Gilbert M. Stack's Blog, page 11

The Final Deduction by Rex Stout

The Final Deduction by Rex Stout

Stout does it again. A woman approaches Wolfe when her husband has been kidnapped—not to find him, but to make sure that he comes home safe after she pays the ransom. Then the deaths start and Wolfe, trying to earn a huge fee, is in between the criminals and the cops. This one spotlights the lengths Wolfe is willing to go to in order to satisfy his greed and in doing so presents the reader with an excellent mystery. I figured out the villain, but with the wrong reason for the crimes.

 

Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny

Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazny likes heroes who don’t know who they are. The most famous is Corwin of Amber, but he also uses this idea in Creatures of Light and Darkness and again here in Roadmarks. The idea behind the Roadmarks world is that branch universes are created at every decisive (and possibly all the other) moments of history and that these branch universes were connected by some powerful race in the past so that there appears to be a road network connecting them. Certain people can travel these roads and the travelers come from the whole range of history and cultures. One of the travelers (our hero who doesn’t know who he is) has another traveler acting out on a vendetta against him by hiring a large number of assassins to track him down through time and kill him. To make matters a bit more complicated, the storyline advances in two timelines. It’s a fast-moving, fun story, but not one of Zelazny’s best.

 

Personality Tests and What They Can Tell Us by Jamie Kurtz

Personality Tests and What They Can Tell Us by Jamie Kurtz

Everyone knows that there are personality tests out there. Many of us have taken them on the internet or had them handed out in school. (We took one in high school that told everyone in my class of more than 400 that we should be farmers.) But when push came to shove, I realize I knew very little about them, so I read this very short Great Courses book. I enjoyed learning a little about the history and exploring the types of tests out there, but I didn’t come away thinking that these tests actually help very much to learn about peoples’ personalities.

 

Ruthless Tide by Al Roker

Ruthless Tide by Al Roker

The Johnstown Flood was the most devastating in U.S. history killing thousands of people. It was also a completely unnecessary tragedy, because it was not the result of nature, but of the failing of a poorly constructed dam. The dam was made to create an artificial lake to provide fishing for wealthy elites such as Andrew Carnegie. It’s spillways, a safety feature, were blocked to keep the fish from escaping. There were many signs for years that the dam was a disaster waiting to happen, but these warning signs were ignored because repairing the dam would have been expensive. When unusually heavy rains overpowered the dam, the escaping waters killed thousands and devastated the valley beneath it. And when survivors tried to sue the wealthy people responsible, the nineteenth century court system protected the rich. It was, however, one of the inspirations that led to early twentieth century progressivism and efforts to regulate industry.

 

Brotherhood of War 7 The New Breed by W.E.B. Griffin

Brotherhood of War 7 The New Breed by W.E.B. Griffin

Most accounts of the military in the sixties focus on the War in Vietnam, but America was fighting against communist efforts to destabilize regimes in other parts of the world as well. One of those fights took place in the Congo—an incredibly complicated area struggling with the remains of Belgian colonialism, tribal conflict, and the aforementioned efforts by the Soviet Union and China to cause civil strife and destabilize the region. Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t want to get involved in the Congo, but he also didn’t want the region to blow up either, which is Griffin’s opening to write about espionage and Green Beret special operations in the region. It’s an exciting book, but especially interesting for focusing on a part of the world that I don’t know as much about as I would like too.

 

Dial A for Aunties by Jessie Q. Sutanto

Dial A for Aunties by Jessie Q. Sutanto

On the surface, this is a fast paced, quirky novel about a young woman whose family gets her into a very serious problem and then stumbles through hilarious situation after hilarious situation to get her out again. But dig just a little bit deeper and you have a delightful story about cultural confusion and language barriers within a loving (but still incredibly quirky) extended family. Both tales are great and combined they made for an intensely funny book that really ought to be made into a movie.

 

The problems start when Meddy’s mother decides to resolve the unfortunately single status of her daughter by impersonating her on social media and setting her up on a blind date. Meddy is bullied by her mother and aunts into keeping the date where, after a lackluster dinner, the date attempts to force Meddy to have sex with him. She uses her taser to defend herself without considering what might happen if you shock the driver of a fast-moving vehicle into unconsciousness.

 

When Meddy wakes up she’s in a crashed car beside a dead date and she makes the questionable decision not to report what has happened to the police, but to put the body into her trunk and drive home to get the family’s advice on how to resolve her problem. What ensues is nonstop hilarity, such as the discovery that her mother was not actually holding a respectful social media conversation with the young man she was setting up with her daughter, but one charged with barely veiled sexual innuendoes that she didn’t understand because English is her second or third language.

 

Now the coincidences start and don’t ever end. The aunts need to stash the body somewhere while they figure out how to permanently dispose of it. They choose a large cooler at one of the aunt’s businesses, but the cooler gets brought to the site of a major upscale wedding that the aunts and Meddy and her mother are all working at. (Meddy is a photographer). The wedding is also for a relative and just about every bizarre coincidence you can imagine (including Meddy’s ex managing the hotel and her now dead date having a connection to the wedding) begin to happen.

 

The body is misplaced and keeps showing up everywhere as many unrelated problems occur and complicate life for Meddy and her family. It’s quite simply hilarious and anyone who enjoys laughing should read the book to see how Meddy is going to get out of her many problems.

 

March to Other Worlds Day 31 River of Death by Gilbert M. Stack

March to Other Worlds Day 31 River of Death by Gilbert M. Stack

As we bring this year’s March to Other Worlds to a close, I’d like to spotlight my Legionnaire series and specifically, the fourteenth volume, River of Death, which I published this month.

 

I’ve been reading fantasy novels since at least the sixth grade when my mother bought me The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. That interest led me to pursue degrees in history where I was introduced to many wonderous periods in the human past. Eventually, I began to wonder why most fantasy literature was grounded in something akin to the European Middle Ages and one morning while listening to Mike Duncan’s podcast, The History of Rome, I found myself wondering what a fantasy series based loosely on the Roman Empire might be like.

 

And that’s the birth of my Legionnaire series. My Aquila is not Rome, but it shares a lot with that historical entity—especially its culture, its internal political problems, its border troubles, and of course, its amazing legions. Aquila and its world also differs mightily from Rome in a few regards—most particularly the existence and widespread practice of magic and an empire which includes and abuts places very different than those the Romans actually encountered.

 

The bulk of the series so far takes place in an area north of Aquila called the Jeweled Cities. The Cities are home to great wealth and are the only place outside of the mighty Qing empire where silk is produced—but that silk has heightened an already virulent plague of factionalism and sparked the outbreak of a vicious war and several smaller civil conflicts. Stuck in the middle of all of this is Marcus Venandus, Patrician of Aquila, Tribune of its legions, and now Prefect of the Jeweled City of Amatista. Marcus’ task in the north was to build a capable infantry fighting force—an oxymoron in the eyes of the Gota rulers of the region who cannot believe anything can ever stand up to their beloved cavalry. But then, they’ve never had to contend with a man like Marcus Venandus before, scion of a Republic who for centuries has fielded the best infantry the world has ever seen.

 

River of Death is the fourteenth volume of the series and shows Marcus taking the war deeper into enemy territory than those enemies—or even his allies—can believe.

 

River of Death:

https://www.amazon.com/River-Death-Le...

 

The Fire Islands (the first book of the Legionnaire series):

https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Islands-L...

 

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March to Other Worlds Day 30 The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein

March to Other Worlds Day 30 The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein

When I was in the ninth grade, I joined The Science Fiction Book Club and got my first five books for a dollar. One of those books was called A Heinlein Trio and the first of the stories was The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein. It was the second Heinlein book I read (the first was Between Planets which was serialized as a comic book in Boy’s Life magazine) and it’s a great example of Heinlein writing exciting stories built on themes he cared strongly about—the importance of the individual and the dangers of a society in which all members are expected to tow the same political and ideological line regardless of their self-interests and personal philosophies.

 

Heinlein published The Puppet Masters in 1951 after a rash of UFO sightings in the 1940s. Heinlein used the sightings as a springboard for an imaginative and disturbing tale of slug-like creatures capable of taking over the minds of any human (and many other creatures) that they touch. The enslaved human knows what it is doing, but lacks even the desire (much less the ability) to fight against the alien puppeteer. Heinlein’s novel takes the struggle against the alien invaders from first contact, to insidious infiltration, to widespread invasion, and finally to the epic struggle to free our planet in an exciting adventure story. Yet, as important and entertaining as these events are, they are not what makes the novel great. Instead, it is the exploration—never preachy—into why freedom of conscious is important as well as the fundamental relationships which make human life worth living that give this book its power.

 

As you would expect of a book written in the fifties, there is a dated feel to some elements of the book. For example, while Mary, Heinlein’s heroine, is definitely an empowered and capable woman, many of her reactions and the condescending way in which she is often treated, will grate irritatingly on the modern reader. Similarly, Heinlein’s vision of the late twenty-first century quite understandably fails to foretell many things we take for granted in modern life even while he foresees the growing importance of industries such as telecommunications. Don’t let these faults distract you from a great story.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Puppet-Masters...

 

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March to Other Worlds Day 29 A Soldier of Poloda by Lee Strong

March to Other Worlds Day 29 A Soldier of Poloda by Lee Strong

As we near the end of this year’s March, I’ve invited Chris L. Adams back to give a guest review. Last year, Chris reviewed The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This year, he turns his attention to a Burroughs near-spin-off, A Solider of Poloda by Lee Strong. Here’s the review:

 

Like many fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB), I have often reread his two novelettes, Beyond the Farthest Star and Tangor Returns, lamenting that he hadn’t continued them as with his other famous series such as Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, to name two. But we just didn’t get that next novel.

 

Thank goodness after my latest reread of those classics, I was able to slide into something that was so much like what I had just finished reading that it was almost as if I was being gifted with that missing novel that Burroughs never wrote. I’m referring to Lee Strong’s, A Soldier of Poloda.

 

Let me get this out of the way so no one feels misled if they decide to purchase A Soldier of Poloda—this isn’t Tangor Returns Part 2. Tangor makes an appearance, but he isn’t the main character. Lee’s new character, Ran, is the primary character who wades across our pages, and over the war torn planet of Poloda.

 

My hat is off to Strong who was able, in my opinion, to pull off one top-notch sequel to Beyond the Farthest Star, where an American pilot in WW2 is slain by a German machinegun bullet, and is then cast 450,000 light years from Earth to another world where he is reincarnated and called Tangor, a word that means “from nothing” in the language of the people among whom he finds himself.

 

Strong nails utterly the look and feel of Poloda where all-out war has raged for over a century. The desultory cry of “It is war,” from the war-weary people of Unis is there. So are the war-hungry, power-mad, whacko Kaparans, the bombings, the airplane battles, the green-shirted Zabo police thugs, the klaxons, interrogation rooms, planes and bombs falling from the sky… Everything that reminds you of ERB’s Poloda is there—but there’s a new twist.

 

Some of those things are more muted in this novel, lurking in the background, noticed in passing by Ran, the hero, as he wades across the savage, war-torn surface of Poloda offering a different point of view than our beloved flyboy, Tangor. For Ran is a foot soldier and so has different ideas about how to take on the Kapars. And he’s good at it, coming up on-the-spot with clever ways out of the messes in which he finds himself. But one of the things I enjoyed most about the novel is Strong’s wit he brings to bear.

 

Tangor was witty and fast on his feet—and so is Ran. We’re a naturally cynical race, so maybe it’s an Earthling thing? Actually, I think Poloda has just been fighting for so long that they’ve forgotten how to joke. Strong does a killer job of creating an analogous character to Ed’s Tangor but also succeeds in spades in creating his own, unique character whom I found every bit as much fun to read as I did Tangor.

 

In summary, A Soldier of Poloda is a great sequel to two of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ most beloved novels.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Poloda...

 

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March to Other Worlds Day 28 Into the Looking Glass by John Ringo

March to Other Worlds Day 28 Into the Looking Glass by John Ringo

To close out the fourth week of the March to Other Worlds, we’re going to immerse ourselves in Into the Looking Glass, a classic John Ringo “target rich environment” style novel with a lot of science fiction thrown in for good measure. The series begins with an explosion—nuclear in appearance but without the hard radiation. The explosion was triggered by a science experiment which is now generating “gates” that look like circular mirrors. These gates go to other worlds (and possibly to other universes) and they put the entire earth in jeopardy as some of those worlds are inhabited by hostile creatures.

 

The hero of the story is William Weaver, a physicist who gets caught up in the mess as the National Security Advisor’s point person in attempting to understand—and stop—what is happening. He’s a great character and lots of fun to follow as he arrives at the new gates as they appear and bad things start happening. My favorite part of the whole book is when a small National Guard detachment gets overrun by some aliens in Virginia or West Virginia and they put a call out over the radio for anyone with a gun to help them secure the gate. A whole group of gun collectors arrive and they are so very fun to watch trying out their favorite weapons on alien cannon fodder.

 

The problem for Weaver is that new gates keep opening and some have highly hostile beings behind them. So, Weaver has to figure out how to stop the gates from opening so that the earth (and every place beyond the earth that the newly appearing gates go) doesn’t get overrun. In doing so, he drops some nice science (I presume it’s real science) on the reader in digestible bites and even gets into a little (but not too much) philosophy. Best of all, he sets up a whole multiverse for future stories.

 

If you like books where the heroes get to shoot up the alien critters, you’re going to love Into the Looking Glass.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Into-Looking-G...

 

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