F.C. Schaefer's Blog, page 7

THE INSTITUTE is a reminder of why Stephen King was such an influence on STRANGER THINGS.

This Constant Reader picked up a copy of Stephen King’s THE INSTITUTE last Christmas, and finally got around to reading it. As a very long time fan of King’s work, I’ll gladly read almost anything he puts out, but I’m more than willing to concede that much of his 21st Century output often falls short of his great early works. That might just be natural as The King does often recycle tropes and themes he explored thoroughly in previous books. I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. THE INSTITUTE could easily be described as King Classic as he again tells a story with kids possessing the psychic powers, often telekinesis and telepathy (CARRIE and FIRESTARTER, and recently DOCTOR SLEEP), a mysterious and sinister quasi government organization that do not have the best interests of the protagonists at heart (The Shop), colorful small town characters (start with SALEM’S LOT), and a knockabout male character who turns out to be a rock when things hit the fan (Stu Redman from THE STAND). THE INSTITUTE centers on 12 year old Luke Ellis, a kid from Minnesota who happens to have a genius level IQ. Not only that, but Luke is showing signs of incipient telekinesis. One night, intruders break into Luke’s home, murder his parents, and abduct him away to an installation in the Maine woods where Luke’s powers are forcibly developed and used for mysterious purposes. If Luke, and the friends he makes among the other kidnapped children, cooperate, then they are given tokens for vending machines and not treated harshly. If they resist, they are punished as if they are Al Qaeda. It is abundantly apparent that the adults in charge are not interested in the welfare of these children, only what they can squeeze out of their brains before they are tossed away like used batteries. No one has ever escaped from this place, but Luke puts his IQ to work on the challenge and with the help of his newly made friends, comes up with a plan and puts it into action.

I found a lot to like in THE INSTITUTE, not the least in that it is well written. My paperback copy comes in at just over 650 pages, not a short read, but I found that the story moved along at a good pace. Right from the start, King violates one of the rules of novel writing 101 by not introducing his main protagonist first, but instead we get the story of Tim Jamison, a former Florida cop and how he gets the job of night knocker in the very small South Carolina town of DuPray before the story shifts to Luke and his impending kidnapping in Minnesota. We know these two plot threads will meet at some point, and the anticipation of how and why is planted. The suspense is built nicely as Luke encounters the occupants at the Institute, and enough of the truth is slowly revealed to raise the level of tension. By far the best part of the book is when Luke is on the run with no one to turn to for help, and desperate to put as much distance as he can between himself and his tormentors, who will soon discover his escape and come looking. This part of the book is King at his storytelling best. The author has always had a true talent for creating compelling and sympathetic young characters, and it is full display here, not just with Luke, but also Avery, Kalesha, Nick, and George, other luckless young occupants of the Institute. As with most horror and suspense novels, a lot rides on how well the antagonists are drawn, are they villains who inspire fear. The men and women who run the place that imprisons Luke and his friends are clearly drawn from the men and women who ran the Nazi concentration camps, the cogs in the death machine. They also have more than a slight resemblance to the torturers at Abu Ghraib. If Mrs. Sigsby and Trevor Stackhouse don’t at first appear to be on the same level as some the other monstrosities King has created, I would say look again. They are lovers of authority, happy to serve whatever the whims are of those above them, and more than happy to wield it ruthlessly over those below them. The kind of people who “get the job done no matter what.” They remind us that the worst monsters are not always supernatural. I do like how King makes a point to show that the Institute has more than a little internal sloppiness, which does occur over the long haul in many enterprises when expectations are allowed to sag, and things just roll along like they always have. The weakest part of the book is the resolution, a common complaint among King fans. I think the story came easy to King up through the final confrontation, but then comes a clunky and talky sequence meant to resolve the remaining lose ends that is not nearly as satisfying as what has come before.

A number of reviewers have compared THE INSTITUTE to Netlix’s STRANGER THINGS. They share many similarities, but it should be remembered that the Duffer brothers were inspired by King’s work from back in the ‘80s which had young characters who could move objects and start fires with their minds. Like I said, this is classic King pouring some old ingredients into a new bottle. And if THE INSTITUTE is adapted to a film, I think it would be a great opportunity for that other successful Steve from the ‘80s named Spielberg to finally collaborate with The King.

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This is not The God of Thunder we knew.

I am a lifelong reader of Marvel comics, and have consistently tried to see every single MCU film in the theater going back to the first Captain America film. I was blown away by INFINITY WAR and ENDGAME, and unlike some fans that have soured on Marvel’s super hero adventures after the latter, I’ve hung in there, finding a lot to like even in film efforts that paled when compared to what came before. Though Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans have retired their parts as Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, there was still the consolation that Chris Hemsworth would continue as Thor, the Asgardian God of Thunder. Hemsworth is a perfect fit in the role, with a real movie star’s physical presence, and a good sense for comedy, two attributes that are not always evident in others. For these reasons, I was really looking forward to THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, the first stand alone Thor adventure since the excellent THOR: RAGNAROK back in 2017.

Sadly, I was disappointed. Though I didn’t find LOVE AND THUNDER to be the disaster some fans did, I thought the film was done in by a script and a director that took the God of Thunder down the wrong path in a big way. I have admired a lot of Taika Waititi’s work in the past, especially on RAGNAROK and JOJO RABBIT, but this time he leaned into the humor way too much, doubling down, and then tripling down, on the humorous elements that worked so well in RAGNAROK, but forgetting that there needs to be some heart and sincere emotion for the humor to play off. That’s something that even a lesser MCU film like last summer’s BLACK WIDOW pulled off well. LOVE AND THUNDER picks up post ENDGAME where Thor is roaming the galaxy with the GUARDIANS, enjoying the adventures of being Space Viking. But soon, he is back on earth trying to hunt down a villain going by the name of Gorr the God Butcher, who, for reasons of his own, is going about systematically killing off all the mythical Gods of the many civilizations spread throughout the universe. This is where Thor, and his trusty sidekick Korg (CGI, but voiced by Waititi) meet up with his old flame, Jane Foster, who is now wielding the hammer, Mjolnir, and going by the name of Lady Thor. After an awkward reunion, Thor, Jane, Korg, and Valkyrie (again played by Tessa Thompson) are off in search of help to fight Gorr, who has kidnapped the children of New Asgard. What drags this plot down is the incessant humor, with most of the jokes centered on Thor being a clueless oaf, and his relationship with his ex, who is now his equal when it comes to super heroics. And for the first two thirds of the film, that is just about all it is: setup and punch line…setup and punch line…repeat and repeat. And in case we didn’t get the joke, Korg says something to underline it. The God of Thunder himself is reduced to being a big muscle bound doofus in scene after scene, a far cry from the prideful and earnest character trying to do what is right and be worthy that we knew in The Avengers films and his own earlier solo screen appearances. I agree with those who say that much of the film felt like badly written SNL skit—especially Zeus’s lightning bolt, which looked as if it had been found in NBC’s prop room. Having Matt Damon, Sam Neill, and Luke Hemsworth (joined by newcomer Melissa McCarthy) reprise their cameos from RAGNAROK only diminished the joke, and the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY were totally superfluous the story. There should be a new rule that cameos have to be pertinent to the plot in some way. I have no idea what they were going for in Russell Crowe’s small part as Zeus, a part played in a way that seemed to belong in another movie. And the deficits in the script only highlighted how badly this film relied on CGI effects.

Only in the final third, when there is a showdown with Gorr, does the story switch gears, and it feels like we’re in a real super hero film. And that is because Christian Bale, who plays Gorr, really does show up and give a heartfelt performance. Gorr’s origin in the pre-credits opening is well done, and anytime Bale was onscreen, everything is kicks up a notch. But even he was hurt by an inconsistent script that had Gorr, traumatized by the loss of his daughter, turn around and terrorize the children of New Asgard.

But despite my criticism, I won’t say I hate LOVE AND THUNDER and consider the MCU dead the way many online have done. If you don’t ask much of it, the film is entertaining, and I did like seeing the Marvel concept of Eternity brought to the screen. But mostly, I’m left with a sense of an opportunity missed. We didn’t get a rousing adventure with a self described Space Viking, which would have been nice. But most of all, we don’t get an idea of where the MCU is heading in this next phase. There were two post credits scene, one of which implied that a dead character might have a way back into the MCU, and in the other, we briefly glimpse a super powered being not shown before. I was hoping for something dealing with the next GUARDIANS film, or maybe a hint at who the Big Bad will be in this next phase. Then there is the introduction of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four to the MCU proper after MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. It would have been nice to see some progress on that front. I know Covid has scrambled the time table for the MCU after ENDGAME, but right now, it feels as if they are simply treading water. And more films like LOVE AND THUNDER will burn up a lot of goodwill with fans like me.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
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Once Upon A Time in Hollywood: the novel by Tarantino.

I am a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. It just might be the best film of the past decade, and just about my favorite one, though QT is always an easy sell with me. So of course I was going to buy and read his novel based on the film. Tarantino has never actually written and published a book before, so for us fans it was a big deal. Was it worth the price? Did it live up to expectations? Is Tarantino as good of a storyteller on the printed page as he is on the movie screen? I think every fan may have a different answer, for this book is very much written for the fans. If you haven’t seen the movie, you are really going to be in over your head reading it. This book, like the film, is definitely not plot driven, we simply hang with a set of characters for a set period of time in the Hollywood of 1969, get to know them, and wait for the inevitable conclusion when a certain group of hippie killers collide with a has-been TV western star and his loyal stuntman friend. Only in the book, that ending of the film is just mentioned in passing about halfway, for this is not a straight screen to page novelization of the film, but mainly a companion piece to it where the author/director fills in some back stories, and elaborates on what was happening behind the scenes.

In the book, we again meet up with Rick Dalton, the former star of Bounty Law, now reduced to guest spots on other actor’s shows and contemplating traveling to Italy and Spain to make spaghetti westerns for Sergio Corbucci, which Rick sees as the ultimate degradation, and Cliff Booth, a hero of WWII and veteran stuntman with some unsavory incidents in his past. We also spend some time with Sharon Tate, the beautiful starlet on the verge of major stardom, and married to the very hot director, thanks to Rosemary’s Baby, Roman Polanski. And lurking around is Charles Manson, the leader of a hippie “family” made up of cast off and runway kids, the epitome of the counter culture, who in reality, just badly wanted to be a rock star, if only the powers that be wouldn’t keep brushing him off. We learn a lot about Rick’s early days in TV westerns and how the industry worked in those days, and Cliff’s background is fleshed out, and the question of whether he murdered his wife is answered. We meet up with Sharon in a flashback that poignantly recounts her journey from Texas to Los Angeles to seek her fortune in the movie business, and later on her visit to the movie theater where the Matt Helm film where she was a featured player is playing. There are some interesting anecdotes on TV in the ‘60s told by Rick that is clearly Tarantino just riffing on the past, and the same with a section where Cliff muses on his favorite foreign films that is clearly the author speaking. There are long passages where the pilot script of the western TV series Lancer is gone into in great detail, which makes it sound much more dramatic and interesting than a show that came in on the tail end of the TV western fad in the late ‘60s and soon faded into obscurity. Lots of now obscure names are dropped, everybody from George Maharis to George Peppard to Ty Hardin to Kaz Garas, and if you haven’t heard of them, they were big deals for a very short time in Hollywood long ago. There was a section on the excessive drinking habits of some famous actors of the time that is interesting if true. Tarantino often touches on how fleeting fame is in a cruel business that uses talent and throws it away. This is made plain in a sad encounter Cliff has in Spain with the wreck that was once Aldo Ray. Fame, attention, adoration and the wealth and sex that came with it was the measure that everyone was judged against, and once you’d obtained it, you were never free of the fear of losing it. And if you felt it slipping away, you scrambled and grabbed at anything which would get it back. In 1969, guys who wore pompadours and were big deals when Kennedy was President, now had to put on hippie wigs and fake moustaches in order to try and fit in among the long hairs and denims of a new Hollywood.

Though many readers have complained that parts of this book are indulgent, while other parts are just a wallow in a past that they know nothing about, I’m not among them. I totally dug the vibe of this book, and happily went along for the ride, trusting in where Tarantino was taking me. I like that Tarantino really has genuine affection for this time and place, and the people who made it so unique—the rising stars, the has-beens, and the never-weres. He doesn’t judge them, except for the truly evil Manson, he just asks us to take them as they were, and the stories their lives told. Other writers on this period would be quick to condemn the casual sexism, racism, homophobia, and “toxic masculinity,” of 1969, but Tarantino, never one to parade his virtue, lets the time and place speak for itself, and the reader take from it what they will. There’s a part of me that hopes he is not completely done with Rick and Cliff yet. Maybe a sequel that gives us a hint at what happened in the years ahead. Does the fame that would come after dispatching a gang of hippie killers lead Rick to a comeback? Does Cliff find a new career as a director of ‘70s action films?

And I really liked it that the book was produced like a mass market paperback from the era, always thought it was a mistake for the publishing industry to get away from that model. Like 1969, one more thing that came and went, and is fondly remembered.

My book, BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
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My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
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The making of The Wild Bunch, one hell of a story.

Right up front, I have to say that I am a massive fan of THE WILD BUNCH, a movie I consider to be in the same league as CITIZEN KANE, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, and THE GODFATHER as among the finest American films ever made. W.K. Stratton, the author of THE WILD BUNCH: SAM PECKINPAH, A REVOLUTION IN HOLLYWOOD, & THE MAKING OF A LEGENDARY FILM is a huge fan as well. And Stratton’s book is certainly written for other fans like me, but I think those unfamiliar with the details of how this classic western came to be, and why it has endured, will learn a lot. Upon its release in the summer of 1969, THE WILD BUNCH caused an uproar with its depiction of violence, both in its opening scene, where a group of aging outlaws attempt to rob a railroad office in 1913 Texas, to its finale, where the surviving members of the gang try to redeem themselves by saving a fellow outlaw from a sadistic Mexican general, taking on a small army in the process. The use of squibs to replicate bullet wounds, a new technological advance, took movie carnage to new level, and not everyone was pleased. The film was savaged by many critics, embraced by others (including a young Roger Ebert) and hotly debated in a way very few movies are anymore. THE WILD BUNCH was controversial, it made an impact, and its legacy has been enormous.

Stratton’s book does cover some familiar ground for anyone who has read the works of Paul Seydor, along with David Weddle’s in-depth biography of Sam Peckinpah. What Stratton does is give us a deep dive into how THE WILD BUNCH went from a movie stuntman’s idea in the early ‘60s, to a written screenplay shopped around to studios, to how it landed in the hands of Sam Peckinpah, a director who had endured several years of being on a Hollywood blacklist because he couldn’t get along with producers, to a full-fledged production on location in northern Mexico with the enthusiastic backing of the head of Warner Brothers. The star of the book, of course, is Peckinpah, a director with demons, not to mention a drinking problem. Already middle-aged, Peckinpah knew this film was his last chance to be someone of consequence in Hollywood. Like many great directors, Peckinpah led his crew and actors like a general leading an army into battle. He could be tough to get along with, but he knew how to get the best out of everyone, and possessed a clear vision of what he wanted up on the screen; if he didn’t know how to achieve it, he would figure out a way. But Stratton makes it more than just the story of the colorful director. The contributions of Roy Sickner and Walon Green to the original script are documented, especially how Green worked the Mexican Revolution of 1910 into the story. Cliff Coleman, Chalo Gonzales, Gordon Dawson, Phil Feldman, and Kenneth Heyman, not well known names, but they each played pivotal roles in the making of the film, and this book gives them their due. Stratton offers up thumbnail sketches of actors William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, and Edmond O’Brien, who, like the characters they played, were considered past their prime, but would give, under Peckinpah’s direction, the best performances of their careers. We get insights into Warren Oates and Ben Johnson, both of whom are revered today by western fans, not to mention Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones. They would become known as the “Peckinpah stock company.” Stratton also gives space to the members of the Mexican film-making industry who played a vital part in the production, not the least of them being legendary director Emilio Fernandez, the fearsome “El Indio” himself. And I do commend Stratton for spotlighting the various Mexican actresses who played small (this really wasn’t a woman’s picture), but still necessary roles in the story. More than anything, I enjoyed reading about the creative process, and how it worked during the production, which seems to have included the improvising of key lines of dialogue on the set. The “Battle of the Bloody Porch,” along with the heist of the guns from the train, and blowing of the bridge across the Rio Grande, are among the most memorable scenes in movie history, and how they came about is the story of creative people and seasoned professionals meshing their talents in a way that is almost pure magic. So too are the ways Peckinpah worked various themes into the film, not the least of which is man’s seemingly bottomless capacity for violence and cruelty, along with the dehumanization brought on by modern technology, and the clinging to of a sense of honor, even among ruthless killers.

At just over 300 pages, Stratton’s book is concise; he packs a lot into each page. The chapters are short, most of them vignettes centering on some particular aspect of, or player in, the production. I especially liked the story of how a Mexican-American family from the Mid-West, who were stranded in Mexico after running out of money while visiting relatives, were given jobs by Peckinpah on the movie set to earn enough to get back home. One criticism I can make is that this book could have used a stronger narrative, and woven its story in a more seamless style. The book is both history and commentary, which might confuse some readers when it switches from one to the other. Some of the facts asserted are clearly nothing more than gossip, and at times Stratton does leave himself open to accusations of being a fan boy. But in the end, I think he does justice to a movie that, in the years since its release, has become beloved by cinephiles born long after 1969. Its impact on other film-makers has been considerable. In many ways Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH is to American film what Kurosawa’s THE SEVEN SAMURAI is to Japan. And after reading this book, I’ve come to the conclusion that the story of the making of THE WILD BUNCH would make a great script, and a film, in its own right, working perfectly as a companion to Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
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My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

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Stephen Strange and Sam Raimi, a perfect match

Some of us were more than a little concerned where the Marvel Cinematic Universe was going after AVENGERS: ENDGAME concluded the battle with Thanos, and the deaths and retirements of some big name superheroes that had helped carry the franchise for years. With Steve Rogers and Tony Stark out of the picture, would guys like Stephen Strange be enough to step up and fill the gap, and help carry the MCU to the next phase? Well, as far as I’m concerned DOCTOR STRANGE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS, a sequel to the first Doctor Strange film, which came out all the way back in 2016, answers that question with a resounding “yes.” MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS is one of the better installments in the MCU, one that gives the diehard fans plenty of satisfaction, while building on what has gone before, and dropping a few hints as to where things go from here.

At just over two hours, MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS does not waste time throwing us into the action, introducing us in the first scene to America Chavez, a young woman who has the power to jump from one universe to another, filled with alternate earths populated by alternate versions of both heroes and villains. The twist to this is that a hero on one earth might not necessarily be a person of virtue on another one. America is being pursued by inter-dimensional demons who want to possess her power. Arriving on “our” earth, America turns to Doctor Strange for help, something she has done on other earths with less than stellar results. It soon becomes apparent that the main villain is The Scarlet Witch, aka Wanda Maximoff, who after the events of WANDAVISION, is now determined to be reunited with her sons, Billy and Tommy, by any means necessary, and that includes taking America’s power in order to find an alternate universe where her sons still exist. Doctor Strange and America are soon universe hopping in order to evade the incredibly powerful Scarlet Witch, but are also trying to get their hands on the Darkhold and the Book of Vishanti, two magical McGuffins necessary in order to defeat the Witch. This battle takes the usual many twists and turns before a resolution is reached, and no one is unscathed in the end. The script is tight, and manages to avoid getting bogged down in exposition, while getting us invested in the characters, something ETERNALS didn’t quite pull off.

MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS marks the return of director Sam Raimi to the superhero genre after giving us not only the Tobey Maguire SPIDER-MAN films, but also DARKMAN back in the day. This is Raimi’s first film set completely in the MCU, and I must say that he and the corner of the Marvel universe occupied by Stephen Strange are a very good fit. Raimi unpacks a lot of his EVIL DEAD series tropes and puts them to good use here, especially in the gloriously and wickedly evil looking demons our heroes confront, not to mention a reanimated corpse that is major part of the final confrontation, to tomes like the Darkhold, a book written by evil Elder Gods that exact a price upon all who read from it and use its power. Two other things struck me about Raimi’s film: it is gorgeous looking, with a great use of primary colors in many scenes, and that it is quite violent. The former is on display when Doctor Strange and America travel to a different earth where flowers grow on the sides of buildings and the light is bright, quite the contrast to the equally impressive night world view of THE BATMAN. The latter is seen when a monstrous sized demon’s eyeball is ripped from its head, and an alternate superhero is literally cut in half.

What excites most of us Marvel fans is how MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS opens the door, and allows the Fantastic Four, the Inhumans, and the X-Men to at least plant their foot in the MCU. They may be alternate earth versions of Reed Richards, Black Bolt, and Professor X, but they are now technically in the same world that encompasses Spider-Man. And it is a treat to see John Krasinski, Anson Mount, and Patrick Stewart bring these iconic characters to this world at this time. The scene where The Scarlet Witch confronts The Illuminati is one of the true benchmarks of the MCU and raises intriguing questions for the future. It’s a scene that will spark much debate among Marvel fans over the fates of some heroes, and just who should have been able to outthink or outfight The Scarlet Witch. The other strength of this film is the casting, starting with Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, a role he now inhabits as comfortably as Sean Connery did with 007; what is best about Cumberbatch’s portrayal is while Strange is a hero who will do what is right, he is also cocky, arrogant, and quick to take risks that have unforeseen consequences. All of this makes him so much better as a character than a paragon of virtue like Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel. Having Elisabeth Olsen’s Wanda be an antagonist who is a fallen hero rather than just an ugly Big Bad is another of the film’s strengths. Chiwetel Ejiofor is back as a different version of Mordo, who is menacing for different reasons. And Wong, played by Benedict Wong is high on my list of favorite MCU characters. I can’t be the only one who feels that way. Xochitl Gomez makes a good impression as America Chavez, and Rachel McAdams is back as differing versions of Christine Palmer, the love of Stephen Strange’s life. Good to see Lashana Lynch back as an alternate version of Maria Rambeau, and if this is a Sam Raimi movie, then there’s a funny cameo by Bruce Campbell. And Danny Elfman does his usual magic with the score.

The biggest criticism of MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS is that one has have watched a lot of the MCU, not to mention read more than a few comics, to know what is going on, and who is who, and what is there relationship to everyone else. If you don’t know where Wundergore is and why it is significant, then you’re probably going to be lost; this film is definitely not an entry point for the MCU. The movie gives a few clues as to where Phase 4 of the MCU might be headed, especially in a mid credits scene (welcome aboard Charlize Theron) that sets up a third Doctor Strange solo film. My hope would be that the arrival of America Chavez might lead us to a Young Avengers spin-off, something I’ve been hoping to see for years.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
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http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

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All good things must come to an end, even the vampire apocalypse.

All good things must come to an end, even vampire apocalypses. And in the final book of his horror trilogy, titled THE CITY OF MIRRORS, Justin Cronin wraps up the epic story he began with THE PASSAGE, and then continued with in THE TWELVE. Clocking in at just under 600 pages, this volume is just as stuffed with character and action, time jumps and narrative skips, as the other two books. As I stated in my review of THE TWELVE, I am a big fan of end of the civilization stories, and scifi/horror/fantasy epics that come in big thick narratives, and take the reader on a long and convoluted journey, ending in what is hopefully, a satisfying payoff for all that time commitment. Cronin writes excellent prose, has a good eye for detail, and knows how to build tension, deliver a scare, and write an explosive action scene. The man is a consummate storyteller.

As in the other books, THE CITY OF MIRRORS doesn’t follow a linier narrative. It picks up with some characters right after the climatic events of THE TWELVE, which was set a century after the viral plague that destroyed civilization, then does a long flashback to before the plague to tell the story of Zero, the first infected from whom all the death and destruction flowed forth. The book begins and ends with sections set a thousand years in future, where we learn the final fate of a pertinent character. The last section is told in the present tense, which might be jarring to some, but I think that is because a character is talking directly to the reader, though it is never so stated. The main part of THE CITY OF MIRRORS tells what happens after the destruction of The Twelve has freed humanity from the Virals, infected humans who were transformed into relentless blood drinking killing machines. Years pass and the surviving humans in North America get on with their lives. These survivors let their guard down, begin building communities again out in the open, and embrace what they think is a hopeful future. But Zero is biding his time in the ruins of New York City, playing the long game, and determined to wipe the remaining humans from the face of the earth. When he springs his final trap, it is a free for all for survival, with the only hope being the last working ship afloat in the harbor in Houston. Texas. But Amy, a young girl, who like Zero, was also deliberately infected with the virus, and who has not become a monster like the others, heads for NYC with a few other humans for a final showdown. Characters we come to be invested in, like Peter Jaxon, Michael Fisher, Lucius Greer, Sara and Hollis Wilson, Anthony Carter, Alicia Donadio, Caleb Jaxon and Pim, his wife, along with many others, meet their fates; some of which are not happy ones, but most of which feel earned.

Cronin switches narrative gears more than once in this story, never more so than when he tells the story of Zero, who starts out as a young man named Tim Fanning from Ohio, who goes to college in New York, leads a self centered life, but does fall deeply in love with a woman married to his best friend. It’s a love story which does not end well, and the scars and bad judgments in its wake lead to disaster. As some have noted, this section reads almost like a John Updike story, but what Cronin is doing is humanizing his Big Bad, telling us that civilization was destroyed and the human species driven to near extinction because of one man’s fallible nature. It is what Cronin does with most of his characters, even ones like Amy and Alicia, who might have come off as tropes, instead portraying them as deeply human. I think it is what puts his novels far above the usual horror fare. Cronin does a very good job of telling an epic story by always focusing on his group of characters, while the devastation of the wider world is glimpsed enough so that we know what happens elsewhere. The escape from Texas is as terrifying and suspenseful as anything found in a great horror novel, and it is only topped by the final apocalypse in New York when Zero is at last confronted.

In the end, I must say that THE CITY OF MIRRORS is a horror story that stays with you. The compassion Cronin has for his creations, even the Virals, monsters with their human souls trapped within, raises his work to another level. In this third book, he sticks the landing, and brings it all home with a satisfying conclusion that will have more than one reader wiping away a tear at the end of the final page.

My book, BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
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Victory in Vietnam in an alternate timeline.

My book, BEATING PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS is an alternate history of the Vietnam War. It is basically a What If story centered on what would have happened if the Tet Offensive had occurred in early 1965, resulting in Lyndon Johnson having to fight the war with a wholly different strategy. And replacing Bob McNamara with Richard Nixon of all people. My POV character is General Earl Halton, a member of Nixon's staff at the Pentagon.

Below is an excerpt from my novel, BEATING PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS, found on both Amazon and Smashwords:

I accompanied Secretary Nixon to Saigon in mid-December for a progress report. There has been some controversy about the meetings there between the Secretary and Gen. Westmoreland. It has been purported that the Secretary of Defense compelled the General into committing himself to end the war by a fixed date and promising him a blank check on whatever additional men and material that would be needed to achieve it. I personally sat in on every meeting that occurred and can attest that no such discussion happened. If such a conversation occurred privately, then the Secretary never mentioned it to me or acknowledged it officially. The 75,000 men that arrived in January 1966 was part of the original troop commitment. As I had originally believed, our superior numbers, coupled with the lessons of real combat, began to pay off in the early months of the new year when the enemy began to yield ground in the Central Highlands, where most of the major towns and strategic real estate were recaptured.

By early March the North Vietnamese seemed to be in full retreat to their sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia; in many provinces they had just melted away. At the Pentagon, the assessment was that the war was virtually won; Secretary Nixon believed it was no longer possible for the Communists to win militarily and it was time to declare victory. President Johnson was prepared to present his terms to the North Vietnamese for ending the conflict.

It turned out that old Ho and Gen. Giap were far from beaten, they’d only strategically retreated and regrouped...
My book, BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmg

Visit my Amazon author's page at: https://amzn.to/3nK6Yxv

This ain't no Super Friend! A Batman for our times.

Well, the Snyderverse never really took off, and that’s a shame, so it is back to square one, and that means we get a whole new incarnation of DC’s most fascinating top tier super hero, Batman. This new version is directed by Matt Reeves, who directed CLOVERFIELD, a film of which I am a big fan, and is simply titled THE BATMAN. This time the Caped Crusader is going solo as there is not a mention of Superman, Wonder Woman, The JLA, or any other hero of the DC universe. Reeves’ film is a stripped down, grim and gritty saga set in Gotham City very early in the career of millionaire Bruce Wayne turned vigilante. It’s dark, literally, as most scenes take place at night, and black it the primary color. The skies always appear to be cloudy, the better for the bat signal to appear, and rain is falling half the time. This is another film that can be considered a literal descendant from Martin Scorsese’s TAXI DRIVER, not to mention Ridley Scott’s BLADE RUNNER. I thought other primary influences are David Fincher’s SEVEN, and James Wan’s SAW. There’s also a noticeable lack of humor in the script, which portrays Gotham as an urban hellhole, where street thugs prey almost at will upon citizens while organized crime gets rich off dealing drugs with the help of a police force mostly on the take. Some will find all this darkness, literal and otherwise, to be pretentious, but I think it succeeds by building a world where a masked vigilante is the only salvation.

Where I also think THE BATMAN succeeds amazingly well is when it leans into the Caped Crusader as “the world’s greatest detective.” The basic plot of the film concerns the pursuit of The Riddler—the film’s chief Big Bad—a serial killer targeting the mayor, the chief of police, the district attorney, and other authority figures in Gotham while leaving riddles at each crime scene for Batmen. These riddles are clues to not only the motive behind The Riddler’s reign of terror, but to the larger corruption in Gotham, a big picture that comes to include the Wayne family. Along the way, Batman encounters Selena Kyle, a hostess at an underworld controlled night club who moonlights as the burglar known at Catwoman; club operator Oswald Cobblepot, the gimp also known as The Penguin; Carmine Falcone, the crime boss everyone works for in Gotham. Helping Batman is detective Jim Gordon, his only ally on a wary and suspicious police force; this is first Batman film to show a fractious relationship between Gotham’s champion vigilante and law enforcement, and it adds to the film enormously. Lurking behind them all is a masked murderer who shows no mercy. There are a couple of well staged set piece action scenes. The best is a terrifically staged car chase between the Batmobile and a fleeing Penguin through oncoming traffic, and an encounter in a pitch dark hallway between Batman and some mobsters where the only illumination comes from the flash of automatic weapons firing.

How is Robert Pattinson in the title role? He’s moody and broody enough to make a good and imposing Batman, which is necessary to make the film work, but his Bruce Wayne (who doesn’t get much screen time) needs way more fleshing out. Pattinson never smiles, which suits the film’s mood, but he does have real chemistry with Zoe Kravitz’s Catwoman, whose strong presence is a good balance with the Caped Crusader. Paul Dano’s Riddler doesn’t show his face until late in the film, but he makes a quite convincing psycho. Jeffrey Wright is a commanding Jim Gordon, while John Turturro is appropriately slimy as Falcone. My favorite is an unrecognizable Colin Farrell as The Penguin, a member of the rogue’s gallery we haven’t seen onscreen since Danny DeVito’s grotesque in Tim Burton’s BATMAN RETURNS, and of the two, I much prefer Farrell’s snarling bottom feeding criminal. Andy Serkis is quite capable as Alfred. And that is the Carver twins as the muscles who man the door at Cobblepot’s club. In a good film, the musical score is a character in its own right, and that can truly be said about Michael Giacchino’s work on THE BATMAN, especially in the way he works in Nirvana’s “Something in the Way.”

At three hours, THE BATMAN is a sit. I think a good twenty minutes could easily have been cut from it. As in all comic book films, there is some exposition heavy dialogue that can be clunky. And I can easily see where this film is not every Batman fan’s cup of tea; it has way much more in common with Todd Phillips’ THE JOKER than anything made by Burton or Joel Schumacher, not to mention the comic books written by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Batman has been around a long time now, and when it comes to adaptations, I think we’ve gotten the hero to fit the times, starting with Adam West on the old ‘60s TV show, a series steeped in Boomer irreverence, to the Super Friends of long ago Saturday mornings, to the films of Burton, Schumacher, Christopher Nolan, and Zach Snyder, which in some way reflected the pop culture and the social tensions of past decades. Now Matt Reeves gives us a Batman for the 2020s. I like the way he leans into the theme of a city where the citizens have been betrayed and exploited by the elites and those in authority, and now the monsters they’ve created are coming for them. I’ll concede that it’s not an original approach, but it is a strong one with many storytelling possibilities.

And where does this incarnation of Batman go next? Well, I was most intrigued by a brief appearance by Barry Keoghan, credited only as “unseen Arkham prisoner,” who tells The Riddler that people love a comeback story, and who has a very distinctive laugh.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

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A book about America's most uncivil Civil War.

GODS AND GENERALS is another Civil War book that sat on my shelf too long before I pulled it down and read it. Written by Jeff Shaara, it is a prequel to THE KILLER ANGELS, the Pulitzer Prize winning historical novel written by his late father, Michael Shaara. The latter was an account of the battle of Gettysburg through the eyes of the officers and men who fought it; the son’s book follows a group of men from the years just before the Civil War through the battle of Chancellorsville just prior to Gettysburg. The men, two of whom—Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson—fought for the Confederacy, while the other two—Winfield Scott Hancock and Joshua Chamberlain—remained loyal to the Union. Shaara attempts to give the reader a ground level view of history as it unfolded day by day through the eyes of the participants, who grappled with events without a shred of the hindsight we enjoy in the present day. Shaara has done his research well, and does a good job of presenting the world views of Americans very much of the mid 19th Century, and they saw things very differently than their modern descendants. Robert E. Lee’s sense of duty and honor, as he understood it, would not let him take up arms against his home state of Virginia, even when men with whom he disagreed made the bad choice to lead the Old Dominion into the Confederacy. Jackson’s deep faith in a God who willed all things in accordance with an unknowable plan led him to take up arms against men with whom he trained and served beside in years past. Hancock was a supremely competent career officer with no qualms about what side he was on, while Chamberlain, a teacher at a college in Maine, felt compelled to go and fight alongside the young men he taught. Lee and Jackson have been the subject of many other books, both fiction and non-fiction, and I was familiar with the course of their lives, but it was great to learn about General Hancock, who commanded troops at nearly every major engagement of the war in the East. The Hancock Shaara presents is a man who grieves for the friendships severed with Southerners, but who never shirks when it comes to making war upon them, but whose biggest obstacle were the incompetent superiors whose greatest talent was to lose battles where the Union had the most advantages.

The parts of the book dealing with the armed clashes between Union and Confederates were my favorites, as Shaara has a talent for giving the reader a real sense of what it was like to be caught up in the moment, and carried on the chaos of a battle where the side who is winning or losing changes from one minute to the next. Though he glosses over the battle of Antietam by showing it mostly through Chamberlain’s eyes while his unit is held in reserve, the bloody engagements at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville are vividly portrayed. So too the anger and anguish of officers like Hancock, who had no choice but to obey orders they knew would lead to military disaster, and the frustration of commanders like Jackson who reach for a total victory that is just outside their grasp. It is a true lesson on the definition of “the fortunes of war.” I like Shaara’s writing style, especially his command of character POV. Most of the chapters are relatively short and to the point, and there is a lot of attention given to detail—descriptions of uniforms and landscapes being most prominent—that may not be to everyone’s liking.

And this book—published in 1996—may not be for every reader of history, for it is an example of a kind of historical fiction that would not find favor in many quarters in the 21st Century, where in the eyes of some, American history is solely the story of oppressors, the oppressed, and a few hypocrites who might fall in between. There is no doubt that Shaara’s treatment of Jackson, mainly at the end of the book, falls into outright romanticizing. The issue of race and slavery is barely mentioned, and the one Black character who appears is an emancipated slave who respectfully approaches Lee about buying his brother’s freedom. It comes off as an awkward scene, written to address the underlining and dominant issue of the Civil War, and then be done with it. But it does go the reality that the people of the time lived under a very different moral code, and did not debate the great issue of the day endlessly in every conversation. They were who they were, and not who a modern America thought they should have been. And Shaara makes it very clear that the Civil War was fought by men who very much did not want to go war, and who very much did not want to kill each other on a battlefield.

So, GODS AND GENERALS will certainly “trigger” some, and this book is not for them. But for those interested in a fighting man’s perspective on the Civil War, this is a good book that makes flesh and blood out of some of the dry facts so many of us leaned in American History class. It proves that good history is a good story, one that can be retold endlessly time and again.

My book, BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmg

Visit my Amazon author's page at: https://amzn.to/3nK6Yxv

My review of SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME.

SPOILER WARNING! I have been a lifelong Spider-Man and Peter Parker fan, I still read the comics, and when it came to the movie incarnations of the Wall Crawler, it’s been mixed emotions. Whether it was Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield, or Tom Holland, there were things I liked, things I did not, and some that just made me shake my head. I was like most fans, thrilled by the triumphs, but equally let down by the disappointments – and there were more than a few disappointments in the past two decades that Spidey had been on the big screen. And that is what makes SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME something special, because director Jon Watts, screenwriters Chris Mackenna and Erik Sommers, and whoever else at Sony who was calling the shots, have leaned into all those high points, and let downs, and given the fans something truly special that gives us closure, while opening the doors to so many new possibilities.

The film’s trailer pretty much lays out the basic plot, which picks up right where FAR FROM HOME left off. After Quinton Beck revealed to the world that Spider-Man is really high school senior Peter Parker, he seeks help from Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange in the form of a magical spell which would make the world forget who Spider-Man is underneath the mask. Of course there are complications from a botched attempt to cast said spell, namely that it transports many of the villains who have fought the other iterations of Spidey from their universes to the one inhabited by the current Spider-Man. And if the bad guys from those universes came through, then it’s only logical that… It’s actually a pretty simple plot, some have criticized it as such, but so much is built upon this basic foundation. The film has so many truly emotional and satisfying moments that we didn’t know we needed until we saw them up on the screen. It was such a kick seeing Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe back as Otto Octavius and Norman Osborn, also known as Doctor Octopus and The Green Goblin respiectively, and though I was not the biggest fan of Jamie Foxx’s Electro, he won me over with this encore. Thomas Haden Church returned as The Sandman, and Rhys Ifans was back as The Lizard. It wasn’t quite The Sinister Six film we were supposed to get, but pretty close just the same. Then there was the moment when the mask is removed, and it’s Andrew Garfield, followed by Toby Maguire, stepping through the portal. The sight of all three Peter Parkers interacting and working together to defeat their common foes is the cherry on top. The fact that Maguire can make webs come out of his wrists while none of the others can is addressed, and it’s the little details like that which make this film really something special. And having Garfield be the one to catch the falling M.J., something he failed to do for Gwen Stacy, was an awesome highlight. It was a reminder how much he committed to the part, and how maybe it wasn’t as appreciated at the time as it should have been. It was good to see Jon Favreau as back as Happy Hogan, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon as M.J. and Ned Leeds, and J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, who is now an Alex Jones like podcaster, and still capable of making big trouble for Spidey. Charlie Cox’s brief appearance as Matt Murdoch opened up a lot of possibilities for the future. Benedict Wong’s character has been doing double duty this year with his appearance in SHANG CHI as well. And there is a twist with Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May that is very true to the corner stone Stan Lee and Steve Ditko set in place for Spider-Man all those years ago. There are some interesting winks and nods in the course of the film: like having Flash Thompson’s autobiography be titled “Flashpoint” the original comic book multiverse story put out by the Distinguished Competition way back in the early ‘60s, and was having Norman Osborn smash his Green Goblin mask early in the film an acknowledgement that it too it much resembled something from the Power Rangers, a frequent criticism over the years?

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME is true to its title, a corner turned with no going back, and there is a bittersweet quality to the final scene. It reminds us that the story of Peter Parker has always been about living with loss and sadness, and the triumph that comes with getting beyond them, and finding what is great in life. There’s a mid credits scene with Tom Hardy that drives home the point there is Sony’s Marvel movies, and then there is Disney’s MCU. I had hopes that The Fantastic Four might be reintroduced in a future Spider-Man film, it would be the logical spot to bring them back, but that is unlikely. Sony wants to make more Spider-Man films with Tom Holland, who is great in the part, but I wish they’d consider making one more Spidey film with Andrew Garfield taking on Kraven the Hunter.

I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmg