Gilbert M. Stack's Blog, page 3

Veiled Threats by S. G. Tasz

Veiled Threats by S. G. Tasz

Cari and Rex joined a team of mall-cops-turned-demon-hunters at the end of the last book and at the start of this novel, we learn a lot about what is really going on in the dead town of Halcyon. I loved the backstory. It’s a make-or-break moment for a series like this and Tasz clearly “makes” it. The sweet town legend of a minister and his flock traveling west in the nineteenth century when they happen upon gold in the streams of Halcyon could not be further from the truth—and that truth sets the scene for a rollicking good time for Tasz’s readers. There’s a deal with the devil at the heart of the problem. Actually, there are several deals with the devil and a bunch of angry men and women who sold their souls and don’t want to pay the piper.

 

Whereas the last book boiled down to a simple “kill the monsters” problem. This book shows that the threat is much more insidious than some ravenous beasts emerging from hell every evening between midnight and 1am. That depth is going to serve this series well in future novels.

 

The Covenant of the Crown by Howard Weinstein

The Covenant of the Crown by Howard Weinstein

After Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in theaters, Simon & Schuster began to publish Star Trek Novels. The Covenant of the Crown was the fourth in the new series and is probably most notable for attempting to add some characterization to Kirk and McCoy. Kirk has been ordered to escort a king he met as a young officer back to his planet in a bid to restore peace. McCoy is feeling old and wondering about how useful he can continue to be. Both plots add a little sparkle to an otherwise typical story in which Klingons cause some trouble while the Enterprise crew fights to save the day.

 

McCoy’s problem is the more interesting of the two as the young princess in the story who has lived an incredibly sheltered life becomes infatuated with him. Since he’s having a midlife crisis, this would have seemed like an opportunity for McCoy to try and recapture his youth, but he proves (as expected) to have stronger ethics than that. In helping the young woman to understand the difference between friendship and love, he figures out for himself what he still has to offer the Federation. For Kirk, restoring the royal family to their throne gives him the opportunity to close the door on a piece of unfinished business from the start of his service in Star Fleet.

 

Overall, it’s a fine quick read.

 

A Right to Die by Rex Stout

A Right to Die by Rex Stout

I really like it when Stout reaches back into one of the previous novels to create the reason for his current mystery. It gives the series a sense of history and even though Archie and Nero never appear to age, it makes it clear that they have aged and that they have been solving mysteries together for decades.

 

In this case, the element from the past is an extra delight, because Stout returns to what I think is his best Nero Wolfe novel and specifically draws on what I have called his best written chapter, number eleven in Too Many Cooks. To set the stage, Wolfe had done the thing he hates the most—left home—and he was in danger of being forced to remain away from home for a prolonged period of time if he cannot solve a murder. The people with the knowledge he needs were a group of African American waiters and chefs’ assistants who had no reason to help him, and he brilliantly convinces them to help. Now, one of those men has come to Wolfe with a problem, and Wolfe feels obliged to return the favor from all those years ago.

 

The man has a son who is deeply involved in the civil rights movement and who is about to marry a wealthy white woman who is also deeply interested in civil rights. Before long, as the reader will suspect is going to happen from the beginning, that woman is murdered and the son is arrested for the crime. Wolfe is convinced of the young man’s innocence and believes that the actual culprit is another member of the civil rights organization for which the son and the murdered woman work. No one really wants to help him prove that. It’s a wonderful mystery handled in typical Nero Wolfe fashion. I’m pleased that I identified most of the key elements, but sad I couldn’t put them together. I should have been able to. And as to the ending…Stout manages to make it both very creepy and very sad.

 

After reading this one, I think I will have to reread Too Many Cooks.

 

Avengers: The Extinction Key by Greg Keyes

Avengers: The Extinction Key by Greg Keyes

The Avengers must assemble to prevent an apocalyptic event brought on by twelve villains whose powers are inspired and powered by the Zodiac. It’s a good adventure fueled by Greg Keyes’ tight storytelling. As the stars get closer to the proper alignment, the villains’ powers get stronger, but they’re up against the Avengers and Dr. Strange, so the outcome is never really in doubt.

 

I think the best part of the story was the introduction of the Abomination with a new origin story. It adds a little humanity which I thought was more effective than the efforts with Bruce Banner and other members of the team. The best parts of the story were when the Avengers stopped forgetting they are a team and started, well, teaming up to face down the threat.

 

The Hardy Boys 6 The Shore Road Mystery by Franklin W. Dixon

The Hardy Boys 6 The Shore Road Mystery by Franklin W. Dixon

This review refers to the blue hardback edition of this story. Cars are being stolen off the Shore Road outside of Bayport and the police are helpless to find the villains. Fortunately, Frank and Joe Hardy are ready to take the case. At the same time, a friend asks for their help in solving a centuries old family mystery—the location of an ancient treasure. When that same friend and his father are accused of being the Shore Road thieves, Frank and Joe and their family step up to help them make bail only to seemingly be betrayed when the two miss their court case.

 

The trend in the last few books toward increasing threats of violence continued in this novel. Friends of the Hardy boys’ lives are endangered as an attempt is actually made to murder Frank’s girlfriend. (Why do their friends’ parents let anyone hang out with Frank and Joe?) No one seems to think of these boys as “boys” anymore as they try to track down the criminals and locate the ancient treasure.

 

One underplayed but still noticeable innovation in this novel is that, for the first time, the town of Bayport appears to be turning against the Hardy boys. People whose cars have been stolen are enraged that the boys helped to bail out the accused thieves. The author could have done more with this negative attention.

 

This book had the makings of a great one, but unfortunately, it didn’t pan out that way. It just didn’t keep my attention as easily as previous novels did.

 

Winterhaven Sale -- 99 cents

This is the second week of my 99 cent Winterhaven sale (still free on Kindle Unlimited).

 

https://www.amazon.com/Winterhaven-Gi...

 

I first started toying with the characters and locations that became Winterhaven in 1988 in a one-off D&D game which I ran for my brother and his friends. I pulled out an old map that’s main feature was a huge mountain and plopped the characters down on the outskirts. A few weeks later, back in college, I called upon the map again and ran a game that lasted my whole senior year and in doing so I created many of the NPCs that would become the life’s blood of the novel, Winterhaven.

 

And that’s really the key to the whole story. I kept using Winterhaven and the surrounding territory in future games, but it was the NPCs and their stories that were lingering in my thoughts for months and years afterward. I came up with plot ideas that never quite made it into the games as the backdrop of the world grew ever richer and more elaborate.

 

Then in 1995 I went to England to research my dissertation. It was a lonely experience. I spent most of my days in the library and the archives and every night I wrote a few thousand words of the novel that became Winterhaven. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the player characters who took the foreground, it was the NPCs that I had spent so much time developing—long cherished friends of my imagination that had stories I wanted to share with the world.

 

I came home and spent the summer rewriting (and typing) the book and writing the first fifteen or so chapters of the next one. I was all set to find myself a publisher, but kept holding back to tweak this and that aspect of the original story—not so much the plot as that all important world-building background. Did the locations fit smoothly together? Did the various timelines hold true? Did the monetary system actually work? And dozens of more questions of this nature. The hardest, it turned out, was breaking the religious structures of my polytheistic pantheon out of what had begun as a clearly Christian mold and making it uniquely fit the people of my world.

 

All of that took roughly twenty years. I would put the book away for long periods of time while I wrote and read other things, and then find myself rereading and tinkering with it again, getting reacquainted with an old and valued friend. Finally, in winter 2016-2017 I finished the sequel novel and spent the spring writing a third, realizing at last that it was finally ready to be read by people other than me. There was just one major thing lacking. My map (or should I say maps, because I had many of them) of Winterhaven was incredibly crude and lets face it, fantasy novels really need a great map to give the world that extra bit of credibility that comes from the reader being able to follow the characters as they move about the world. Tolkein’s is one of the best out there, but all the great fantasy series have them. And sadly, I just don’t have the ability to draw a convincing map. Fortunately, I had met Chris L. Adams who does have that skill and he painted—yes, I said painted—a true beauty that surpasses anything else I’ve seen in fantasy literature.

 

If you decide to try the novel, be sure to spend some time with the map.

 

I hope you enjoy Winterhaven as much as I do.

 

Will Trent 1 Triptych by Karen Slaughter

Will Trent 1 Triptych by Karen Slaughter

I read this book because I was enjoying the Will Trent television series. The book started out with a bang, pulling me right in to the plot. The crime is morbidly fascinating and the cop with his special needs son was sympathetic. Will Trent finally made his appearance and I loved every moment of it. Then we moved to Part 2 and I quickly lost interest. I understood what Slaughter was doing, but I just didn’t like stepping out of the investigation to follow John through the twists and turns of his life. Things got better when Part 3 began, but never pulled me all the way back in as Part 1 had done.

 

Unfortunately, this sort of disappointing experience is quite common when moving between books and movies and/or television adaptations. Usually, my disappointment comes when moving in the other direction. I’m going to assume that this series gets a lot better, but frankly I am not inspired to go on and read the next novel in the series.

 

Love at First Psych by Cara Bastone

Love at First Psych by Cara Bastone

This is a cute vehicle for a romance novella while also exploring in a thoughtful way the different ways that love develops and goes right and wrong. Two college students have an assignment to interview people regarding first love. The woman doesn’t believe in love at first sight. The guy does. She also has a chip on her shoulder concerning him and he seems weird but friendly. The reader knows from moment one (because it’s a romance) that despite the chip and the weirdness, these two are destined to fall in love by the end of the story. Unlike their college assignment—there forthcoming relationship certainly doesn’t appear to be love at first sight.

 

The interviews serve as a vehicle for the two students to discuss what love is and how you recognize it. That will eventually lead to why it goes bad. There are great examples. They are interviewing people and thinking about people in their lives. They are also getting to know each other and appreciate each other. But the big twist in the story comes from learning why the woman doesn’t like the guy.

 

It's a cute story.

 

The Destroyer 71 Return Engagement by Warren Murphy

The Destroyer 71 Return Engagement by Warren Murphy

This was quite simply a great Destroyer novel. After finally getting Remo to embrace the little village of Sinanju as his home and get engaged to ensure that the line of the Masters of Sinanju will continue, Chiun is unhappy. He feels left out. Remo and his fiancé are forging a bond with each other and Chiun is jealous. He misses the times when it was just Remo and him in America. So, he returns to America in a bid to force Remo to follow him. (And if you’ve read almost any other books in the series, you will realize that this isn’t sad—it’s hilarious.)

 

Harold Smith, head of CURE, is not immediately pleased with Chiun’s return to duty. Despite saving the nation in every book of the series, Remo and Chiun cause him a tremendous amount of personal stress and he was enjoying not having his ulcers aggravated by their continuing antics. But, as usual, he has a problem, and he sets Chiun on it—keeping an inventor from being assassinated. But Smith has a second problem which the reader knows is related to Chiun’s mission. Someone is going around the country murdering everyone named Harold Smith.

 

So, when Remo follows Chiun to America, he walks into two separate problems. The bad guy behind both problems is a Nazi who was crippled by Harold Smith at the end of World War II. He wants to get the use of his legs back (for which he needs the help of the inventor) and he wants vengeance on Harold Smith (which explains his killing all the other Smiths as he looks for him.) Oh, and did I mention he is literally a Nazi who is trying to start a new Nazi movement in the U.S? This sets up an absolutely hilarious scene in which Remo and Chiun try to infiltrate a neo-Nazi compound by pretending to be recruits. Just as a reminder, Chiun is a very old Korean and whatever Remo is (he’s an orphan, so he doesn’t know), it’s not Aryan.

 

This one is fun from the first page to the last.

 

The Big Foot Blunder by Amanda Lee

Charlie Rhodes Cozy Mysteries 1 The Big Foot Blunder by Amanda Lee

Charlie Rhodes is a fresh out of school paranormal investigator in a world where the vast majority of people don’t believe in things like Bigfoot. Charlie believes because she has a couple of strong paranormal talents herself—telekinesis and the ability to see flashes of the future and the past. She decides to hide this information from the team of investigators she joins, even though they are desperate to find evidence that the paranormal actually exists in the world.

 

Charlie is a fun lead character. She’s very much a “glass is half full” personality and her combination of bubbliness and slightly flightiness makes her instantly endearing. The team has a handful of zany personalities grounded by their very down-to-earth security specialist, Jack.

 

The first novel focuses on a brutal murder that might have been committed by Bigfoot, but Bigfoot is actually a very small part of the novel. What really captures Charlie’s interest is the zany Winchester clan—some of the largest personalities in a town that has tried to create a tourist trap by building on the legend that they were founded by witches. I think it’s safe to say that no reader will fail to suspect that the Winchesters are the witches of the founding myth.

 

Fairly quickly the story becomes a traditional whodunnit. I don’t think anyone really thinks that Bigfoot did the crime (except Chris, the leader of the team) but it’s still a nice backdrop to the story. My one complaint (and it’s not insignificant) is that this is a very slow-moving story—a third of the words could have been cut without damaging the tale at all. That being said, I’m anxious to read the next book.