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June 29
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Mark
gave
 
to:
Oliver Twist (Penguin Classics)
by Charles Dickens
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Mark said:
"I have in my 37 years of life avoided reading Charles Dickens. My reason: after having suffered through trying to read the so-called English literature of his era--think Thomas Harding, Emile Bronte and Mary Shelly--I figured Dickens would be no be...more
I have in my 37 years of life avoided reading Charles Dickens. My reason: after having suffered through trying to read the so-called English literature of his era--think Thomas Harding, Emile Bronte and Mary Shelly--I figured Dickens would be no better. For some reason I can’t now recollect, I decided to give Dickens a try. I chose Oliver Twist. And was immediately hooked. Far from the boring narrative one finds the works of the other English writers I've already mentioned, Dickens has a very personable, simple, attractive writing style.
As its title suggests, the book itself is about Oliver Twist. He's an orphan who, constantly abused, finally runs away and goes to London for there he figures he'll never be found. During his trip to that city, he meets a youth of perhaps thirteen years who calls himself the Artful Dodger. He's a pick pocket, and he brings poor Oliver into a den of thieves, one headed by a fence named Fagin. Here is a character of very bad reputation. Alas, he also demonstrates Dickens’ obvious anti-Semitism. Fagin represents a caricature of all “bad” Jews. Despite this flaw, Dickens nonetheless makes him a compelling villain. His other primary rogue, Bill Sikes the housebreaker, is even more dangerous and more terrifying.
Poor Oliver is soon used as a decoy while the Artful Dodger and his fellow pickpocket, Charley Bates, steal from a gentleman looking at books at a bookstand. Oliver is caught, taken to the magistrate, then befriended by the very man who thought Oliver had picked his pocket: Mr. Brownlow. From here Oliver’s adventures for the most part recall the terrible things that happen to the poor boy: he’s kidnapped, compelled to be a house breaker, and has a variety of other problems. Along the way he learns that not all the adults in the world are as compassionless as those who ran the Parish orphanage from whence he came.
This book is more than a compelling tale: it is biting social commentary, attacking the terrible conditions that the English masses had to endure in the first half of the 19th century; it is especially critical of the unfair Poor Law. England at that time was in essence what the free market advocates want in America to be today: they want no government interference in business nor the government to manage anyone’s lives’ let the market to take care of it! Thus an orphanage isn’t a place where you keep children until they can be adopted or come of age, it’s a place where you work the them to turn a profit. Oddly, this tale rings very true to our society today, but even if you have no interest whatsoever in society in general and politics and economics in particular, it’s nonetheless a wonderful tale well worth reading....less
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June 12
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Mark
gave
to:
The Serpent's Tale (Hardcover)
by Ariana Franklin
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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May 31
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Mark
gave
to:
The Stars Down Under (Hardcover)
by Sandra McDonald
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in May, 2008
Mark said:
"The Stars Down Under Review
This book is in fact the second in what appears to be an ongoing series. However, its cover and dust jacket info gave no hint that a previous book with this book’s main characters and universe existed, so I read it. ...more
The Stars Down Under Review
This book is in fact the second in what appears to be an ongoing series. However, its cover and dust jacket info gave no hint that a previous book with this book’s main characters and universe existed, so I read it. I had no trouble jumping into the story or grasping most of the back story.
The story is set in the far future where Earth has become a terrible place to live thanks to something called the Debasement (a nuclear holocaust by the sound of it), and much of humanity has moved to the so-called Seven Sisters—Earth-like planets that are nice. On these worlds inhabitants have found an alien technology: a series of spheres that, if you get in one, you can summon a token (a ring in the shape of a serpent eating its own tale) and, poof, it will take you to the next sphere, which may be as far away as another galaxy. This may not be the most original idea (think Stargate), but McDonald manages to avoid using it in a cliché manner.
Enter the characters: Chief Terry Myrell and his wife, Commander Jodenny. They belong to the military operation Team Space and have just been stationed to the planet Fortune. The two have recently completed some sort of adventure within the Sphere system and, after returning, it no longer works. The wife of a scientist who was off exploring in the system when it shut down, Gale, comes to Jodenny begging her to go to a sphere to see if a token comes. Terry, who had some sort of encounter with an alien being called the Rainbow Serpent, refuses and doesn’t want Jodenny to go.
She does, he does, and both get into the sphere. When Terry activates it, a token comes and Gale shows her true colors: she, along with a squad of marines, force Terry to go with them in search of her husband. (They fear without him they won’t get a token, and they’re right.) The brass on Fortune, meanwhile, shovel Jodenny off to Earth to keep her from making a ruckus about her husband. Now the two each has an adventure and they will result in their meeting again to create the book’s tragic climax.
But was it good? Very. McDonald managed to take a series of somewhat tired sci fi ideas and twist them into something interesting, all be it not entirely new. She also introduced a secondary plot that created an unexpected menace, enhancing the already interesting adventure the characters had embarked upon. Best of all, the characters were all well-developed and very human, complete with a variety of personal problems—the same sort that the average reader can readily identify with. I know I’ll be putting McDonald on my list of authors to read....less
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May 27
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Mark
gave
to:
Mad Kestrel (Paperback)
by Misty Massey (Goodreads author!)
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Mark said:
"This started with an interesting premise: Kestrel is the quartermaster of a pirate ship and also a Promise: one who has the ability to perform acts of magic. But a group called the Danisoban have a monopoly on magic and when Kes was four years old...more
This started with an interesting premise: Kestrel is the quartermaster of a pirate ship and also a Promise: one who has the ability to perform acts of magic. But a group called the Danisoban have a monopoly on magic and when Kes was four years old, they tried to take her away. Her parents sacrificed their lives to give her a chance to escape, which she did. She became a street urchin. Danisobans notably can't go anywhere near seawater or they lose their powers, but she didn't choose life at sea for that reason; a serendipitous encounter with a pirate captain named Binns in which she saved him from gambling his ship away to hucksters is how that happened.
After a mysterious encounter at sea with a ship that simply disappears (spooking the crew), Binns and crew head to port to refit because of a storm. While ashore Kess meets the captain of the disappearing ship and runs away from him, fearing he's a Danisoban that has power at sea. A bounty hunter captures her (she escapes), and some tramp gives her a mysterious message for Binns.
Binns and the captain of the disappearing ship, MacAvery, meet unexpectedly and start bargaining over the price of MacAvery's ship, which he wishes to sell. The next morning Binns is arrested, tells Kess to get hold of his log, and off she goes to rescue him, MacAvery thrown into the mix.
At this point the book was a page turner. But it went downhill from there. Massey's prose is hardly award-winning in the first place--it's uninspired at best--but it suddenly went from OK to bad. Her character dialog began decent but soon fell into clichés; her characters, who has so much promise, went from borderline three dimensional to two to one dimensional. By the end, the book falls into mindless predictability. Worse, it’s too "perfect," as if a genie has granted every character his or her wish.
An even bigger problem with the book is believability. To use an old story among editors: if an Martian writes a book on the true history of Mars, it will still fail if its readers fail to believe it. Moreover, Massey clearly knows nothing about pirates, ships, or life at the sea, let alone an even basic grasp of seaman's jargon. For example: the pirates act like the crew of a privateer, not a pirate ship; historically, pirates were extremely lazy and uncooperative, not to mention constantly drunk; Massey's pirates had none of these characteristics. Moreover, while females really did serve as pirates from time to time, none did so as a quartermaster (at least no historical records exist to tell us this). This isn’t necessarily a problem; writer Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, once had a female pirate queen, but her position came about because her crew worshipped her as a goddess, and she was quite ruthless (unlike Kess); she was believable.
The only reason I gave this book two stars was that I actually managed to get to the end, but I did so because I wanted to write a review and felt it wouldn't be fair if I didn't finish it. This book is clearly the start of a new series, one I don't recommend anyone bother with....less
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Mark
gave
to:
Holmes on the Range (Holmes on the Range Mysteries)
by Steve Hockensmith
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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May 23
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Mark
gave
to:
The Black Dove: A Holmes on the Range Mystery (Hardcover)
by Steve Hockensmith
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in May, 2008
Mark said:
"This the third in a series, but you can easily start with this book without having read the others first. The Black Dove is a detective novel set in early 1890’s San Francisco. Its main protagonists are a pair of constantly bickering brothers, th...more
This the third in a series, but you can easily start with this book without having read the others first. The Black Dove is a detective novel set in early 1890’s San Francisco. Its main protagonists are a pair of constantly bickering brothers, the Almingmeyers. Otto, better known as “Big Red,” is the educated one. Gustav, “Old Red” (because he’s older than Otter rather than old in any real sense), is an illiterate cowboy. After a flood swept away the family farm--and the entire family save for Otto--Gustav took Otto under his wing and they worked as drovers. One night Otto read a Sherlock Holmes story out loud to his brother and Gustav wasn’t just hooked, he suddenly realized he wanted to be a detective with Holmes as his sole inspiration.
Illiterate and oft-times ignorant cowpoke or not, Gustav is very good at “deducifying.” When the Black Dove opens, the brothers, nearly broke, are living in a cheap hotel. The two, soon accompanied by an acquaintance they met in a previous adventure, the the ex-railroad detective Diana Corvis, wind up in Chinatown investigating the murder of another old acquaintance from a previous adventure, Dr. Chan.
They attract all sorts of trouble, such as hatchet men, and visit some seemingly places like a brothel and most China Town’s opium dens in search of clues. Throw in the Chinese-hating Sgt. Mahoney (head of the Chinatown police division and backed by the anti-Chinese League) and a variety of other characters and you have a rollicking adventure. What makes this book (and its predecessors) so good is that Hockensmith manages to weave a well-plotted mystery with very human characters, a good dose of humor, and a style of prose that creates the perfect tone.
While mystery novels are often peppered with interesting detectives, I have to say that the Almingmeyers are the most unique since, well, the Sherlock Holmes himself. Of the various mystery series I read, of which there are many (including Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot), I think this one is my favorite. Well, except for the original Holmes stories, of course.
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May 12
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Mark
gave
to:
The Somnambulist (Hardcover)
by Jonathan Barnes
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in April, 2008
Mark said:
"Edward Moon, this book’s main protagonist, is a has-been stage magician and, until a bad bit of luck several years earlier that sullied his reputation, a renowned amateur detective whose skills and methods have an uncanny resemblance to Sherlock Ho...more
Edward Moon, this book’s main protagonist, is a has-been stage magician and, until a bad bit of luck several years earlier that sullied his reputation, a renowned amateur detective whose skills and methods have an uncanny resemblance to Sherlock Holmes. The story is even set in Victorian England. The Somnambulist, for whom this book is named, actually has little to do with its overall plot. He is Moon’s assistant and friend, and an unusual fellow to say the least. Hairless, huge, strong, and mute (he communicates using a chalk board), Moon regularly stabs him with swords and no blood is drawn. And it’s no illusion: he doesn’t bleed for real. He also drinks vast quantities of milk.
The book’s narrative, however, is told by an anonymous writer who has the ability to relate events at which he seemed not to attend. When this mystery person does reveal his identify, it locks into the plot flawlessly. In any case, a bizarre murder involving a room with all the doors locked mystery draws Moon into a much larger plot, which only gets more confusing when he meets a man who lives his life backwards in time, meaning that if you meet him on Tuesday, he won’t remember you on Thursday since from his perspective he hasn’t met you yet. Add to this a peculiar and mysterious cult, plus Moon’s Irene Adler-like sister, and you have a fast-paced story filled with all sorts of surprises.
This is, I must admit, one of the best fantasy-mysteries I’ve ever read, and just a plain good book. I have to say there are a few unanswered questions at the end, but if I ask them here, it will spoil a few things....less
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Mark
gave
to:
City of Shadows: A Novel of Suspense (Paperback)
by Ariana Franklin
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in May, 2008
Mark said:
"Most people have probably heard of Franziska Schanskowska and don't even know it. She is the woman who claimed to be Anastasia, daughter of Russia's last czar. Ariana Franklin has crafted a thriller around this woman's earlier years that involves a...more
Most people have probably heard of Franziska Schanskowska and don't even know it. She is the woman who claimed to be Anastasia, daughter of Russia's last czar. Ariana Franklin has crafted a thriller around this woman's earlier years that involves a psychopath, Nazis, a dogged police inspector (Sigfried Schmidt), and a cast of other notable characters, including the flawed yet likable huckster Prince Nick. In fact, it is Prince Nick who hears of Anna (as she calls herself) and, with his multilingual secretary, Ester, he fishes this would-be Anastasia, who calls herself Anna, out of the asylum so he can profit off her by claiming her inheritance.
Not long after her release, people around her start dying, and things spiral out of control--or so it seems.
Suddenly it is ten years later, and the Nazis are now on the cusp of taking over the country. It is in this tension-filled setting the story meets its climatic conclusion, complete with a twist.
While a compelling page turning, this book hardly qualifies a spectacular success in any sense. Compared to Franklin's book Mistress of the Art, it's a complete dud. Yet it has its merits, including interesting and well-developed characters. Its biggest flaw is its twisted and sometime convoluted plot, which at times barely stays together. Still, I'd recommend it all the same, because it was at least enjoyable....less
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