Gilbert M. Stack's Blog, page 42

Hell for the Holidays by D.M. Guay

Hell for the Holidays by D.M. Guay

This novel is a wonderful walking calamity slowly unfolding for the reader’s pleasure. It starts with our hero, Lloyd, enjoying some paid vacation for the holidays so he can escape the insanity that is his job where he keeps demons from escaping into our world. Then the problems begin. Too much snow is forecast on the night of his mother’s annual Christmas Eve Party. The in laws, who hate each other, all arrive early for Christmas because they fear that the snow might keep them away the next day and they want to be snowed in with the family. (They aren’t for the most part a festive group, so this is definitely a bad thing.) Then we learn that 13 murderers have escaped prison nearby and we just know they are going to show up for the party. Then Lloyd’s work colleagues (including the talking cockroach and a fairly nice giant centipede demon) also show up as does the snooty rich woman from the first book and you can see it all going downhill from there—and that’s before the trouble starts.

 

It’s over the top hilarity as Lloyd and his friends try to stop Christmas from being destroyed without anyone else finding out what they’re doing. Hell may have come for the holidays, but our heroes are determined to make sure we all still have a joyous Christmas Day.

 

Perry Mason 33 The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom by Erle Stanley Gardner

Perry Mason 33 The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom by Erle Stanley Gardner

I’ve only read a couple of Perry Mason mysteries but this one was by far the most fun yet. It starts with Perry finding a beautiful woman on his fire escape who is trying really hard not to be seen or identified. He then gets pulled into the kind of case that wouldn’t be nearly such a big deal today. His client has divorced his first wife in Mexico and then gotten remarried. He thought she also wanted the divorce, but now she’s angry and is maneuvering to get control of his company from him and have him arrested on charges of bigamy. While Perry is doing an amazing job of managing this problem, a murder occurs upping the ante tremendously as everyone thinks his client is the murderer.

 

Now right from the beginning, I think it should be noted that this book didn’t need a murder. The original problem, managing the client’s problems with his (at least in Mexico) ex-wife, was excellent and totally had my interest. I was almost sorry to see the murder because it changed dramatically the nature of the legal problem. But that being said, the courtroom drama was equally fascinating. There’s a humorous element as the prosecutor and his assistant are constantly maneuvering to humiliate Perry (and we, the reader knows Perry is going to win out in the end). They go so far as to (unethically in my opinion) try to get the bar to come down on Perry for doing his job as a defense attorney. But in addition to the normal legal troubles, Perry also (again) has to deal with a client who won’t tell the truth to him, making it ten times as hard for Perry to adequately defend him. Then consider the red herrings... I freely admit that I didn’t figure this one out—but I should have.

 

The African Experience by Kenneth P. Vickery

The African Experience by Kenneth P. Vickery

Here’s a wonderful overview of mostly Sub-Saharan African history from the dawn of humanity to the present day. That’s a heck of a lot of material to cover and Vickery does a masterful job of exploring the highlights of early human existence, Africa in the pre-colonial period, the colonial period, and the post-colonial struggles. Vickery also struggles for balance in his presentation, so this is neither overly romantic nor overly negative. All in all, it’s a fascinating overview of huge continent and the people who inhabit it.

 

Why Economies Rise or Fall by Peter Rodriguez

Why Economies Rise or Fall by Peter Rodriguez

Peter Rodriguez manages to talk about global economies without getting bogged down in all the “isms” like capitalism and socialism. He looks at the major economic events of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and explores both success (the Japanese Miracle, the Asian Tigers, China, India, etc.) and failures (Japan, China, Latin America, etc.) (And yes, I realize some of those nations are in both lists.) It’s a fascinating exploration of various successful roads to the top and why the same models didn’t work for everyone else. There’s also some warning about how economies can take a tumble.

 

Destroyer 52 Fool's Gold by Warren Murphy

Destroyer 52 Fool’s Gold by Warren Murphy

This is the best Destroyer novel in several books. Chiun and Remo look like the master ultra-human assassins they are and they have a mission which shows off their skills nicely. The main plot revolves around an ancient plaque inscribed with the writing of a lost South American kingdom of traders that is found in a cave in the U.S. and tells of a mountain of gold hidden somewhere. The world is instantly interested and Remo and Chiun get the job of guarding the U.S.’s expert in the language as she tries to decipher the texts. A rival house of assassins is trying to get their hands on the woman so their employer can find the treasure, so Remo and Chiun have their work cut out for them. And that’s where this book shines the brightest. As one would expect from the Master of Sinanju and his apprentice, Remo and Chiun are never really worried about their rivals—only about whether they can keep their charge alive.

 

There’s also a subplot revolving around the CURE computers getting dumped into the computer of a Hollywood screen writer. The subplot was ridiculous, but gave Harold Smith something to do while Remo and Chiun were on their mission, and gave Murphy a chance to satirize Hollywood again.

 

This one is just loads of fun.

 

Destroyer 52 Fool???s Gold by Warren Murphy

Destroyer 52 Fool’s Gold by Warren Murphy

This is the best Destroyer novel in several books. Chiun and Remo look like the master ultra-human assassins they are and they have a mission which shows off their skills nicely. The main plot revolves around an ancient plaque inscribed with the writing of a lost South American kingdom of traders that is found in a cave in the U.S. and tells of a mountain of gold hidden somewhere. The world is instantly interested and Remo and Chiun get the job of guarding the U.S.’s expert in the language as she tries to decipher the texts. A rival house of assassins is trying to get their hands on the woman so their employer can find the treasure, so Remo and Chiun have their work cut out for them. And that’s where this book shines the brightest. As one would expect from the Master of Sinanju and his apprentice, Remo and Chiun are never really worried about their rivals—only about whether they can keep their charge alive.

 

There’s also a subplot revolving around the CURE computers getting dumped into the computer of a Hollywood screen writer. The subplot was ridiculous, but gave Harold Smith something to do while Remo and Chiun were on their mission, and gave Murphy a chance to satirize Hollywood again.

 

This one is just loads of fun.

 

Faded Steel Heat (Garrett Files #9) by Glen Cook

Faded Steel Heat (Garrett Files #9) by Glen Cook

Be warned, this is a good story, but only if you can get past the first fifty pages. During those pages, I set the book down four different times and wasn’t certain I wanted to pick it up again. After those fifty pages, Cook spends less time on annoying banter and starts to develop a mystery that is centered at least in part on the Weider family who often appear on the borders of Garrett’s other adventures. The Weiders are a very wealthy family of brewers who strongly support hiring veterans. The problem? Some people think they should only be hiring human veterans. Trying to help them drags Garrett into politics as a new human rights group (remember this is a fantasy world with elves, dwarves, ogres, etc.) is stirring up trouble with just about everyone.

 

It's a solid adventure with quite possibly the most interesting villains Garrett has faced off against yet. But there are drawbacks—the aforementioned banter is often just annoying and the parrot continues to take up way too many pages and is just flatly irritating. The novel slows down again for the last thirty or so pages, but overall this book is a sign that the Garrett Files are finding their proper feet again.

 

Gotrek and Felix 12 Zombieslayer

Gotrek and Felix 12 Zombieslayer

Victory was turned into an even worse danger at the end of the previous book and now Gotrek and Felix must turn the tide of a zombie apocalypse if they are to save the Empire. And just in case stopping a constantly growing army of the living dead isn’t hard enough, they also have to find a way to keep Snori Nosebiter from finding his doom because he’s lost his memory and will be damned if he dies before he recovers it.

 

Sadly, it isn’t just the traitors who have gone over to chaos that makes stopping the horde harder in this novel. There are also plenty of humans with the weaknesses of cowardice and greed to further complicate Gotrek and Felix’s lives. Fortunately, the pair are finding close friends to stand by them in what is one of the best books in the series.

 

Earth's Changing Climate by Richard Wolfson

Earth’s Changing Climate by Richard Wolfson

Most of my life I’ve been hearing about changes in the earth’s climate. It started out with fears of a new ice age which transformed into global warming which transformed to climate change. When I started studying history—especially the ancient and medieval worlds—I learned that the earth’s climate has been changing quite regularly for all of its history. There are a lot of cycles interacting with each other creating the Little Ice Age and the Roman Warming Period and many, many, others. As reports about modern changes to the climate became more prevalent in the press I would look for any recognition that this happens as part of nature and looked for reports that help to identify what parts of what is happening are caused by human activity. Such assistance was rare.

 

Richard Wolfson’s course finally answered those questions for me in a way that felt grounded in reason and science and not in a new—take it on faith—religion. If you’re a skeptic, this will give you some reasons to credit the global warming narrative. If you’re a true believer, this will help you to understand some of those handy phrases that activists throw around. I strongly recommend it for anyone striving to understand why warming trends are troubling and how we know that these trends are different than those that have gone before. I wish I had discovered this book much earlier.

 

Gotrek and Felix 11 Shamanslayer by Nathan Long

Gotrek and Felix 11 Shamanslayer by Nathan Long

Nathan Long finds the magic for Gotrek and Felix with his novel Shamanslayer. The book opens with Felix losing his last connection to his old life when his brother basically disowns him because Felix’s enemies killed their (rather corrupt) father. At the same time, a knight of the Fiery Heart demands Felix turn over his magic sword which technically belongs to the order, but because the knight needs the help of Felix and Gotrek, he gives our heroes a chance to honorably win back the weapon which Felix has used so heroically over the decades. Together the knight, his squire, and Felix and Gotrek set off to find out what happened to the last of the Fiery Heart brothers when they went off to war. The answer was one of the best threats that Felix and Gotrek have yet faced in this series. The apocalypse is coming and quite frankly, only Gotrek and Felix have a chance to divert it.

 

We get armies, corrupt humans, bestial monsters, and a fantastic overwhelming danger in this novel, but we also get a touching (if slightly disturbing) piece of nostalgia where Felix gets reminded that his actions over the years have positively impacted a great many lives. This is one of—if not the best—of the books in this series.