Gilbert M. Stack's Blog, page 68

Review: Death Retires by Cate Lawley

Death Retires by Cate Lawley

Lawley has produced another unusual paranormal adventure in Death Retires. Geoff is a retired soul collector—a rather old man in a new young body—who has attempted to retire to a quiet town with his 25-pound possessed bobcat, Clarence. Unfortunately for Geoff there are a number of ghosts in the vicinity that both Clarence and he can talk to and one of them wants his help in protecting his ex-wife from the men who killed him. Unfortunately, his memory of how he died is badly damaged and he doesn’t remember who his murderers were. Geoff isn’t very excited to get involved in this, but finally agrees in the hope that resolving the problem will give him the peaceful retirement he craves. (I suspect that since this is the first book in the series, he will never find that peaceful existence.)

 

The cast of characters (a medium, a witch, the ghost’s ex-wife, and a demon—not to mention Geoff and Clarence) made for an interesting group to tackle the problem. More importantly, the mystery took a left turn away from my expectations, making the eventual resolution a credible surprise. If you like mysteries with a paranormal flair, this is a series you should find interesting.

 

Review: Acid Rock by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Destroyer 13 Acid Rock by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This time Remo and Chiun go head-to-head with another House of Assassins as they struggle to keep a witness from falling victim to an open contract on her head. The witness is the daughter of a multi-millionaire businessman who has decided to turn state’s evidence on her father because he tried to keep her from chasing down an acid rock star (named Maggot) whom she wants to have sex with. For most of the novel her sex, drugs, and rock and roll mindset makes her two dimensional, although there is just a touch of added personality given to her by the end of the book.

 

Most of the fun in the novel comes from seeing what another House of Assassins—this one with a six-hundred-year-old-history—looks like. And Remo, for possibly the first time in the series, really seems to understand what it means to be a member of a thousands-of-years-old house of assassins. This is a good addition to the early series.

 

Review: The Decisive Battles of World History by Gregory S. Aldrete

The Decisive Battles of World History by Gregory S. Aldrete

This is one of the best Great Courses audiobooks that I have listened to. Aldrete offers a thoughtful look at more than three dozen major battles and argues for why they changed the course of the world. So not only do you get an introduction that provides the context of the battles and a description of the battle itself, you get a conclusion that cogently lays out how the battle altered the status quo in a way that affected an area for decades and often centuries. A wonderful account all around.

 

Review: Micah by Laurell K. Hamilton

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 13 Micah by Laurell K. Hamilton

After two very weak books, Hamilton got herself back on the right track again with this short novel, Micah. The novel could have flopped. It has many of the features that hurt the previous two books. Anita is still driven by the ardeur and a lot (maybe too much) of the book focuses on sex and Anita’s relationship with Micah, but because she has narrowed the sex and relationship issues to just one of her lovers they were less distracting from the overall tale.

 

The plot is simple but it works. Anita has to step in for fellow animator, Larry, to raise a zombie as a witness in a federal case. But it’s fairly obvious to the reader from the beginning that something is wrong and as Hamilton teases her way through the story this feeling grows. This isn’t a mystery, just a straight forward plot that quickly reaches a satisfying ending.

 

Review: Murder???s Shield by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Destroyer 9 Murder’s Shield by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This time it’s the cops who have gone bad, causing Remo difficulty from two different perspectives. First, he was a cop and he doesn’t want to kill other policemen. Second, the cops appear to be doing essentially what he does as the enforcement arm of CURE—kill criminals. It’s a rare ethical dilemma in this series and that makes this book stand out from the others.

 

Review: Summit Chase by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Destroyer 8 Summit Chase by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

While on assignment, pretending to be a normal assassin hired by the bad guys, an unlucky blow gives Remo amnesia and sets him on a collision course with Chiun. While it is possible that amnesia has been overused in the action and spy thriller subgenres, there is no denying that it adds a lot of spice to this adventure. Watching Remo try to figure out who he is and watching him interact with Chiun—all while wondering if the two will come to blows—added some much-appreciated tension to a series in which Remo’s extraordinary skills rarely leave any doubt as to whether or not he can complete his mission. It made for a very enjoyable read.

 

Review: Union Bust by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Destroyer 7 Union Bust by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

The overall plot in this novel—someone trying to create a super union that can dictate wages and politics to the U.S. —was slightly more elevated that most Destroyer novels. Since the vast majority of the union workers are not criminals, and what they want to do would seem to be supported by the constitution, there were some ethical questions not generally dealt with in the series about a pair of assassins. But the heart of this novel centers around Chiun and his first pupil, a man who abandoned the traditions of Sinanju and went to work for himself. The super union is his plan, and this novel is really an opportunity to both create a villain whose skills are better than Remo’s and to begin to develop the House of Sinanju in a much more significant way than had been previously done. Anyone who has enjoyed this series will want to read this book to witness the first appearance of Nuihc.

 

Review: Death Therapy by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Destroyer 6 Death Therapy by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

In the sixth Destroyer novel, the authors satirize group therapy and it’s all rather funny. Someone has put the United States government up for sale. To prove that they can pay the goods, they have a nuclear bomb (that does not explode) dropped on St. Louis. The pilot then ejects from his plane without a parachute humming a strange song as he happily falls to the earth. CURE is able to connect that individual to a high-priced residential therapy clinic and send in Remo and Chiun to find out if there is a connection to the coming auction of the United States. The resulting therapy sessions created the most light-hearted atmosphere in a Destroyer novel yet. There’s still plenty of action, but the satire that will dominate the later novels is very much in evidence here. Overall, this one is a lot of good fun.

 

Review: Incubus Dreams by Laurell K. Hamilton

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 12 Incubus Dreams by Laurell K. Hamilton

This is hands down the worst novel in the series so far. It starts out fairly typically, with Anita investigating the death of a woman bitten by multiple vampires, then veers into a four-hundred-page detour that is mostly focused on Anita having sex with her multiple partners and talking about all of her relationships. Hamilton also creates a new excuse for Anita to have sex with people—she can now heal people through sex—but mostly it is simply a long and tedious digression with about fifty pages worth of plot enhancement. After that, things improve slightly, returning to the main investigation with further time taken out for yet more sex and relationship talk. Overall, the investigation is not enough to save the story.

 

Not all of the relationship talk is bad—it just needed to be seriously cut down through the editing process. For example, Anita has a heart-to-heart with her best friend, Ronnie, the private investigator. Ronnie’s problems fit her character and helped to develop her. Developing a second triumvirate also has importance for the series, but again the book needed substantial editing.

 

Hamilton has the right to write the books she wants, but it seems a bit unfair to readers to change the series so dramatically. To be blunt, if this was the first Anita Blake book I read, I would never have read another one. I’m only holding on because the first ten books were so enjoyable.

 

Review: Destroyer 5 Dr. Quake by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Destroyer 5 Dr. Quake by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Remo and Chiun are back to stop blackmailers—but not your traditional type of extortionists. These criminals don’t have secrets to expose, they have invented a device that can cause (or suppress) earthquakes and they are offering to protect (or destroy) areas along the San Andreas fault for a fee. Naturally, other criminal elements are also interested in this process, so Remo and Chiun have their hands full.

 

Murphy and Sapir are still working to perfect their Destroyer formula. In this book they add a very significant science fiction element, something that will feature in many future books. Remo continues to be rather stupid as a detective, but his plan is designed to draw the bad guys to him so it doesn’t cause him too much trouble. Once again, it’s Chiun who is the stealth star of the novel, bringing his delightfully bizarre way of looking at everything. I once read that the authors had originally planned to kill Chiun off in this book. If true, it’s fortunate that they changed their minds. Chiun is the heart of this series.