Gilbert M. Stack's Blog, page 45

War and World History by Jonathan P. Roth

War and World History by Jonathan P. Roth

This is one of the best books I’ve read on the history and evolution of warfare, making a serious attempt to include the whole planet even as it focuses primarily on what Roth calls the “core” (which is mostly Europe and Asia and northern Africa). It starts in pre-history and ends in the present day, looking at how technology, the economy, society, ideology, religion, culture, and many other things have impacted the conduct of military action. It was absolutely fascinating. I will definitely read it again.

 

The Legend of the Ghost Queen by M. L. Bullock

The Legend of the Ghost Queen by M. L. Bullock

The danger continues to grow. This time, Cassidy’s painting reveals that Joshua, one of the members of the Gulf Coast Paranormal team, is in great danger. Unfortunately, Joshua and his wife Sierra, have just split up and Joshua isn’t interested in listening to his former teammates. The ghost of an old Voodoo Queen is out for vengeance for a personal betrayal and the loss of her child and she has world altering power to help her achieve it.

 

Meanwhile, the Gulf Coast Paranormal team is continuing to fragment. Not only are Joshua and Sierra breaking up, but there’s a breach between Cassidy and Midas as well. All of this drama brings a lot of painful emotion with the team into the ghost hunting, which empowers the spirits to cause harm in our world.

 

The set up for this series continues to really work for me. I’m looking forward to the next book.

 

Left for Dead by Beck Weathers and Stephen G. Michaud

Left for Dead by Beck Weathers and Stephen G. Michaud

In 1996 several climbers died on Mount Everest during a terrible unexpected storm. I’ve read several books on the disaster (Into Thin Air, The Climb, and I think there were more). All of them mention the bizarre fate of Beck Weathers—who was left for dead on the mountain, recovered consciousness, and made it into base camp where he somehow survived to return home and undergo a painful recovery including reconstructive surgery for his horrendous case of frost bite. Left for Dead is his story and it is both moving and exciting—an important chapter in a terrible disaster.

 

A Haunting on Bloodgood Row by M. L. Bullock

A Haunting on Bloodgood Row by M. L. Bullock

It seems to me that the ghost hunting by Gulf Coast Paranormal is getting a bit darker and more dangerous with each new volume of their story. The ghosts are getting more “physical” (for lack of a better word) and trying to uncover their activity and put them at rest is getting more risky as a result. In this story, the ghosts are able to play with the dimensions of the building the team is investigating, moving people from one locale to another—a major step up in the risk factor.

 

In addition, the Gulf Coast Paranormal team is getting more messed up. Perhaps their work is spilling into their relationships (or perhaps people having this many relationship problems is just normal) but the interpersonal problems are growing from book to book adding a different kind of tension to the story. People can do stupid things out of jealousy and we see some of that here. We also see major trust issues that will have a long-term impact on the series.

 

We also finally get some insight into Cassidy’s relationship with her uncle which somehow connects to Cassidy’s missing (and probably dead) sister. This is a long developing plot line in the series that finally advanced a few more paces.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book.

 

Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child

Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child

Lincoln Child offers another heart-pounding thriller when a group of scientists and their television-show-producing sponsors uncover a prehistoric monster frozen in the ice of the far north. Then the monster disappears before it can be defrosted on live television and the whole expedition falls apart. While the sponsors and their award-winning documentary producer search for a saboteur/thief among the scientists and crew, people begin to die horribly. Rather than make the sponsors rethink their initial assumptions, the deaths only increase their paranoia. But who or what is doing the killing? If you’re the reader, you’d bet your money on the monster waking up after its long cryogenic sleep. But what exactly is the creature and how are these people trapped in the remote north going to survive it?

 

This is a fun fast-moving novel that lovers of the action-thriller are going to thoroughly enjoy.

 

Lost Planet Homicide by Larry Correia

Lost Planet Homicide by Larry Correia

Correia offers a new series starter in this fascinating mystery set in a star colony that got settled on an extremely hostile planet tens of thousands of lightyears from where it was supposed to be. It’s as corrupt a society as you will find in literature and our hero, a homicide detective, walks a line between trying to actually do his job and keeping his corruption to a minimum. Yet, the more he learns about his latest murder case, the more it begins to look like some of the fundamental facts about his colony and its leaders should be questioned. It’s an exciting book that ends on a note that promises an even more exciting series.

 

The Case of the Lonely Heiress by Erle Stanley Gardner

The Case of the Lonely Heiress by Erle Stanley Gardner

Perry Mason gets pulled into a potential fraud case in which to prove there is no fraud he has to locate an heiress who has posted a lonely-hearts ad. Doing so proves to be child’s play, but that doesn’t make Mason’s life easier. A jealous wife, a conniving husband, a battle over a will, questionable testimony, and, of course, a murder, quickly add up to make Mason’s life more difficult. Add to that that his client keeps failing to follow his advice and to tell him everything he needs to know to properly defend her. It starts to feel as if Mason is going into this courtroom battle with both hands tied behind him. But that’s what makes these Perry Mason cases so interesting.

 

The Stranger in the Lake by Kimberly Belle

The Stranger in the Lake by Kimberly Belle

What do you do when you find a dead woman in the water beneath your dock and your new husband lies to police about ever having met the woman before? Well, if your Charlotte, the heroine of The Stranger in the Lake, you lie to the police to cover for your husband and then start digging through the past to find out what was really going on. What you’re going to discover is that your husband has an old secret that he’s hidden from you and—strangely—that lie-by-omission is going to bother you much more than the long-ago crime he and his friends have spent years covering up.

 

And I guess that’s the heart of what I didn’t like about this novel—Charlotte’s reaction to the truth. The mystery itself is functional, but I found myself increasingly disliking the heroine for her anger at her husband that he hadn’t told her about standing by his then-teenaged friends and helping to cover an accidental crime that he himself really had no other part in. Yes, there has been fallout from that crime over the years, but again, that didn’t seem to me to be what bothered Charlotte. It was the not fully sharing with her everything that happened, even though the only time her husband had done that in the past resulted in another death. There were other motivations that could have been cultivated to explain her actions that would have sat better with me.

 

Still, the mystery itself was interesting.

 

Master Lecture Series: History of the 3rd Robot War by Recent Cutbacks

Master Lecture Series: History of the 3rd Robot War by Recent Cutbacks

This fully dramatized audiobook sells itself as a Great Courses parody, but it’s really more of a college classroom parody in which alien races of the far future try to reconstruct a legendary past (our time) in which they clearly think that things like the Lord of the Rings books and the Star Wars movies are actually documenting real events. It’s humorous, but not great—although perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had caught more of the references to pop culture that are liberally strewn throughout the book.

 

The Iliad of Home by Elizabeth Vandiver

The Iliad of Homer by Elizabeth Vandiver

If you’re like me, you’ve read The Iliad once or thrice over the decades and of course seen references to it a few million additional times. It is without doubt one of the great works of world literature and Elizabeth Vandiver will show you why, taking her listeners though the story, helping us to understand the actions of the protagonists on both sides of the war in the context of their day. For example, it is not just that Achilles had his feeling hurt when Agamemnon publicly took his slave girl away—Agamemnon was attacking his very legitimacy as a warrior in Greek society. Similarly, Vandiver helps us understand Greek values of the time and how so many of the emotions and motivations portrayed in this epic poem still speak strongly to modern audiences 2700 years after this story was first written down. Along the way, she will also help you understand the profound impact the book had upon first Greek and then later societies. (The comparison to the bible while not perfect is helpful.) Perhaps most importantly, she’s made me want to go back and reread one of the great works of literature.