Maybe he was very frugal?

That complaint aside though, it was fascinating to read of his adventures in France right in the midst of the revolution, and of his desire to be a journalist until a journalist friend of his was decapitated! He also spent time in Germany, and he engaged in a lot of walking tours in Britain. These stimulated his creative juices and inspired and fed a lot of his poems.

I was rather disturbed to read that "Back in 1803, William had left Mary, recuperating well from the birth of their first child, and gone on a Scottish tour in the company of Dorothy and Coleridge." That seems a bit callous, especially in an era where children died young quite often. Three of Wordsworth's children predeceased he and his wife, and two of those were very young when they died. I guess parental attitudes were different back then, with the female of the pair very much expected to stay home and care for the children while the male did whatever he wanted. I'd confess I'd hoped for more from Wordsworth!

But these are minor questions that crossed my warped and fervid mind as I read this. Overall, I was quite thrilled with it and enjoyed it very much. I commend it as a worthy read.