Carl Alves's Blog, page 7
August 16, 2020
Usher's Passing by Robert McCammon
When I first started reading this book, I thought it would be a historical fiction novel featuring Edgar Allen Poe and the Usher family that he wrote about over a century ago. It turned out to be set in modern-day. I was hoping for historical fiction given that McCammon is terrific as an author in that genre. Having said that, Usher’s Passing did not disappoint.
It was an interesting and imaginative tale. In this world, the Usher family is one of the wealthiest in the world, with their fortune tied to the sale of arms. Rix Usher is the outcast of the family. He’s a horror writer (I imagine Robert McCammon put some elements of himself into this character). He’s vehemently against the family business but returns to their compound in North Carolina with his father dying. Although Rix doesn’t want anything to do with the family business, he wants to write an expose/history of the family in sordid detail. But what lurks beneath the surface is the supernatural and how the family has been able to achieve the fortune through ties with otherworldly forces.
There are some nice twists and turns in this novel. The main baddie here is the Pumpkin Man, a supernatural character who has been abducting children for decades. When the reveal was finally made about the Pumpkin Man’s identity, I was surprised. It was a well-delivered set up that made sense in retrospect but caught me off guard. I thought there was good character development in this novel, with a good many memorable characters. The writing was strong and purposeful. The supernatural elements mixed in well with the parts that were grounded in reality. My only negative was that I felt it dragged in certain parts and could have used some trimming to make it a tighter story.
It was an interesting and imaginative tale. In this world, the Usher family is one of the wealthiest in the world, with their fortune tied to the sale of arms. Rix Usher is the outcast of the family. He’s a horror writer (I imagine Robert McCammon put some elements of himself into this character). He’s vehemently against the family business but returns to their compound in North Carolina with his father dying. Although Rix doesn’t want anything to do with the family business, he wants to write an expose/history of the family in sordid detail. But what lurks beneath the surface is the supernatural and how the family has been able to achieve the fortune through ties with otherworldly forces.
There are some nice twists and turns in this novel. The main baddie here is the Pumpkin Man, a supernatural character who has been abducting children for decades. When the reveal was finally made about the Pumpkin Man’s identity, I was surprised. It was a well-delivered set up that made sense in retrospect but caught me off guard. I thought there was good character development in this novel, with a good many memorable characters. The writing was strong and purposeful. The supernatural elements mixed in well with the parts that were grounded in reality. My only negative was that I felt it dragged in certain parts and could have used some trimming to make it a tighter story.
Usher's Passing by Robert McCammon
When I first started reading this book, I thought it would be a historical fiction novel featuring Edgar Allen Poe and the Usher family that he wrote about over a century ago. It turned out to be set in modern-day. I was hoping for historical fiction given that McCammon is terrific as an author in that genre. Having said that, Usher’s Passing did not disappoint.
It was an interesting and imaginative tale. In this world, the Usher family is one of the wealthiest in the world, with their fortune tied to the sale of arms. Rix Usher is the outcast of the family. He’s a horror writer (I imagine Robert McCammon put some elements of himself into this character). He’s vehemently against the family business but returns to their compound in North Carolina with his father dying. Although Rix doesn’t want anything to do with the family business, he wants to write an expose/history of the family in sordid detail. But what lurks beneath the surface is the supernatural and how the family has been able to achieve the fortune through ties with otherworldly forces.
There are some nice twists and turns in this novel. The main baddie here is the Pumpkin Man, a supernatural character who has been abducting children for decades. When the reveal was finally made about the Pumpkin Man’s identity, I was surprised. It was a well-delivered set up that made sense in retrospect but caught me off guard. I thought there was good character development in this novel, with a good many memorable characters. The writing was strong and purposeful. The supernatural elements mixed in well with the parts that were grounded in reality. My only negative was that I felt it dragged in certain parts and could have used some trimming to make it a tighter story.
It was an interesting and imaginative tale. In this world, the Usher family is one of the wealthiest in the world, with their fortune tied to the sale of arms. Rix Usher is the outcast of the family. He’s a horror writer (I imagine Robert McCammon put some elements of himself into this character). He’s vehemently against the family business but returns to their compound in North Carolina with his father dying. Although Rix doesn’t want anything to do with the family business, he wants to write an expose/history of the family in sordid detail. But what lurks beneath the surface is the supernatural and how the family has been able to achieve the fortune through ties with otherworldly forces.
There are some nice twists and turns in this novel. The main baddie here is the Pumpkin Man, a supernatural character who has been abducting children for decades. When the reveal was finally made about the Pumpkin Man’s identity, I was surprised. It was a well-delivered set up that made sense in retrospect but caught me off guard. I thought there was good character development in this novel, with a good many memorable characters. The writing was strong and purposeful. The supernatural elements mixed in well with the parts that were grounded in reality. My only negative was that I felt it dragged in certain parts and could have used some trimming to make it a tighter story.
August 4, 2020
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
I was hooked in by The Grace of Kings right from the start. There is a lot to like in this novel. I liked this novel because it had the feel of an epic fantasy novel but was written in a very different style. It had a clear Far Eastern influence to it which made it stand apart from many other fantasy novels that I have read. I also liked the mixture of science along with the fantasy as seen by the steampunk style airships featured in the novel as well as other scientific developments, including a crude type of submarine that was introduced.
The characters were also good. There were so many characters that some of them either blended together with other characters or were not particularly notable enough that by the end of the novel, I had no real remembrance of them and what they did. But there were a great many interesting and memorable characters. What I especially liked was that even the villain characters were well crafted and interesting. The ultimate villain in the novel is Mata Zyndu, who starts off as a heroic characters and friend to Kuni Garo, the main protagonist. Although Mata goes off the rails and eventually turns into a tyrant and bloodthirsty killer, there is a clear nobility to the character, and Mata is the hero of his own story. He is convinced that his way is right and just. Even the Emperor at the beginning is convinced that his vision is a good one. In some ways he was correct, although he was clearly misguided.
There were comparisons of this novel to Game of Thrones, but I wasn’t seeing it early since it has a more lighthearted tone and didn’t have all of the palace intrigue as Game of Thrones, but as it went along, I saw that there was quite a bit of deceit and backstabbing, even if it was lighthearted. The only real drawback is that I thought the novel could have used some definite editing. It was overly long in spots, and it dragged in a couple of others, but on balance this was a compelling, well written, well crafted and enjoyable novel.
The characters were also good. There were so many characters that some of them either blended together with other characters or were not particularly notable enough that by the end of the novel, I had no real remembrance of them and what they did. But there were a great many interesting and memorable characters. What I especially liked was that even the villain characters were well crafted and interesting. The ultimate villain in the novel is Mata Zyndu, who starts off as a heroic characters and friend to Kuni Garo, the main protagonist. Although Mata goes off the rails and eventually turns into a tyrant and bloodthirsty killer, there is a clear nobility to the character, and Mata is the hero of his own story. He is convinced that his way is right and just. Even the Emperor at the beginning is convinced that his vision is a good one. In some ways he was correct, although he was clearly misguided.
There were comparisons of this novel to Game of Thrones, but I wasn’t seeing it early since it has a more lighthearted tone and didn’t have all of the palace intrigue as Game of Thrones, but as it went along, I saw that there was quite a bit of deceit and backstabbing, even if it was lighthearted. The only real drawback is that I thought the novel could have used some definite editing. It was overly long in spots, and it dragged in a couple of others, but on balance this was a compelling, well written, well crafted and enjoyable novel.
July 25, 2020
Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
The second installment in the Sookie Stackhouse series was an improvement over the first novel. I’m not entirely sure where this novel fits in with the television show, but my remembrance is that the two primary plot lines encompassed more than one season on the show. The two main storylines are the one involving Sookie going to Dallas to help find a vampire that has gone missing, and Lafayette (who was a much bigger character on the television show) showing up dead in the sheriff’s car.
This novel was an easy read. Charlaine Harris writes in a pleasing style. The plot is not terribly complicated, although there was still room for a plot twist or two. Eric starts to become more of a major character in this novel, which is a good thing since he was my favorite character on the show. He has a certain confidence and swagger about him. Harris did a fine job breathing life into the character. Although not overly complex, the plot had enough meat on it to make it compelling. In a day and age where novels seemed to be growing in word count, this novel was short, sweet, and to the point. This was a fun novel that I would recommend.
This novel was an easy read. Charlaine Harris writes in a pleasing style. The plot is not terribly complicated, although there was still room for a plot twist or two. Eric starts to become more of a major character in this novel, which is a good thing since he was my favorite character on the show. He has a certain confidence and swagger about him. Harris did a fine job breathing life into the character. Although not overly complex, the plot had enough meat on it to make it compelling. In a day and age where novels seemed to be growing in word count, this novel was short, sweet, and to the point. This was a fun novel that I would recommend.
July 11, 2020
10 Questions with Grady Hendrix
1. What made you want to help start the New York Asian Film Festival?
I used to go to the Music Palace down in Chinatown to see double features when I was in university and fell in love with Hong Kong movies there. Around 1999, the owners put it on the market and some other folks who also loved the place reached out and we all met and tried to see if we could get some cultural agency to buy the building, but no luck. We realized that plenty of people would keep showing the latest Wong Kar-wai and Zhag Yimou movie but who’d show the comedies and romances and action movies we loved. So we all put our money in a pot and started showing them ourselves.
2. Who is your favorite writer?
It changes constantly, but every book I write has a writer who functions as its spirit animal. For my latest book, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, that was Shirley Jackson. I spent the entire time I wrote it re-reading her books and short stories, including her two memoirs about raising kids, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons, which are really underrated.
3, What do you prefer to write: novels, non-fiction, or screenplays?
They’re all hard for me. Novels are deeply immersive and I have to write three books and throw them out for every one book I publish. Non-fiction is back-breakingly labor-intensive because every word has to be true. And screenplays are so stripped down and concise that every sentence requires pages of work to get there. So I hate them all.
4. What current writing projects are you working on?
I’m revising a screenplay for a crime film set in the South and another one about a mediumship investigation, writing a non-fiction book about martial arts movies coming to America in the Seventies and doing revisions on my next novel, which will be out in 2021.
5. Who or what are your biggest influences in terms of your writing?
I aspire to get my writing boiled down to the lean, deceptively simple style of someone like Elmore Leonard or George V. Higgins. I fail on a regular basis.
6. Is there an overall theme to your writing?
I don’t write according to a theme, but it’s more that there are a lot of stories I want to tell. If I started today, it would take me about a decade to get them all down on paper and published.
7, In your novel, We Sold Our Souls, is Black Iron Mountain a metaphor for anything?
Black Iron Mountain is the prison that we’re all trapped in, the one where only money has value, messiness is discouraged, kindness is mistaken for weakness. Philip K. Dick wrote about a similar construct he called The Black Iron Prison, and Grant Morrison talked about something equivalent to his Anti-Life Equation. I feel like it’s a piece of mental architecture that appears from time to time in fiction almost like a kind of Flying Dutchman. The worst thing about Black Iron Mountain is that while we’re the prisoners we’re also our own jailers.
8. Is there any subject that is off-limits for you as a writer?
Not that I can think of offhand.
9. Why did you choose heavy metal to be at the front and center of your novel We Sold Our Souls?
I wanted to write about a musical genre that no one thought was cool, and no one thinks metal is cool. If you say you like metal people make a lot of unflattering assumptions about you and your life. There’s no other style of music that gets that reaction, as far as I can tell. Hip hop comes close, but at least people who listen to it are cool. There’s nothing cool about metal. That’s why I love it. And it helps that metalheads are some of the kindest, sweetest people on the planet.
10. If Hollywood was making a film adaptation of We Sold Our Souls, and the director asked you to cast the role of Kris Pulaski, who would you choose?
Juliette Lewis, now and forever.
I used to go to the Music Palace down in Chinatown to see double features when I was in university and fell in love with Hong Kong movies there. Around 1999, the owners put it on the market and some other folks who also loved the place reached out and we all met and tried to see if we could get some cultural agency to buy the building, but no luck. We realized that plenty of people would keep showing the latest Wong Kar-wai and Zhag Yimou movie but who’d show the comedies and romances and action movies we loved. So we all put our money in a pot and started showing them ourselves.
2. Who is your favorite writer?
It changes constantly, but every book I write has a writer who functions as its spirit animal. For my latest book, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, that was Shirley Jackson. I spent the entire time I wrote it re-reading her books and short stories, including her two memoirs about raising kids, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons, which are really underrated.
3, What do you prefer to write: novels, non-fiction, or screenplays?
They’re all hard for me. Novels are deeply immersive and I have to write three books and throw them out for every one book I publish. Non-fiction is back-breakingly labor-intensive because every word has to be true. And screenplays are so stripped down and concise that every sentence requires pages of work to get there. So I hate them all.
4. What current writing projects are you working on?
I’m revising a screenplay for a crime film set in the South and another one about a mediumship investigation, writing a non-fiction book about martial arts movies coming to America in the Seventies and doing revisions on my next novel, which will be out in 2021.
5. Who or what are your biggest influences in terms of your writing?
I aspire to get my writing boiled down to the lean, deceptively simple style of someone like Elmore Leonard or George V. Higgins. I fail on a regular basis.
6. Is there an overall theme to your writing?
I don’t write according to a theme, but it’s more that there are a lot of stories I want to tell. If I started today, it would take me about a decade to get them all down on paper and published.
7, In your novel, We Sold Our Souls, is Black Iron Mountain a metaphor for anything?
Black Iron Mountain is the prison that we’re all trapped in, the one where only money has value, messiness is discouraged, kindness is mistaken for weakness. Philip K. Dick wrote about a similar construct he called The Black Iron Prison, and Grant Morrison talked about something equivalent to his Anti-Life Equation. I feel like it’s a piece of mental architecture that appears from time to time in fiction almost like a kind of Flying Dutchman. The worst thing about Black Iron Mountain is that while we’re the prisoners we’re also our own jailers.
8. Is there any subject that is off-limits for you as a writer?
Not that I can think of offhand.
9. Why did you choose heavy metal to be at the front and center of your novel We Sold Our Souls?
I wanted to write about a musical genre that no one thought was cool, and no one thinks metal is cool. If you say you like metal people make a lot of unflattering assumptions about you and your life. There’s no other style of music that gets that reaction, as far as I can tell. Hip hop comes close, but at least people who listen to it are cool. There’s nothing cool about metal. That’s why I love it. And it helps that metalheads are some of the kindest, sweetest people on the planet.
10. If Hollywood was making a film adaptation of We Sold Our Souls, and the director asked you to cast the role of Kris Pulaski, who would you choose?
Juliette Lewis, now and forever.
July 3, 2020
We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix
We Sold Our Souls is a fascinating and unique novel. I truly never have read anything quite like it. My interest in the novel is heightened by me being a life long heavy metal fan. I don’t know if I would have liked this nearly as much if the focus of the novel was, say country instead of metal. That said, I think this novel worked in many different ways, and would still be a great read even if you had no interest in heavy metal.
For starters, the writing is really strong. The voice is loud and clear. The grammar, flow, and pace are all tight. I liked the way the author broke into the action with radio and television interviews or news reports to fill in the details. The characterization was also strong. Chris comes out loud and clear, as do some of the side characters. Even the villains in the story to a certain level are sympathetic and are not just evil for the sake of being evil. It’s easy to sympathize with a musician who will sell their soul not just for fame and fortune but to be legendary, for their music to live on long after they are gone. There is a lot that I liked about this novel, and my complaints are only minor. This is a horror novel well worth reading.
For starters, the writing is really strong. The voice is loud and clear. The grammar, flow, and pace are all tight. I liked the way the author broke into the action with radio and television interviews or news reports to fill in the details. The characterization was also strong. Chris comes out loud and clear, as do some of the side characters. Even the villains in the story to a certain level are sympathetic and are not just evil for the sake of being evil. It’s easy to sympathize with a musician who will sell their soul not just for fame and fortune but to be legendary, for their music to live on long after they are gone. There is a lot that I liked about this novel, and my complaints are only minor. This is a horror novel well worth reading.
June 3, 2020
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
Overall, I enjoyed Words of Radiance, perhaps not as much as the first novel in the series, but I still thought it was quite good. Not that I thought every aspect of this novel was good. For one thing, it’s too long. Even though some parts of it are page turning and intriguing, there were too many long flashbacks, too many inconsequential scenes, and the interludes generally seem like a waste of time. So, this novel is quite good but not without its flaws.
The lifeblood of any series is the characters, since the reader is going to have to spend so much time with the characters, especially in a novel as long as this one. This novel and series has well developed characters from the main ones: Kaladin, Shallan, and Dalinar to many of the lesser and side characters. The author is strong at characterization as well as building suspense. I found myself wanting to find out more about the big reveals, which are set up well. There are times when the novel is an exciting page turner, such as when Kaladin jumps into a duel with no protection to save Dalinar’s sons. I also enjoyed the specter of the Assassin in White attacking, and the intrigue surrounding the plot to kill the king. There was a lot going on in this novel, and for the most part it was good. I would recommend reading this, but I wish a strong willed editor was willing to chop this down a bit and get rid of some of the fluff.
The lifeblood of any series is the characters, since the reader is going to have to spend so much time with the characters, especially in a novel as long as this one. This novel and series has well developed characters from the main ones: Kaladin, Shallan, and Dalinar to many of the lesser and side characters. The author is strong at characterization as well as building suspense. I found myself wanting to find out more about the big reveals, which are set up well. There are times when the novel is an exciting page turner, such as when Kaladin jumps into a duel with no protection to save Dalinar’s sons. I also enjoyed the specter of the Assassin in White attacking, and the intrigue surrounding the plot to kill the king. There was a lot going on in this novel, and for the most part it was good. I would recommend reading this, but I wish a strong willed editor was willing to chop this down a bit and get rid of some of the fluff.
May 25, 2020
Demons by John Shirley
Demons for me is a tale of two books. Apparently, it started off as a novella, and later became a novel, when a second, longer part was added to it. The first part of demons was great. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It had an interesting concept, a kind of light, understated tone to it, a well-developed plot, and a decent conclusion. The characters were just so-so, but there was a lot to like about it. I wished that was all I had read because the following, longer part did not come close to delivering.
All of the charm and wit the novella had, the extended novel was lacking. The story was incoherent and nonsensical. The author wanted the reader to believe that through some sort of control of the media, that people did not believe that the demon invasion happened, despite the fact that thousands upon thousands of people died, it had dominated every facet of the world when it happened, every single human being alive witnessed it, the president of the United States was killed by a demon, and the vice president was running the country through a bunker. Am I missing something? In the novella, demons were bad and they overran the planet. Now, the author decided to use the ridiculously overused trope that it was the evil industrial corporations that were responsible for summoning these demons. Writers have a habit of using the evil, industrial corporation as the villain like a crutch. It’s old and tired. And for some reason it would be desirable for these folks to have demons destroy the planet and have it become some sort of dystopian world. Yeah, that’s exactly what a corporate industrialist would want. None of it made sense, including the part where they take away a child so they could replace him with a member of the circle. It was a big mess. I would recommend reading the first part and stopping there.
All of the charm and wit the novella had, the extended novel was lacking. The story was incoherent and nonsensical. The author wanted the reader to believe that through some sort of control of the media, that people did not believe that the demon invasion happened, despite the fact that thousands upon thousands of people died, it had dominated every facet of the world when it happened, every single human being alive witnessed it, the president of the United States was killed by a demon, and the vice president was running the country through a bunker. Am I missing something? In the novella, demons were bad and they overran the planet. Now, the author decided to use the ridiculously overused trope that it was the evil industrial corporations that were responsible for summoning these demons. Writers have a habit of using the evil, industrial corporation as the villain like a crutch. It’s old and tired. And for some reason it would be desirable for these folks to have demons destroy the planet and have it become some sort of dystopian world. Yeah, that’s exactly what a corporate industrialist would want. None of it made sense, including the part where they take away a child so they could replace him with a member of the circle. It was a big mess. I would recommend reading the first part and stopping there.
May 17, 2020
The Queen is Dead by Kate Locke
I really enjoyed the first novel in the Immortal Empire Series, but I felt the second novel in the series fell off the mark and didn’t live up to my expectations. For starters, the setup is almost exactly the same as the first novel. One of Xandra’s siblings goes missing and she has to go find them. This time, it’s her brother, Val. She is still involved in a relationship with her werewolf boyfriend, a relationship that is so typical in this genre of novel. The storyline is very similar to the first novel as well with the exception that Xandra now knows she’s a goblin instead of the mystery in the first novel where she was finding it out. The novel ends very abruptly with no resolution to the storyline except for the missing sibling.
I don’t want to be overly negative, since there were elements of the novel that I enjoyed. The writing for the most part was strong. The characters were generally well done with a couple of exceptions. The plot moved along and set up for the final novel in the series. Overall, it wasn’t a bad read. It just seemed to be a repeat of the first novel, and no new ground was broken here. It did not deter me from wanting to read the finale and completing the series, which I will be doing soon.
I don’t want to be overly negative, since there were elements of the novel that I enjoyed. The writing for the most part was strong. The characters were generally well done with a couple of exceptions. The plot moved along and set up for the final novel in the series. Overall, it wasn’t a bad read. It just seemed to be a repeat of the first novel, and no new ground was broken here. It did not deter me from wanting to read the finale and completing the series, which I will be doing soon.
May 10, 2020
God Save the Queen by Kate Locke
God Save the Queen is a bit of a mishmash of different genres. It’s part alternate history where during the reign of Queen Victoria, she and other aristocrats are plagued with some taking the form of vampires, others werewolves, and others goblins. It’s part fantasy with some shades of romance, although that’s a small part of the novel, with a bit of a steampunk feel to it. Queen Victoria is still alive, and there are divisions between the aristocrats and the humans with half-bloods (half human and half other) somewhere in between.
The protagonist, Xandra Vardan, is part of the Royal Guard, an elite fighting squad of half-bloods whose job it is to defend the aristocrats from humans who might wish them harm. The plot thickens when Xandra’s sister goes missing and is declared to be dead, although she’s not dead, causing Xandra to investigate. In the process, she discovers a conspiracy that she’s at the center of.
By and large, I liked this novel. I like the writing style. Although I generally liked the characterization, if you’ve read any modern urban fantasy, there is a lot of cliché to Xandra and Vex, her alpha werewolf love interest. The biggest shortcoming of this novel is that these two characters, the bad ass female protagonist, and her bad boy non-human lover, have been done to death and there is no new ground here. The plot was sound, and I enjoyed the steampunkish feel to it where there is some technology in this world but not to our levels of technology. Overall, I would give this novel a thumbs up and will be reading the second novel in the series.
The protagonist, Xandra Vardan, is part of the Royal Guard, an elite fighting squad of half-bloods whose job it is to defend the aristocrats from humans who might wish them harm. The plot thickens when Xandra’s sister goes missing and is declared to be dead, although she’s not dead, causing Xandra to investigate. In the process, she discovers a conspiracy that she’s at the center of.
By and large, I liked this novel. I like the writing style. Although I generally liked the characterization, if you’ve read any modern urban fantasy, there is a lot of cliché to Xandra and Vex, her alpha werewolf love interest. The biggest shortcoming of this novel is that these two characters, the bad ass female protagonist, and her bad boy non-human lover, have been done to death and there is no new ground here. The plot was sound, and I enjoyed the steampunkish feel to it where there is some technology in this world but not to our levels of technology. Overall, I would give this novel a thumbs up and will be reading the second novel in the series.
