Review: Further: Beyond the Threshold

Further: Beyond the Threshold by Chris Roberson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is a book that I've had in my Kindle for a while, and being that I'm becoming more and more of a fan of Chris Roberson by the day, I finally bumped this one into the front.

There are two great things about this book:

1) It is solid, five-star, classic science fiction worldbuilding. In a sense, half the book is worldbuilding, and it's glorious. We spend a ton of time establishing everything around us, it's not hard science but feels like it, and so on. It's great fun.

2) In the same classic sense, this book feels like a throwback. It's modern pulpy in a sense, feeling really populist and light and accessible. It's a good time.

There is one somewhat negative thing about this book:

1) It is very light on plot beyond the worldbuilding. The story is more a vehicle for what's going on around the main character for at least half of the book, and that may be charitable. This isn't too negative given how high quality the plot surrounding the story is, but if you're looking for a grand epic, or even a sizable adventure, this might not be it for you.

All things considered, though, this was a fun read. It's almost like an episodic miniseries in print form, which is not what I expected but definitely enjoyed. Possibly one of my favorite Roberson books so far. Definitely worth it if you're into this kind of escapism.



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Review: NOS4A2

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Resurrection, parallel universes, creepy bone hammers, rhyming minions, and a demonic Rolls Royce?

Yeah, I'm in.

Joe Hill's latest is deceptive, in a way. While the buildup is slow, the payoff is solid as we're introduced to the cast and setting of NO4A2, named after the license plate of Charlie Manx's 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith. Manx, you see, has a thing for kidnapping children and bringing them to "Christmasland," a place inside the United States (bearing a strong resemblance to Santa's Village in northern New Hampshire) but not quite inside the United States. The story spends a lot of introductory time with Manx, his minion, and with some of the kids in mind.

One who got away is Vic, who probably saw some things she shouldn't, but got Charlie put in jail for the rest of his life anyway. But now Charlie's back? And he wants Vic's son?

My only other exposures to Hill were Locke & Key, a weird comic, and Horns, which was a brilliant read. Both of those works, along with NOS4A2, have done a lot to change what my perception of horror as a genre is. Perhaps Hill is not horror the way his father, Stephen King is, but his books have a weird, Lovecraft/Howard/Clark Ashton Smith vibe to them that how I view horror doesn't. The book is really masterful both in its pacing and its reveals, with just the right balance of creepy and nasty.

In a 600+ page book (especially when the previous book, Horns, was many pages fewer), you expect padding that wasn't there. There are hints to other books (heck, other authors), reasonable cultural and geographical touchstones, and plenty of nods to interests of Hill's himself, which are always fun Easter eggs to get. Does it suffer from unnecessary profanity and some stuff that seems gross or off-putting simply for the sake of it? Yes, of course, but given the genre, it's pretty expected and can easily be forgiven. The slow start might also be frustrating, but with how well it paid off and seeing the necessity for it? I have half a mind to reread the first 100 or so pages and see what I ended up missing.

Honestly, and I don't say this lightly, this book might be a great crossover title for people who tend to like fantasy but don't do horror. It's not scary, but it's creepy. It's not disgusting, but it is strange. What I can say, however, is that it's pretty great overall, and opens some really interesting doors for Hill's future work as well.

Don't skip this one. You'll absolutely regret it if you do.



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Review: Relatively Famous

Relatively Famous by Jessica Park

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Considering how much I loved Flat-Out Love, I decided to pick up her earlier one off the Amazon Lending Library, Relatively Famous. A first attempt at branching out to independent publishing, it's readable but flawed.

The story itself is interesting enough. Dani learns her father is a famous actor known more for his off-screen life than his career. She goes to visit him in Hollywood, and gets caught up in the whole lifestyle.

Where the book falls a little short is the writing, which is good but really needed a little more editorial help than it got. With the stories surrounding Flat-Out Love and how the author went after some professional copyediting, the quality of it shows between the two books, and I'm forced to wonder if a better look would have resulted in a less stilted plot progression on a whole.

It's not a dealbreaker in any regard. If you liked Flat-Out Love, this will also do the trick. It's just good to see the progression from this to Flat, and really just makes me want to see what's coming next that much more.



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Review: Someday, Someday, Maybe

Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Among the television shows I'm an unabashed fan of, Gilmore Girls and Parenthood both make the list. This means that there's a lot of Lauren Graham in my entertainment, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. I had no clue that she planned to write a book, but when I finally did notice it, I jumped right on it.

The book is a pretty standard tale, all things considered. We follow the life of an aspiring, struggling actress, Franny, in New York City as she tries to get jobs, keep friends, find meaningful relationships, and so on. Taking place in 1995, the extra frustrations of technology and such get to shine through as she tries to get agents, jobs, and really just keep her head on straight.

This is like an episode of Gilmore Girls, and I say that as a compliment. It's extremely fast-paced, witty, and you get a feel for Franny almost immediately. The happenings in the book are a perfect blend of realistic and ridiculous, and the way things pan out are never really etched in stone throughout the book. If I have a complaint, it's that all the characters, with the exception of one or two, basically sound the same - everyone's a little quirky and wisecracky and whatnot. Hardly a dealbreaker for something this fun, though.

Overall, a light, fluffy, enjoyable read. Perfect for fans of Lauren Graham, perfect for fans of her work and associated work (if you watch Bunheads, it's near-impossible not to visualize Sutton Foster in the Franny spot), check this one out if you're intrigued at all.



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Review: See You at Harry's

See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



There are a lot of contemporary young adult books that try to address issues in teens and middle schoolers in a very real way. I've now read two Jo Knowles books, and she's quite the master at doing this, even if See You at Harry's samples from all the Relevant Issues ingredient shelves and bakes them together in a very solid, somewhat manic read.

The book is primarily about a family that owns an ice cream shop. Five people in the family, the friends that are made from school and from the shop, the bullies and unreasonable adults that remain in orbit, and everything in between.

The book works well because it deals with the peaks and valleys of life, and how communities come together in various forms of tragedies, as well as successes. The major plot point does come unexpectedly, which is so appropriate in a sense, but it does put a lot of the other issues on the back burner - again, where they belong in context. It's a different reading experience in that regard, but it's still applause-worthy.

This is a great read that I'm glad I was able to trip up over. Jo Knowles is fast becoming a favorite YA writer for me, and she deserves a lot of credit for bringing up a lot of issues for the age group that don't feel forced or preachy. Highly recommended.



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Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I can't say I know exactly what drew me to this book. The cover is amazing, but the author was unknown and it was getting a lot of love from literary fiction folks, which is typically something that can go either way for me. Regardless, what I read about it sounded interesting enough, and I grabbed it from the local library when I saw it on the shelf.

Wow, was this good.

Told almost entirely in letters, emails, instant messages, and so on, this is the story of Bernadette, a woman who was, at one point, the most promising American architect going. As the book progresses, we learn little things about her that eventually result in the revelation of some mental illness. This isn't really a book about mental illness, though, or people coping with it. In fact, it's really something a lot more that I don't want to give away at all.

The format is something I generally love, and it works great here. The story itself is engrossing and has enough twists and turns going in it to keep you in that "oh, one more section" mode. The author has written for a lot of great television as well, so the pacing makes a ton of sense in that regard.

Overall, a book that initially flew under my radar but turned out to be something I'll be recommending to a lot of people in the future. A great, great read.



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Review: Dreams and Shadows

Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



C. Robert Cargill wears a lot of hats. He reviews movies, he writes movies, he and I used to argue politics on the internet years ago, and now he writes books. I didn't see his movie Sinister since horror isn't my thing, but it was well regarded, and his debut novel, Dreams and Shadows, was getting even more acclaim than that. So I naturally had to pick it up, and I'm ultimately pretty glad I did. As someone who struggles with both urban fantasy and feywild/changeling stories, Dreams and Shadows succeeds in being solid with both of them.

The plot is deceptively simple. It starts with a boy, Colby, who meets a djinn and gets a wish to see all the creatures in the world. He meets Ewan, who is a boy taken and replaced with a changeling. Their paths never part from that point onward, and the the story quickly becomes one of a lot of different concepts, from fairies to magic to all-out war. It's incredibly ambitious, and it basically works. Things tie together nicely, and the book has more than its share of twists and turns to keep things from looking predictable.

If I have any complaints, it's that the book might feel a little redundant to people with more background in these settings and tropes. It's somewhat fresh to me, and I feel there's a lot of a personal touch to the stories that more than covers for any sameness that might exist. The beginning of the story threw me off for a bit until I figured out what was going on as well, but I ended up being very glad I powered through.

Overall, if you're looking for a new Gaiman-esque fantasy to hold you over, this is a worthy entry into your list of things to read. I don't know what Cargill will be up to next, but I hope more books are part of it.



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Review: Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell

Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell by Phil Lapsley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



A while back I read a book about the beginnings of computer hacker culture, Masters of Deception. It was a fun, mostly interview-based history of hackers and such, fairly thin but very appealing. A lot of the beginnings of phone phreak culture were also highlighted in the book, but didn't get a ton of play overall.

Then, a few months ago, Radiolab did a podcast/show that highlighted a person who knew how to access the phone system and make calls simply by whistling the correct tones. He, along with many others in the 1960s and 1970s, learned the ins and outs of the AT&T phone network and hacked it to pieces. Exploding the Phone is the story of that movement.

I knew a lot of the basics - blue boxes, the tones and such. What I didn't realize was about how widespread it was, or many/any of the personalities involved. The book is very heavily reliant on interviews with many of the primary phone phreaks, and it provides a really significant and worthwhile insight into the history and culture.

The book is extremely readable, with just enough technical information without overwhelming us with a lot of data and specifics that would only confuse things. If it has any real flaws, it's that the damage and the illegality of the situation too often takes a back seat to a more positive look at most of the phreaks, but this isn't really about the era as much as the people and circumstances, so it can easily be forgiven.

Definitely one of the better mainstream nonfiction books I've read lately. Of an era and a culture that doesn't get nearly enough thrift, and especially with a group that would fit in quite well with the maker movements of present day, the book is an excellent recommended read.



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Review: Crap Kingdom

Crap Kingdom by D.C. Pierson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



When I first learned of this book, I was extremely excited, since it was such a fun premise - a kid who enjoys fantasy tropes and such learns he is the Chosen One for a fantasy kingdom, except the kingdom he is the Chosen One for is a completely drag and no one would ever want to be the Chosen One there. Add in the fact that DC Pierson, a member of the Derrick Comedy group (possibly best known for the hilarious Mystery Team movie), is the writer? Sign me up.

When I talk about books, I tend to spend a lot more time on concepts and execution rather than the book itself. I have no clue why I gravitate toward that perspective, but I do. With Crap Kingdom, Pierson has done something fairly unique. It's a similar concept to the Terry Brooks Landover series, but with a definite comedic angle. The concept and the writer combined make for a very appealing prospect, but the book doesn't always work.

At the end of the day, the book is more of a bait-and-switch. The kingdom is secondary to the power struggle within, there's a lot of teen angst in the real world that drives the narrative, and the end of the book throws a significant curveball that is both impressive in its sleight of hand as it is frustrating given the entirety of the book. This isn't to say it's a bad book, or that it's even not good. It's just different in ways I don't think worked.

I will probably pick up anything and everything DC Pierson does for the immediate future. There's a lot to like about what's going on in his brain, and the book is well-written. This book in particular just isn't anything that really worked well for me on a whole.



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Review: The Daylight War

The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Sometimes a book series catches you by surprise, and by the time you're a few books in, you realize that it's become a favorite without your actually realizing it. The Demon Cycle is quickly becoming that series, which The Daylight War is the third book and is just as solid and high-quality as the two books preceding it.

The book takes place directly after The Desert Spear, but now we get some more backstory for Inervera and her dice of fate, as well as some good quality time with what I like to consider a battle bard, Rojer. The book spends a little time with everyone important, culminating in an epic climax that kept me up way, way past my bedtime.

I shouldn't like The Demon Cycle as much as I do. The starts of the books require a lot of buy-in to get rolling, even though the payoff is excellent. The setting is a more desert/Arabian feel, and I tend to like my fantasy more traditional. The book does its dialogue in English, but with the native inflections and accents, a literary choice I tend to hate, but find very appealing and immersive in this series. That a book can overcome so much for me in such a short time, and even still blow me away? That's the sign of something great.

I hate that the next book is probably years away. I hate that this book ended so quickly for me. I love that it has such an excellent magic system with the wards and the demons. I love the twist that the third book throws in with the magic system, that made me buy into it all over again. I love that the worldbuilding is so pronounced and yet feels so effortless at the same time. I love everything about this series except that I can't read book four yet.

Highly recommended.



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Review: Strange Flesh

Strange Flesh by Michael Olson

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



It's taking a lot for me to not write "not my genre, not my genre" over and over, but I think it's just that this was not that good.

The story revolves around a mysterious suicide, which then brings our hero into a corporate underworld of sorts where people are inventing virtual reality sex robots. So there's plenty of virtual reality robot sex, plenty of reality reality non-robot sex, and a murder mystery that plays second fiddle to all the virtual sex being had and discussed in the book.

It's really a total bait-and-switch. What could have been a fun cyberpunk murder mystery devolved very quickly into less-than-compelling romp through faux-online communities and fetish sexuality, none of any of the prime points quite good enough to hold my interest. And my hopes for a suitable ending, by the time I was too far in to give up, were dashed by an incredibly drawn out final arc, which matched extremely well with how long it took to get to the meat of the story to begin with.

I may be judging this more harshly than I should, since mainstream murder mysteries have never been anything that piqued my interest, but this is unfortunately fatally flawed from the first page to the last, and I don't know how I could recommend it to anyone in good faith.



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Review: Plague Town

Plague Town by Dana Fredsti

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



There's a blurb on the back of Plague Town that describes the book as a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Walking Dead. Never has a blurb been more appropriate.

Plague Town is the story of Ashley Parker as she learns about her role during the zombie apocalypse. These zombies are the slow, plodding kind, very stereotypical, and Ashley is...special. Not necessarily in the way you might be thinking (the Buffy comparison is not 100% apt here), but she has a very important position in the puzzle.

The book is interesting in how it handles the reveal. If you're in this for a lot of zombie killing action, you're going to be disappointed. If you think training for the zombie apocalypse is the only thing keeping your traditional zombie movie from being awesome, you're going to love this book - I personally thought this aspect of it dragged. Regardless of how the book succeeds and fails, however, there's a key reveal at the end that is unlike anything I've read in the genre before, and elevates the book beyond pulpy mass-market escapism into something a little more daring.

While I'm not especially high on this book overall, I feel like it has a lot of potential as a trilogy with what looks to be a clear endpoint. I'll dive into the second volume for sure.



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Review: Mockingbird

Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Closer to a 3.5.

Blackbirds was a pleasant surprise for me. A violent, profane tale of a woman who, by the power of touch, can see how someone can die, it threw some unconventional curveballs and left me pretty satisfied. Thus my surprise when the second book landed in the Kindle Store, as I really thought the story was done and over with.

The good news is that Miriam Black's story in this book is different and yet still interesting. In what is more a rote murder mystery story with significant fantasy elements, the story is still addictive and held my interest throughout. It's pulpy at times, but that's more than okay. It's a fun read.

The downside is that the story does feel somewhat unessential. I'm not sure where else the story is necessarily supposed to go, but that's not usually a bad thing. It still hangs in the back of my head, but...

Either way, I'm interested in what's coming next. Story or not, Wendig has created a compelling character in Miriam Black and I'm hoping we'll see more.



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Review: The Mirage

The Mirage by Matt Ruff

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I love a good alternate history/reality story, and the idea behind The Mirage piqued my interest quite a bit, as it was an alternate take on the 11 September attacks as if it were a non-unified Christian American fundamentalist group that hijacked planes and sent them into towers in Baghdad.

There's a lot of great things about this book. The concept alone works great, but there's a lot more for that. There's faux-Wikipedia entries for a lot of the history and people involved in the time frame, we get alt-universe appearances by all the major players as well as some surprises, and there's even some aspects of the story that crossed genres that I didn't expect.

What works well for me, though, was that the book was definitely political in nature in a lot of ways, but not in a way that the ideas didn't work. You end up chuckling at the connections as opposed to being offended if you don't quite agree, and I assume the same reaction in the other direction. It's really solid.

Really, the book is just because there were a lot of great ideas in a firmly executed concept. I had a ton of fun seeing how Ruff decided to go about the story, trying to predict what might be coming next, and seeing what crossovers worked and what kind of parallels between universes Ruff drew. It's really something I think everyone would like, especially if you think geopolitical thrillers or high-concept mainstream fiction can be your thing.



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Review: Black Wings of Cthulhu: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Black Wings of Cthulhu: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror by S.T. Joshi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



As a fan of all things Lovecrafty, a new anthology of Mythos short fiction curated by ST Joshi, the leading Lovecraftian scholar was very exciting.

As someone who doesn't really love short fiction, and has found a lot of the mythos short story collections wanting, I was a little ambivalent about trying yet another one.

The good news, overall, is that Black Wings of Cthulhu is good. It's not superlative by any means, but it's not a disaster like many of the other compilations I've read. It's good, and that's a good thing.

The problem with the book in a nutshell might be the use of the more cosmic aspects as well as the unseen madness. This is partly because of my preferences: my favorite stories in the book included ones where we could actually experience the horror first hand with the protagonists of the story (like in the tales involving the woman who bought meat, or the man who picked up the tentacled coin). The stories I enjoyed the least were much more abstract. This didn't mean that those stories were necessarily failures, but more that they may not have been as interesting as perhaps they could have been. This isn't to say that any of them come close to the eye-rolling tendencies some Mythos stories I've read have had (such as the "Cthulhu is in my computer modem" story I read some time ago), but too many of the stories in this collection ended about as softly as they began, with little to stick with.

Overall, the book is what it is. It's definitely worth picking up if you're a hardcore Mythos fan, because there's enough good (along with the stories up top, Laird Barron's story is predictably superlative, and there are at least 3 or 4 others that are quite solid) to go along with the not-so-good, and the stories are almost all short enough where you won't be making a major investment of time or energy if you dislike a handful.



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Review: The Lie

The Lie by Chad Kultgen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



At this point, I'm generally hatereading these books after being horrified by The Average American male. I found The Lie to be better on a whole, since it actually has a coherent plot that isn't completely centered on how terrible women apparently are, but still.

Long and short, the book alternates between three people: a person (Brett) who could very well be a college age protagonist from Average, his best friend who is a good guy even though Brett does everything in his power to try and change that, and Heather, a girl that Brett eventually dates. Things just get more and more terrible until there's basically nothing redeeming left about anyone involved, and it's just tragic. There's hatred of college, hatred of women, of prostitutes, of sororities, of business, or...everything except sex, which is something that should be pursued at every opportunity, and only out of a sense of revenge or anger.

And yet the book was still really readable, and actually had moments in it that The Average American Male did not. If the book could cut back on so much of the outrageous offensive stuff, it might actually be something that could be recommended to other people. Instead, it's like an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossed with the movie Very Bad Things without showing the self-awareness necessary to ensure the audience understands that this is satire or a joke. It's kind of unfortunate.



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Review: Poison

Poison by Bridget Zinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It's difficult to discuss this book without discussing the fact that the author, Bridget Zinn, passed away between completion and publication. It means reading and thinking about the book not as much in terms of the book itself, but rather what could have been.

The story itself is fun. The lead girl is a potions master. She'd has a pet pig. She's good with a crossbow. She had to kill the future ruler of the empire, who is also her best friend.

So it's a fun, interesting read that toys with some different ideas. It had an opportunity to be a series and obviously can't be. This is why it is hard to discuss without the context of the clear talent that has been lost in Zinn. I definitely recommend it independent of the author, but it will be hard not to keep that tragedy in mind.



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Review: The Boys Volume 12: The Bloody Doors Off

The Boys Volume 12: The Bloody Doors Off by Garth Ennis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The Boys comes to its final conclusion in this volume. It's a weird one, because the bulk of the resolution comes in volume 11, except we finally get Butchers endgame and tie up the remaining loose ends.

The biggest story, the overall plot, is the bigger issue overall. I can't really say for sure I love where the Butcher ended up in this book. On one hand, I definitely feel as if the monomaniacal way Butcher wants to end things makes some sense given what we know about the character. The Supes are bad, Voight is bad, and so on. On the other hand, that he spends so much time building this group up simply to tear them apart? Allegiances seemed to matter for Butcher, but maybe not. As we see in his final scenes, everything he does seems to have a purpose. I'm just not sure I'm buying this specific one.

The end is a little more nihilistic than I would have preferred as well. Outside of Hughie and Annie, the idea that it's just going to be a new rotation all over again...I don't know. It doesn't really make sense with the "kill 'em all" attitude the series has had.

I can nitpick all day, though. At the end of it, the way things went about concluding was pretty satisfying, especially when I felt things were essentially done. For a series I went into with a ton of skepticism, with imagery and ultraviolence I had a lot of trouble with, the fact that this story made me place a lot of other comic trades on the back burner says a lot about how addictive the series was and how strong the writing is. Herogasm aside, I don't feel as if there was a significant miss anywhere along the line, even with the brutality. There's something to be said about that.

I wish I could recommend this series to everyone, but that wouldn't be right. There's too much questionable stuff to unequivocally say "yep, this is how to do a comic about superheroes gone bad, and you'd love it." But, really? This is the way to do a comic about superheroes gone bad, because it probably would be ultraviolent, with a lot of weird sex and bad drugs and terrible people and worse outcomes. And maybe that was the point - that we should be glad we don't need the Butcher. I know I am.



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Review: The Selection

The Selection by Kiera Cass

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Holy crap this was good.

If someone told me that there was a book out there that was a mix of the politics and selection aspects of The Hunger Games with the ridiculousness of The Bachelor, I probably would have scoffed. That so many people were raving about this book, however, meant I had to give it a shot. I'm glad I did.

The basics are that the prince of this future America is now looking for a bride, and tradition holds that all eligible young women of a certain age have the opportunity to be part of The Selection, where a number of the girls are chosen to live at the palace and get to know the prince, and he slowly narrows the group down until he finds the right girl. Our protagonist, also named America, is part of one of the lower castes and is in love with another boy, but applies to be part of The Selection in order to help feed her family, and surprisingly gets in. As things fall apart with her boyfriend, she moves into the palace and things get very interesting.

The book is great on so many levels. The concept behind it is fairly silly, and the book does a good job winking a bit at the entire idea. Even with that said, it's a simple, well-constructed world with the history and the arbitrary caste system, and the way the world got to be what it is tends to be more on the realistic side, which is a fascinating change of pace. America is a great character, the prince is exactly what you'd want, and there are a ton of little wrinkles along the way to keep this from being completely predictable.

This book, to me, fulfills the promise of the super-disappointing Matched. Too many of the current YA dystopia books have had disappointing sequels, as well, and knowing that book two is about six weeks away...I'm excited. Definitely worth your time and energy if you're looking for a lighter fluffy YA book.



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Review: Etiquette & Espionage

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I fully and completely loved the first book in Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, so the announcement that she was starting a YA series was very exciting for me. Even more exciting was that the book is even better than I anticipated, and is a ton of fun with possibly some of the best steampunk elements for a YA book since Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines books.

The positives about this book are that the tropes are fairly generic: a girl is sent off to finishing school, the school is actually a front for more nefarious/useful operations, and our heroine, Sophoronia, is surprisingly good at things so far.

Where the book succeeds is the humor, which is laugh out loud funny at times, the winks to the fact that everything is a little ridiculous and Carriger knows it, and a lot of the advanced ideas for the time frame, from racial relationships to understanding differences (there are, after all, vampires and werewolves).

The book is probably closer to a 4.5, but who cares? It's the most fun I've had with a YA book in some time, and it makes me want to dive into the next book in both this series and Parasol as soon as possible. Highly recommended.



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Review: The Average American Male

The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This was one of the most horrifying things I've ever read.

The plot is paper thin, let's start there. The book is about one guy who is unhappy with his girlfriend, and it's 200 pages of his girlfriend, getting out of that relationship, getting into a new one, with some small asides with his gay friend and life in general.

It sounds all sweet and typical until you actually read the thing, which is just a crazy rant that pushes every available envelope until they're crumpled into the wall, where Kultgen proceeds to set the envelopes on fire and then urinate on them in an attempt to put them out. If you think that's a crude way to describe the book, I know full well that you haven't read it, because that's tame compared to his descriptions of women, sex, love, and whatever else.

This is an angry, angry, hate-filled rant. It has its moments of amusement, but it's so over the top that it really comes back around to nearly offensive, and I don't offend easily at all. I can't exactly tell if this is meant to be a parody, and I hope to all that is good and pure in the world that this is over the top on purpose, but I really have no idea how this gets published or gets positive attention or...I don't know at all. I kind of hate myself that I finished this book, even though I can justify it by noting it was a very fast read. I hate myself even more that I'm interested in the sequel just to see where the heck this is going to go next.

Yikes.



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Review: Above Suspicion

Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



For as much as I enjoy spy movies and some modern spy books, I am woefully underread on the classics of the genre. I've seen a ton of Bond movies, but never read the Broccoli books. And when Above Suspicion landed on my doorstep last week, I learned that "the queen of spy-story writers" was not only someone I had never heard of, but was responsible for some important fiction to the genre. I suppose I should just dive in from there, right?

I'll say this much, first: I got to read the reissued version that Titan Books is putting out, and it's a pretty impressive tome. It's a well done paperback version, the text feels crisp and clean (I'm not sure if there was any editorial cleanup, but it feels modern), and the covers really bring an old text up to date. The book itself, while seventy plus years old, also reads quick and current, with little in the way of jarring wording or plot twists that would throw a reader off (except for the constant references to the coming World War).

The story itself is solid as well: Robert and Frances are spies for the United Kingdom, and are trusted to head out on a mission that very quickly escalates into a massive European trek involving Nazis and a lot of racing against time and each other. It's a story that dives in within 10 pages, and generally doesn't stop until the very end.

If I have some downsides to it, it's that the book does feel a little long (which may just be a relic of the time), even if it moves pretty quickly. Other than that, though, it's a story that holds up over two generations now, and the reissues are apparently going to continue for MacInnes's works throughout 2013. I look forward to reading more of them as time goes on, and hopefully they find a new audience in this new century.



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Review: Above Suspicion

Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



For as much as I enjoy spy movies and some modern spy books, I am woefully underread on the classics of the genre. I've seen a ton of Bond movies, but never read the Broccoli books. And when Above Suspicion landed on my doorstep last week, I learned that "the queen of spy-story writers" was not only someone I had never heard of, but was responsible for some important fiction to the genre. I suppose I should just dive in from there, right?

I'll say this much, first: I got to read the reissued version that Titan Books is putting out, and it's a pretty impressive tome. It's a well done paperback version, the text feels crisp and clean (I'm not sure if there was any editorial cleanup, but it feels modern), and the covers really bring an old text up to date. The book itself, while seventy plus years old, also reads quick and current, with little in the way of jarring wording or plot twists that would throw a reader off (except for the constant references to the coming World War).

The story itself is solid as well: Robert and Frances are spies for the United Kingdom, and are trusted to head out on a mission that very quickly escalates into a massive European trek involving Nazis and a lot of racing against time and each other. It's a story that dives in within 10 pages, and generally doesn't stop until the very end.

If I have some downsides to it, it's that the book does feel a little long (which may just be a relic of the time), even if it moves pretty quickly. Other than that, though, it's a story that holds up over two generations now, and the reissues are apparently going to continue for MacInnes's works throughout 2013. I look forward to reading more of them as time goes on, and hopefully they find a new audience in this new century.



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Review: Flat-Out Love

Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A different YA book that I grabbed off of the Amazon Prime lending library, and I'm actually pretty glad I did.

The story follows Julie, who is starting college in Boston and runs into an issue where her college housing has fallen out and she's stranded in the city with nowhere to live. Her mother's old college roommate still lives in the city with her kids, however, and she decides to take Julie in. Julie quickly learns that things are a little weird. Finn, the oldest kid, is traveling the world and isn't around, but his younger sister keeps a lifesize cardboard cutout of him around. The other brother, Matt, is a socially-awkward MIT student. Julie has to balance school with this strange family that's sort of adopted her for the short term.

I truly did not see where this book was going, but really appreciated where it ended up by the time I was finished. It's a surprisingly chaste book for the genre, and it takes a few chances I didn't expect. The book is very professional and well-written, which can't be said for a lot of independently-published books, and it just works. It's stunning it wasn't picked up by any major house.

If you have the Prime lending library, grab this as your freebie. It's worth your time. If not, it's under $4 at Amazon, well worth your money.



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Review: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This book was amazing.

The book is, as the title says, Stephen King writing about writing. It's separated into three parts: a mini-memoir that tells a bit about his life and how he came to be the person he is (with details of how certain parts of his life dictated his stories), a larger section about writing itself, and then a recap of his recovery of being hit by a van in the late 1990s.

This, surprisingly, was my first Stephen King book. All this time, I've never actually read King, and I can see why he's so popular from this alone. The guy knows how to turn a phrase, plain and simple. What's interesting is how matter-of-fact his advice is and, more to the point, how he's up front that writing may not be for everybody and that you probably can't turn a bad writer into something a bad writer is not.

(Yes, I still want to write. More than before, in fact.)

Either way, I absolutely devoured all 220 pages of this over the course of a few hours one night, and I'm immensely glad I did. It made me appreciate Stephen King the author that much more, made me respect the craft of writing a lot more, and perhaps inspired me to consider giving writing another go.

We'll see about that last part...



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A bunch of cheap ebook goodies!

Amazon has their semi-regular "Big Deal" sale going, and there's a bunch of good stuff to highlight: * Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, both by Dale McGowan, which are great atheist parenting tomes. The physical editions have a prominent space on our shelves. * Lamb by Christopher Moore, where Moore does the Jesus story from the point of view of Jesus's best friend, Biff. Hilarious. * Thomas Jefferson by Christopher Hitchens. It's Hitch on Jefferson, need we say more? * The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, a book I noted in my review of Coolidge. My favorite economic history of the Great Depression. * A Boy and His Bot by Daniel H Wilson, a middle grade book that does what it says on the tin. Worth your cash!

Review: Coolidge

Coolidge by Amity Shlaes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



One of my favorite economic history books is The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes. A take on the Great Depression that you rarely see from mainstream writers, it did a great job cutting to the chase regarding Depression-era economics. When I saw that Shlaes was doing a biography on Calvin Coolidge, all the better!

First, this is very much a political biography. While there's plenty about his family and his life before politics, it's all framed within the context of his politics and political career. With that in mind, it's a biography that really could only happen in today's political and economic climate, with the record amounts of government debt and with Keynes all the rage. Coolidge, with his tax and budget cutting ways, is an easier sell to an audience as a result.

The book itself is solid. It's highly detailed, with copious notes, and is informative without being dry. For a 450+ page book, the narrative is also very tight, and, at least when it comes to the political history, I didn't feel like I was missing a lot. The downside is that, without a strong focus also at the non-political Coolidge, Coolidge does come across as a little more eccentric than he may have been. For all I know, he may have been a strange man on a whole, but strange people generally don't get elected to the presidency.

If there is a downside, it's that the book is clearly looking to build the case for Coolidge based on his actions. We get very little negative information about Coolidge that might help round out his presidency, and it makes things somewhat lacking as a result in that area. It's not a fatal flaw, but given the overall lack of knowledge people may have of Coolidge, this may not be the fairest introduction for many. On the other hand, this is not an introductory tome, so there's that to consider.

Overall, however, a great book with a lot going for it, and a strong take on a president who, at best, is largely forgotten and at worst unfairly maligned for issues he didn't cause. Worth reading for anyone interested in the political aspects of the 1920s and the aftermath of them.



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Review: Aquaman, Vol. 1: The Trench

Aquaman, Vol. 1: The Trench by Geoff Johns

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I wouldn't have normally picked up Aquaman, seeing as how few take him seriously, he wasn't that interesting in the first New 52 volume of Justice League, and my closest association in my brain is the Entourage arc.

Then the story disarms us immediately with Aquaman not being taken seriously in his own universe.

Right away, the attitude changed for me. Knowing that I was coming on board with something different here laid the groundwork for what actually ended up being a really interesting story with a character I knew little about, but saw receive a significant amount of justification for existence. We get to see a lot of who Aquaman is, what he can do (and, perhaps more importantly, what he can't and doesn't do), and get a good pile of mysteries to move forward with as well.

It's probably closer to a 4.5, but I really had a lot of fun with this one. In the off chance you've been on the fence, it's worth giving a shot.



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Review: The Boys, Vol. 10: Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker

The Boys, Vol. 10: Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker by Garth Ennis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Wow.

So, when it comes to The Boys, I've never really found The Butcher to be all that interesting. I know most who love the series love The Butcher, but he too often felt like a ringleader type with an interesting cast of characters surrounding him, not a major piece of the overall puzzle. So when I went to pick up the next trade in line and saw it was an extended Butcher series, I was a little disappointed. Having seen a glimpse of the overall endgame in the previous arc, to spend time away from that with a character I didn't especially care much about in either direction?

Boy, was I wrong.

As a basic place in the story, the arc itself does a tremendous job fleshing out a significant background for a character that has more or less kept it tightly bound. We get the rage, we get the skill, and, devastatingly, we get why he hates the Supes now, and the over-the-top brutality that this series is known for finally has a purpose.

As actual storytelling? Even better. The quality of writing, the way everything is lined up from start to finish? Flawless. Up there with some of the best I've had the privilege of reading period. The final scenes where The Butcher finally learns about what happened? Just gut-wrenching.

I get that The Boys isn't for everyone. Heck, I doubted it was for me for a time. Not only did this arc fully and completely validate the entire series for me up to this point, but it really validated where Ennis sits in comparison to his peers, how he can create something so out there, so over the top, and yet so effective at pulling the right strings.

I wish this was something I could hand to people as an individual issue, to say "read this and you'll get something out of it." Without the rest of the story to fuel the necessary knowledge that makes this book work, it's just a story of a man dealt a tough hand. In context, it's a brilliant character study instead.



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Review: iZombie Vol. 4: Repossessed

iZombie Vol. 4: Repossessed by Chris Roberson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a first for me: the first time I've read a comic get rushed to a conclusion because it was cancelled. iZombie survived for 28 issues over four trades, and it's a bit of an abrupt end, but still a good payoff for what ended up being a solid series after a few missteps here and there.

The first couple chapters/issues are very "...huh?" inducing, and then things pick up really, really quickly. There's a lot of plotting and a lot of action in a little time over the course of the rest of the book, and it really works out well. For a series that may have moved a little too slowly for me at times, picking up the pace works.

Plus, there's Lovecraftian elements! I'm honestly not sure if this was the overall plan or something cooked up after the quick cancellation, but the key plot to finish things out is straight out of a good old Cthuhlu story, and if you know me at all, you know that it's going to get my attention and quick.

Overall, it's hard to really pinpoint my feelings on the series on a whole. It's sort of like Dollhouse, or the last few episodes of Angel, where we get a glimpse of what might have been but ultimately end up kind of hustled off to the exit. It's not the fault of anyone involved with the series, thankfully - it was a fun ride with a lot of charm unlike anything I'd ever read in comic form. It's just a shame it had to end so quickly.



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