F.C. Schaefer's Blog, page 7

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

If you loved Lonesome Dove, you'll love Tom Clavin's Dodge City.

I’ve always thought nonfiction books on the Old West started off with the problem that they are simply not as good as the fictional depictions of that era, such as the books of Larry McMurtry and Louis L’Amour, or the films of John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Anthony Mann. But Tom Clavin’s DODGE CITY: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West, is filled with enough action, and dynamic characters, to satisfy to the most avid western novel and movie buff. Clavin’s book ostensibly tells the story of Dodge City, Kansas, from the mid 1870s to the early 1880s, when it was the rail hub for numerous cattle drives coming up from Texas, where the beef would be shipped east. This place was often a stopover for many heading further west into Colorado and the Dakotas, either to hunt the once massive buffalo herds, prospect for gold, or to simply head over the horizon in the pursuit of happiness. There were lots of opportunities to make money in this Kansas railroad town, selling whiskey and flesh, and dealing cards being far from the least of them. The rule of law was tenuous at best; the authority to enforce it often fell into the hands of men with less than civic minded motives.

As Clavin’s title makes clear, this book centers on Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, two restless young men who ventured into the American West after the Civil War in search of a better life than the family farm. One of the occupations they took up was being a lawman in a town in dire need of someone to keep order; it was a job both proved quite adept at early on, and in time gained reputations which would follow them for the rest of their lives far beyond Dodge City. We get a good take on both men’s personalities; Earp could be taciturn, while Masterson was gregarious, and despite the differences in temperament, they became fast friends who would back up the other in a confrontation with a drunken “cow boy” out to shoot up a saloon. Both men had brothers who served alongside them, and an extended group of fellow Sheriff’s deputies and Marshalls who could also be called upon in a tight spot. Many of these men would go on to serve together in other towns across the West, notably the Earps in Tombstone, Arizona, in an early example of what might be called “networking.” Both Earp and Masterson were good at handling themselves in rough company, and while not reckless, they did possess no small amount of physical courage when it was needed. They were also businessmen, who supplanted their salaries by owning a saloon or a brothel (sometimes both in one), and dealing faro cards; details that seldom made it into the sanitized portrayals of their exploits in movies or on TV. It’s an aspect of their careers which make them even more interesting.

Some have found fault with the meandering style of Clavin’s book, as he delivers a lot of back story for secondary participants, while frequently taking the story far from the events in Dodge City, such as the Earp brothers’ sojourn in Tombstone. There is a huge cast of characters, which includes Wild Bill Hickok, Doc Holiday, Buffalo Bill Cody, Belle Starr, the James Brothers, Billy the Kid, Kate Elder, Dull Knife, John Wesley Hardin, and Theodore Roosevelt. There are accounts of gunfights, lynching’s and attempted lynching’s, cattle rustling, card games gone bad, stage robberies, buffalo hunts, Indian attacks, drunken cowboys, and just plain bad tempered sons of bitches; it’s more than enough to fill any great novel. I enjoy a book packed with detail and well written descriptions, and learned a lot I didn’t know about historical characters I only knew before from books and movies. I think there is a valid question as to how accurate Clavin’s sources might be, as contemporary accounts of this time were sketchy at best, while much that we think we know about the Wild West rests on reminiscences and memoirs given and written long after the fact by less than reliable sources. Did Billy the Kid and Jesse James really sit down at a table in saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico at play a game of poker with Doc Holiday? All I can say is that if it isn’t true, it ought to be.

No doubt, there are many who would rather read a book that decries the environmental holocaust of the Buffalo hunts, the mistreatment of the Sioux, the Cheyenne, and the Comanche, the degradation and exploitation of women in the Old West by prostitution, and the American propensity for violence; and this book is clearly not for them. Clavin’s writing style is breezy and fast paced, with a keen eye for the pertinent detail when bringing colorful characters to life on the page, and best of all, he knows how to get out of the way of a good story and let it tell itself.

Of the two main protagonists, Wyatt Earp has had more books written about and certainly more movies made about his life than Bat Masterson, not the least among them being TOMBSTONE, with Kurt Russell as Wyatt. But after reading this book, I can’t help but think Masterson led the more interesting life; I recall reading about an unproduced script that went around Hollywood back in the ‘70s about his later years when he was a sports writer in New York City with hopes of getting either James Cagney or John Wayne to play the older Masterson. If true, it’s a shame that film never came about.

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

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

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
https://bit.ly/47dOR5N

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

Why the Korean War was worth it.

I love a really good history book, and nobody wrote them better than David Halberstam. As a young journalist, he was there in the early years in Vietnam, and out of it came THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, the first, and for many, the best book about how America lost its way in that war. He also wrote THE POWERS THAT BE, an authoritative history of the news media in America from the early 20th Century to the mid ‘70s, and THE FIFTIES, an exhaustive look at the politics and the culture of that decade. THE COLDEST WINTER: AMERICA AND THE KOREAN WAR sat on my shelf far too long, for it might be the best book I’ve yet to read on that long ago conflict and it contains some of Halberstam’s best writing.

I’ve read a number of books on the Korean conflict, including Clay Blair’s authoritative history, THE FORGOTTEN WAR, William Manchester’s bio of Douglas MacArthur, AMERICAN CAESAR, and most recently, H.W. Brands’ THE GENERAL AND THE PRESIDENT, all good works that stand on their own, but I think Halberstam’s book might be the best on any of any of them. At nearly 700 pages, THE COLDEST WINTER, moves seamlessly from the halls of power in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Tokyo to the front lines on the Korean peninsula, where American soldiers and Marines fought and died on some of the most brutal battlefields ever, under the worst possible conditions ever. It was a war America most certainly didn’t want to fight, coming so soon after the struggle of World War II, and though it was considered a draw at best when the truce was finally signed, Halberstam makes the case that it was worth it in the end. All books on this subject have to do a lot of unpacking of old history to explain why and how the conflict in Korea happened. Halberstam is good at giving a concise recounting of the Chinese Civil War of the late 1940’s, which ended in the triumph of Mao Zedong’s Communists over Chaing Kai-chek’s Nationalists, with the latter retreating to the island of Taiwan. America had backed the losing side in that conflict, giving millions upon millions of dollars to Chaing, and investing much political prestige to his cause. The triumph of Mao in China was one of the most important events of the 20th Century, with huge political ramifications in America, where the long out of power Republican Party embraced the notion that Communists had infiltrated the Democratic Administrations of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, actively working to further the interests of Communists abroad. Halberstam goes behind closed doors in Moscow and Beijing and brings to light what went on between these two Communist giants in the months preceding the opening of hostilities and after the fighting began. This is often a blind spot in other histories of the war. We get a take on just who Stalin and Mao were, how they operated, and just what their relationship with Kim Il Sung, the founder of the Korean Communist Party, was. Kim had set up a regime in the northern half of the peninsula occupied by the Soviets at the end of World War II, and was determined to unify his country, long under a brutal colonial occupation by the Japanese. The southern half was ostensibly part of the American occupation of Japan, with a government set up in Seoul by Syngman Rhee, who had spent years outside his country agitating for its independence. When Washington mistakenly made statements that seemed to put Korea outside of it national interest, Kim saw an opening, and got Stalin’s military support for an invasion of the South, and a quick reunification of the country under Communist rule. When the North Koreans invaded in late June of 1950, America had no choice but to come to aide of Seoul lest the Communists score another big win on the Asian mainland.

From the desperate days of the Pusan perimeter, to the landing at Inchon, THE COLDEST WINTER details how the Korean War was nearly lost except for the determination and bravery of outnumbered American troops, and then virtually won overnight by a daring and risky counter offensive orchestrated by General Douglas MacArthur. At this point the decision was made to push north and destroy Kim’s remaining forces, and unify Korea. This meant American and its UN allies marching all the way to the Yalu River, which separated Korea from Manchuria, and Mao, deeply suspicious that the Americans ultimately meant to restore Chaing to power, was not about to let that happen. He sent hundreds of thousands of his battle hardened troops of the People’s Liberation Army across the Yalu to meet the Americans head on in some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth just as winter was about to set in. What followed was maybe the hardest war any soldier ever fought.

Though the book details the enormous historical forces at work in those times, I think its strongest point is when it deals with the personalities involved, either in uniform or out. Stalin is an absolute dictator, ruling by brute force and distrusting of anyone he cannot have executed at will, and very wary of the new Communist leader in Beijing. Mao is a Marist ideologue with an abundant faith in a “peasants’ revolution,” while at the same time, a staunch Chinese patriot, determined to make his country a world power again. Kim is Stalin’s disciple who will ultimately outdo the teacher when comes to leading repressive regimes, while deeply committed to building an independent Korean nation after centuries of foreign domination. Harry Truman is a canny politician walking a fine line amidst the Cold War, attempting to hold the line against Communist aggression worldwide while gingerly sidestepping nuclear war. Douglas MacArthur is the General who led the allies to victory in the Pacific, and now leads the occupation of Japan, thus making him the commander on the ground in Korea when the war starts. MacArthur is vain and egotistical, with a staff of sycophants in Tokyo, and filled with contempt for civilian authority; he is also without any friends among his fellow officers in high positions in Washington, something which will do him no good in the long run. Dean Acheson, George Marshall, Omar Bradley, George Kennan, among others, play prominent parts in the story. Halberstam had a keen eye for good officers who saved the lives of their men, were quick to improvise and adjust when things went wrong on the battlefield (which happened often in Korea), and who read the enemy and figured out how to beat him. Among those who deservedly get praise are Generals Walton Walker, who held off the North Koreans at Pusan, and helped lead the drive North, and his successor in command of the 8th Army, Matthew Ridgeway, a soldier’s soldier, who snatched survival from the jaws of annihilation in the face of Mao’s armies, and fought the People’s Liberation Army to a bloody standstill. Then there was General Ned Almond, MacArthrur’s Chief of Staff who commanded the 10th Corp in Korea, an over confident martinet filled with contempt for his Asian enemies, unable to recognize the military disaster all around him. Charles Willoughby was MacArthur’s chief of intelligence, whose deliberate suppression of evidence that the Chinese were coming into the war bordered on the criminal. And while all these high ranking officers get plenty of space, THE COLDEST WINTER also puts the spotlight on the frontline officers and soldiers who did the fighting and the dying. There are harrowing accounts of being overrun by the Chinese; retreating down winding mountain roads under constant fire by the enemy on higher ground; of comrades being ground under tank treads while others crawled for miles to safety after being badly wounded; of having to stand and fight until you’re killed or run out of ammunition, whichever comes first; of men left behind in a disorderly retreat who were never heard from again. THE COLDEST WINTER introduced me to the names of Paul McGee, O.P. Smith, and Paul Freeman, and why they are heroes worthy of being remembered.

David Halberstam was one of the early journalists who went to Vietnam, reporting on that war and telling the truth about what was happening there. He became one of the scapegoats of those who tried to blame the debacle of the Vietnam War on “un-American reporters who undermined our troops.” I think Halberstam had great respect for the men who put it on the line for America, but he had an unsparing eye for spin, deliberate falsehoods, hubris, and self delusion among the powerful who should know better when responsible for the lives of others. One of the best things he does in THE COLDEST WINTER is lay out the miscalculations among those in authority that not only led to the Korean War, but were perpetrated on the battlefield at the cost of thousands of lives. Though he is far from the only guilty party, Halberstam is merciless when it comes to MacArthur, painting the portrait of an aging out of touch General, too believing in his own good press, who sends American soldiers headlong into a massive Chinese ambush when there was ample intelligence warning him ahead of time. The General’s confrontation with Truman that resulted in his firing had been well documented in other books, but Halberstam more than makes the case that MacArthur deliberately provoked his dismissal to further political ambitions that came to nothing. The author also has a take on the emotional outpouring that greeted MacArthur when he returned to America that I found interesting, one I had not considered before.

Halberstam makes the case at the end of the book that this unpopular war, which seemingly ended in a stalemate, was worth it, that the men who fought it and came home to public indifference had a right to be proud of their sacrifice. They saved South Korea, and gave the long oppressed people of that country a chance to prosper on their own, and build a democracy. But there was a darker legacy of the Korean War, one that cast a long shadow in Washington, and Halberstam is unsparing in documenting that as well. THE COLDEST WINTER was his last book, one that was decades in the making according to his final notes. As someone who loves reading history, I must say that he is sorely missed.

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

Angie, Selma, and the Eternals: a review.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe jumps head on into its next phase with Chloe Zhao’s adaptation of the ETERNALS, based on characters created by Jack Kirby back in 1976, for what would be a 19 issue run of a series that initially was separate from the rest of the Marvel continuity at the time. Kirby’s original series was strongly influence by Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYESSY, and the Arthur C. Clarke story it was based on in that worked off the theme of a highly advanced alien civilization coming to earth thousands of years in the past, and then guiding human evolution. In Kirby’s book, the title characters are super powered beings who are given the responsibility of watching over development of humanity by the Celestials, a race of giant, omnipotent beings, who will one day return and judge if the human race is worthy of continuing their existence. These 10 Eternals appear to be humans, and live among them, but are forbidden to interfere with the course of human history, standing aside during wars, genocides, and every manner of catastrophe. Their opposites are the Deviants, mutated Eternals, physically ugly, and their sworn enemies, whom the Eternals protect humanity from. Over time, Kirby’s characters were integrated into the Marvel continuity, with some members serving with The Avengers.

Kirby had a great knack for writing epic space opera stories, as evidence by his work with Stan Lee on the early FANTASTIC FOUR series, and later with the NEW GODS over at DC Comics, a series filled with heroes and villains possessing God like powers. Jack Kirby was a genius in conveying the grandeur and the power of such sagas on the comic page, but film, on the other hand, has often in the past, proved not up to the task of translating stories filled with these incredibly powerful beings to the screen; as evidence I site what happened with Galactus (a creation of Kirby) in that FANTASTIC FOUR movie. On that matter, I do think the ETERNALS got it right, doing justice to the legacy of King Kirby, and giving us a film that is entertaining, though not without flaws, and one which pushes the MCU in a new direction, one that seems to draw back upon Marvel comics of the ‘70s, which any long time fan can tell you, was filled with a lot of craziness, and I don’t mean that as criticism.

At its heart, the ETERNALS, like the X-Men and The Avengers, is the story of a family, a group of siblings who must decide if they will bend to their parents’ will, or decide what is right for themselves, and the humans they have come to care for so much. This family consists of: Selma Hayak as their leader Ajak, the only one capable of communicating with the Celestials; Ikaris, played by Richard Madden, who shoots laser beams from his eyes, and has the gift of flight; Sersi, played by Gemma Chan, who can transmute matter into any material she chooses; Kingo, played by Kumail Nanjaini, who can shoot deadly energy beams from his hands; Gilgamesh, played by Don Lee (who was everyone’s favorite character in TRAIN TO BUSAN) who possesses super strength that rivals Thor and The Hulk; Sprite, played by Lia McHugh, a child who can create illusions; Druig, played by Barry Keoghan, who has the power of telepathy and mind control; Makkari; played by deaf actress Lauren Ridloff, who has super speed; Phastos, played by Brian Tyree Henry, a technological genius; and Thena, portrayed by Angelina Jolie, a warrior who uses energy to create weapons. Of this large group, it is former lovers Chan and Madden who get the most screen time, evening sharing the MCU’s first PG-13 sex scene, but most to the others have their moments as well, and I think the film does a decent job of getting us invested with these characters. The story hues very close to the three act arc of most Marvel films: the first act establishes who is who among the Eternals with their arrival on Earth 7,000 years ago to save prehistoric humanity from the Deviants, we learn their powers, conflicts and tensions and what ultimately scattered them across the globe up to the present with the re-emergence of the Deviants post Thanos/Endgame; the second act concerns the reuniting of the team, where some members like Chan and Henry have assimilated themselves well among humans, while others, like Madden and Keoghan have kept their distance, in the face of the renewed threat from the Deviants, ending in a jungle confrontation and battle where there are casualties, and the hidden truth about the Celestials is revealed; setting the stage for the third act where the Eternals must square off against their creators for the sake to the planet and people they have come to love. The finale has betrayals and the requisite battle where everything is at stake and the heroes are pushed to the wall, seemingly with no chance of victory until…

I found a lot to like in this movie, despite its flaws, which include an opening act very heavy with exposition and time jumps, as there is a lot to learn in a short time. The nominal villains, the Deviants, are introduced in the first half, and factor heavily in the story only to all but disappear as a threat in the second half when their leader is dispatched by Jolie; some characters don’t get near enough screen time, like the very talented Ridloff. Some of the humor works, some of it doesn’t; this is not GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. What really works is the casting, which is spot on, especially Jolie, Lee, and Keoghan; Chan is excellent in what amounts to the lead role, she might be my new favorite MCU heroine. Nanjaini really stands out as an immortal who has found a home as a Bollywood star. This might be the most gorgeous looking MCU film ever, as Zhao did a lot of location filming in places like the Canary Islands. The effects do their job, and the sequence where the Dreaming Celestial partially rises from the earth is proof that this film has truly captured Kirby original vision. At over two and a half hours, ETERNALS is long, but for me, it went by fast. Marvel and Disney clearly took a risk by making a film built around what to many fans are definitely obscure heroes, but they pulled it off, and making it clear that the MCU is not afraid to move into uncharted territory going forward, that it doesn’t need Steve Rogers and Tony Stark to make compelling movies.

And speaking of the future, there are a couple of end credits scenes that raise the stakes nicely: welcome to the MCU Harry Styles and Kit Harrington.

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

What if the war in Vietnam had gone differently.

My novel, BEATING PLOWSHARES IN SWORDS: An Alternate History of the Vietnam War, is a piece of speculative fiction based on the premise that the Tet Offensive did not occur in January of 1968, but instead happened three years earlier, at a time when there were far less American troops on the ground in South Vietnam, and when political instability in that country made it vulnerable in the extreme to military pressure from the North. Instead of the steady escalation over a period of years, the United States has to go into Southeast Asia with both feet if it wants to stave off what Washington sees as a humiliating defeat to Communists. This change in the historical timeline brings about an unlikely change in the Cabinet of President Johnson, among other things. My novel is presented in the form of an oral history by participants in the events of the this alternative history, starting off with General Earl Halton, who in the opening scene of the book, is summoned to the Pentagon to meet with the Secretary of Defense.

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

The last place I had expected to be on the first Monday in April of 1965 was sitting in Richard Nixon’s office. I had just returned from two years in Germany as a Brigade Commander with NATO, looking forward to a posting as an instructor at West Point and watching my two children prepare to enter college; while Mr. Nixon had been Secretary of Defense for less than a month. The day before I was scheduled to leave Stuttgart, new orders arrived directing me to report to the Pentagon. Once there, I was directed to the SecDef‘s office, where I found myself across a desk from Mr. Nixon with no idea why I was there.

Of course in a larger sense the reason both of us were there was because of the ongoing debacle in South Vietnam. At that point in time the situation was this: The Communists had been watching the internal situation in the South deteriorate ever since the over throw of Diem--revolving door governments, political squabbling--and they had decided the time was right to go for broke. On the last day of January they rolled out of their bases in Laos and Cambodia, over 90,000 North Vietnamese Regulars backed up by an equal number of Viet Cong guerrillas. They sure had the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN)’s number; it folded like a cheap card table. In six weeks the Communists had over run the Central Highlands and reached the outskirts of Hue and Da Nang. Saigon was being hit by shell fire at will, almost a half dozen provincial capitals had fallen, and Highway One was in danger of being cut in a dozen places. If that was to come to pass, the entire country would effectively be chopped in half. We were faced with the worst foreign policy crisis since Korea and Lyndon Johnson’s second term was going down the toilet after only two months. The old cliché was true: we’d been caught with our pants down. When it hit the fan in Southeast Asia, somebody’s head had to role in Washington and the unlucky goat happened to be Robert McNamara. I was never sure if he was fired or just resigned, depends on whose book you read.

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

The Gone series continues with a great bad guy.

As I have stated in all of my reviews of the books in Michael Grant’s GONE series, I am many years beyond the reading demographic these YA books are geared toward, but I love a good story, and the original series, centered on the FAYZ at Perdido Beach, California, was a great story with a great premise. The previous book in the series, MONSTER, was a continuation with the action now taking place all around the world, with the introduction of a lot of new characters; it had its faults, with the main criticism being that it simply was not the GONE story so many had fallen in love with over six books. But it had enough of the author’s strong points, namely a knack for creating great villains, staging action scenes, and serving up gore, to make it a decent read.

The eighth book in the series, VILLAIN, continues the story set up in MONSTER, as the group of super powered heroes who came together in that book: Shade Darby, Dekka Talent, Cruz, Armo, Malik, and newcomer, Frances Spector, take on a new mutated threat in Las Vegas. This title character is Dillon Poe, a particularly nasty little narcissistic piece of work, a kid who dreams of making it big as a comedian, and who can morph into a serpent like creature with the power to command individuals with his voice alone. The Ranch, the requisite secret mutant creating government facility, also figures in the story, as do returning bad guys like Justin DeVere, Tom Peaks, and Vincent Vu, although some of them are underused, so too is uber sadist Drake Merwin, a favorite from the first series, though in Drake’s case, he’s clearly being saved for another book.

VILLAIN is noticeably shorter than MONSTER, and that is all to the better, as no time is spent with clunky character introductions and back story. It’s a quick read that plays to Grant’s talent in getting the reader invested in the action and characters with a spare use of words; and the battle of Las Vegas, which takes up the second half of the story, is well written, especially in the way it describes how Dillon uses his power to take over the free will of individuals and twist them to his selfish whims. There are scenes of carnage which are truly cringing inducing in the best way. Heroes and villains still “morph” in underwhelming transformations, and the learning curve when it comes to mastering powers is still way too easy, but I get it that Grant dispensed with anything that might have slowed the story down this time; middle books in a story arc can often end up bogging down a narrative, something Grant manages to dodge in VILLAIN.

I enjoyed VILLAIN better than MONSTER, even the ostentatious diversity played better in this book, while the promised return of some fan favorites in the latter book was teased further in the former, setting things up nicely in the next book, HEROES, the final volume in the series. And if the GONE series never gets that live action TV or movie adaptation that has been rumored for years, then why not an animated series done in the same manner as the DC animated films put out by Warner Brothers? Why doesn’t somebody not pitch that to Netflix?

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

Down on the farm with Anne Rice.

I’ve had a copy of BLACKWOOD FARM on my shelf for a few years, waiting while I made my way through the rest of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, with a detour through the three books of The Mayfair Witches. I am a big fan of the former, which contains some of the most impressive world building to be found in horror fantasy, and not so much the latter, which I found indulgent even by Rice’s standards, with a side helping of erotica that wasn’t always to my liking. Nevertheless, with all that reading behind me, I wanted to see what BLACKWOOD FARM would bring forth, as it is a novel with a foot planted in both of Rice’s fictional worlds, which have now come to overlap and merge. In my opinion, we get the best of both in a book that will surely please any hard core Rice fan. There’s no end of the oddness, kinks and quirks, and the downright grotesque that longtime readers have come to expect.

Primarily this book is a vampire story, that vampire being the fledgling Quinn Blackwood, a young man turned into a blood drinker early in life. Young vampire Quinn has a problem named Goblin, a spirit who has haunted him since infancy, a doppelganger and companion whom only Quinn and those like him who are perceptive to spirits, can see, but now that Quinn is a creature of the night, the possessive Goblin has become truly monstrous and impossible to control. Since Quinn is the heir to a palatial farm in Louisiana, it is only natural that this inexperienced vampire journey to New Orleans and seek out Lestat, the brat prince of Undead, Rice’s most famous fictional creation. Of course this sets up one of the author’s most tried and true storytelling tropes, where Quinn sets down and tells Lestat his life’s story up to that moment, which encompasses about 500 pages, as learn the history of the Blackwood family, and of the land they’ve lived on for generations. We meet lots of characters along the way, including a few who cross over from the Mayfair books, and learn a few secrets. In the book’s finale, we learn who Goblin really is, and why he is attached to Quinn.

Like most of Anne Rice’s later books, readers seem to have run hot and cold on BLACKWOOD FARM in equal numbers, but I liked it better than just anything she’s written since THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED. At this point, you either go with Rice’s style, or you don’t, and if you go with it, then it means overlooking a few flaws, especially her love of detail and description – the reader will know every inch of the Blackwood’s home and the swamp adjacent to it in their minds by the end. Then there is the thing with the cameos. I liked the main character of Quinn, who can come across as an indulged and spoiled little rich boy, one capable of simply going off on a three year tour of the finest and most culturally refined parts of Europe for one section of the story, but I found his earnestness a refreshing change from some of Rice’s other story narrators. My favorite moment in the book is when Quinn, newly made a Blood Hunter by Petronia (definitely not one of my favorite Rice characters), promptly announces that he is not going to be staying among the immortals in Italy, but returning to his human family in Louisiana, and resuming as normal a life as possible among them. I thought Quinn and Mona Mayfair were a wonderful couple (overlooking the fact that she’s only 15 years old), and I found myself rooting for them. Like many of Rice’s novels, this one could have been helped by some editing, though it never plodded along like some of the Mayfair books; there were enough dramatic twists and turns to satisfy me. Rice’s tendency to telegraph how you are to feel about her characters is very evident, everyone loves Aunt Queen, the Blackwood matriarch, while Patsy, Quinn’s errant mother, is to be held in low regard because she hates her son and makes no secret of it. Some plot threads feel underdeveloped, such as Rebecca, the ghost of the mistress of a long gone Blackwood, to whom Quinn loses his virginity. Others, like Quinn’s teenage Uncle Tommy, feel like a story line being planted for a future book. There are some things that just made me shake my head, such as Quinn having elderly Black female servants sleep with him (in a non sexual way) for comfort until he’s nearly an adult. And this book really drove home the fact that Anne Rice, despite her progressive politics, can be a real snob, especially in the way she handles Patsy, whose crime seems to be that she didn’t want to be a properly cultured little rich girl, but instead wanted to have career making low class country and pop music, and Tommy’s mother, Terry Sue, who sin is that she is poor, overweight, lives in a trailer, and can’t stop having children.

Like many other reviewers, I felt that Lestat had simply been shoe horned into the narrative to please the fans; his contribution to the story is fairly minimal. There are appearances by Rowan Mayfair and Michael Curry, the main characters from the Witches trilogy, and it is still apparent that Curry is Rice’s ideal man in the way she lovingly gives a physical description. Oncle Julian Mayfair shows up at one point, reminding me why he is one of my Top Five Anne Rice characters. For those not that familiar with Rice, it is not necessary to have read all of her previous books before opening BLACKWOOD FARM, but I would recommend reading INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE and THE VAMPIRE LESTAT before cracking this one. Anyway, I’m looking forward to BLOOD CANTICLE; the next volume in Anne Rice’s enduring series, and seeing what she has in store for these characters.

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/3nK

Shang-Chi: my review.

The first film in the MCU’s next phase was BLACK WIDOW, but that film, which featured Scarlet Johannson’s swan song as the title character, felt very much like it was grounded in what had come before, but SHANG-CHI: THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS very much breaks new ground, and takes us into a heretofore only hinted at corner of the Marvel Universe. It’s the origin story of the title character, a martial arts superhero, but he is not nearly as well known as Spider-Man or Captain America, so we are not treated to yet another iteration of Uncle Ben’s demise. Instead we are given a fleshed out story of a tragic family, one without easily defined villains. Shang-Chi joined the Marvel Comic scene in 1973 in an attempt to create a character that could cash in on the Kung Fu craze at the height of Bruce Lee’s popularity. He had his own book for many years, interacting with other Marvel heroes, and if he has not been a Marvel regular in recent decades, Shang-Chi has never gone away, and retained the loyalty of many hardcore fans.

Like all origin movies, SHANG-CHI begins with some exposition and back story, specifically concerning his father, Wenwu, played by Tone Leung, a power hungry thousand year old immortal, who wields the Ten Rings of the title, a fearsome mystical weapon of an unknown source. Only when he meets Li, played by Fala Chen, a fighter from the hidden realm of Ta-Lo, does he find someone who is his equal in combat. Falling in love, Wenwu forsakes his violent ways, and starts a family with Li. But in every hero’s origin story there must be a tragedy, and when Li is murdered by Wenwu’s rivals, he seeks vengeance, becoming the villain he once was, and teaching his son and daughter how to become deadly assassins. When we meet Shang-Chi, well played by Simu Liu, he is a twenty something Chinese immigrant living in San Francisco making a living as a parking valet with his best friend/girlfriend, Katy, played by Awkwafina, having broken from his father’s world. But as with most stories centering on estranged families, the plot turns on them being drawn back together, and Wenwu needs a pair of pendants belonging to Shang-Chi and his sister that were gifts from their mother because they are essential, he believes, if he is to free his deceased spouse from the Dark Realm, whose entrance lies inside Ta-Lo. And if Shang-Chi doesn’t want to go along with Dad’s plan, too bad. It all comes to a head in an epic battle in Ta-Lo in a CGI heavy third act – pretty much a staple for the MCU.

I liked this movie because it has plenty of energy, with great well done action scenes, along with some spectacularly staged martial arts battles. It also has a lot of heart, with characters who are easy to become invested in. And this lighter touch is welcome after the dark turns of AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. In Tony Leung, it has a great villain with an understandable motive, something essential with any good super hero film. Simu Liu is an appealing lead, and he’s matched all the way by Awkwafina’s Katy, an underachiever who discovers special skills. I am not always impressed with CGI laden film making, but I don’t mind it here because I actually care about the all too human characters involved in the action. The finale in Ta-Lo is supposed to be the high point of the movie, but for me, nothing beats the battle on the careening city bus on the streets of San Francisco early in the film, where Shang-Chi first shows his true martial arts prowess against his father’s minions, led by the fearsome Razor Fist, played by the physically impressive Florian Monteneau. Michelle Yeoh has a part as a village elder, and out of nowhere, Ben Kingsley returns as actor Trevor Slattery, thus redeeming what for many of us fans what was one of the more disappointing villain tweaks from IRON MAN 3.

An early scene at a Hong Kong fight club firmly establishes that all this is happening in the MCU with appearances by Benedict Wong’s character from DOCTOR STRANGE, and the Abomination from THE HULK. Wong returns in a post credits scene that clearly sets up Shang-Chi and Katy for the big leagues in the next phase of the MCU. Will they learn where the Ten Rings came from, and maybe does THE ETERNALS have anything to do with it? And there is the dangling plot thread of what exactly happened when Shang-Chi was sent to kill the man responsible for his mother’s death when he was 14; it was the event that estranged him from his father. Something tells me we will find out in some future installment. I can hardly wait.

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

This Suicide Squad is good gory fun thanks to James Gunn

What a difference five years makes, as we finally have THE SUICIDE SQUAD we wanted back in 2016, it just took that long for director James Gunn to give it to us. This new film, which works as both a sequel and a reboot, leans way in to get a hard R rating with its violence, gore, and rough language, is a lot rougher than Gunn’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, though it is similar in that both films are about comic book C and D list characters coming together to form a rag tag team that takes on a desperate mission. In the process, these losers find a way to become heroes. But Gunn isn’t making a DC version of his MCU success, as many of THE SUICIDE SQUAD’s protagonists are real villains with nary a heart of gold among them. The plot is the same as the previous film, and the comic, first written by Jon Ostrander (who has a cameo in the film) in 1987: a group of incarcerated super villains are recruited by the formidable Amanda Waller for black op missions for the United States government with the promise of parole or a reduced sentence if they survive said mission, which is often unlikely, hence the title. These “assets” have an explosive device implanted in their necks to ensure their cooperation in the field. In this film, which jumps right into its plot, the mission is to go to Corto Maltese, a politically unstable South American island, and destroy a government project there before its “top secret” falls into the wrong hands. I love a good rag tag group on a desperate mission movie, and this one works the formula to the maximum.

One of the big reasons why this reboot works so well is the casting of charismatic and quirky actors in the main and supporting roles, starting off with John Cena and Idris Elba as The Peacemaker and Bloodsport respectively. Both are a pair of mercenary killers with very different ways of going about their business, you know right from the start that these two are on a collision course despite being on the same team. Some of Gunn’s regulars, such as Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion, Sean Gunn, among others, join the cast, while newcomers Pete Davidson, Peter Capaldi, Daniela Melchoir, Mayling Ng, Flula Borg, and David Dastmalchian, fill out other roles. Coming back from the first film are Joel Kinnaman and Jai Courtney as Rick Flagg and Captain Boomerang; but best of all Viola Davis, who was born to play Amanda Waller, and Margot Robbie, who will forever be Harley Quinn, return. Robbie’s Quinn was the best thing in the first film, as well as the not so great, BIRDS OF PREY, and here she is finally given a script worthy of her character. And they couldn’t have found anyone better than Sylvester Stallone to voice King Shark. Two standouts are Melchoir, as Ratcatcher 2 (Taika Waititi has a cameo as her father, Ratcatcher 1), one of the least likely heroes, and Dastmalchain, a veteran of a number DC Comic projects on TV and the big screen, manages to make Polka-Dot Man, a minor Batman villain, into to something memorable. Nobody should get too attached to any character, because this film lives up to its title, and there is a very high body count, including some heroes and villains who seemed destined to make it out alive.

The main reason why this film works is James Gunn, who not only directed, but wrote the screenplay, and his ability to “get” comic book storytelling. Gunn possesses an uncanny talent for taking characters and concepts that only work on the comic book page and make them work onscreen. A creature like Starro the Conqueror, a giant alien who resembles a walking starfish, is right out of a bad ‘50s monster film, yet for the purposes of THE SUICIDE SQUAD, Gunn makes him a terrifying antagonist, and part of an awesome finale where the surviving members of the squad must somehow stop his rampage. A huge walking shark could be ludicrous in a live action movie, but as with Rocket Raccoon, Gunn makes a CGI creation live and breathe, and be integral to the story’s success. Gunn succeeds where other very talented directors who have jumped into the super hero genre have failed. While the film doesn’t have an overtly political angle (unlike almost every other movie that comes out now), it seems to have a message that fits the pandemic era: in the face of an imminent threat, authority will look after its own interests before those of citizens.

Of course there is an end credits scene, which points the way to future endeavors in the DCEU, which I do hope will lead to other hard R superhero films. It’s doubtful that Disney owned Marvel will embrace such projects, but there is nothing stopping Warner Brothers, which owns the DC Comic universe, from going down this road again. And even if not, I’d like to see more comic book films centered on bad guys from both of the Big Two; maybe Marvel ought to rethink green lighting that Sinister Six film project Sony was going to produce.

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