Steven E. Wedel's Blog, page 10
January 2, 2017
Review: My Ántonia
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
There are some fantastic lines in this novel. Some great scenes. I liked the characters a lot. But ultimately … nothing happens. There’s no crisis. No villain. No problem that has to be overcome. It’s just kinda there.
What’s the story about? Well … the male narrator presents a friend with a manuscript entitled My Antonia. It’s his recounting of a Bohemian girl he grew up with. They’re friends, her grandfather blows his brains out, the girl...
January 1, 2017
The Year of Horses and Porn
It’s time for my 2016 year in review in terms of books I read. There are a lot of Westerns on the list. There’s also a lot of erotica. I swear, though, that stuff was for market research purposes. Honestly!
I read 55 books last year. I don’t know if this is a personal record or not, considering I’m ancient and can’t remember a time I didn’t love to read. But it’s certainly a high point since I started keeping my stats on Goodreads. Because there are over 50 titles, I’m not going to go over al...
December 29, 2016
Review: The Day the Cowboys Quit
The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer Kelton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I haven’t read a whole lot of Elmer Kelton’s Western fiction — in fact, this is only the second novel of his I can recall reading — but that needs to change. I really enjoy his style of writing, his level of detail that paints the picture without bogging down, and his strong characterization.
The Day the Cowboys Quit is not a shoot-em-up Western, nor is it a sprawling epic. It’s a very realistic account of a cowboy strike and...
December 4, 2016
Review: Orphans of the Sky
Orphans of the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A friend told me about this novel way, way back in the early 1990s. I kept forgetting the name of it, but finally bought a copy several years ago, and just now got around to reading it. From the moment Bruce told me about the novel I was intrigued by the situation: People living on a space ship have been there so long they’ve forgotten that they are on a ship and believe it is the whole of space.
From there it’s kind of downhi...
November 28, 2016
Another Open Letter to Oklahoma Lawmakers
State Question 779 was not a good bill. It put the burden of the legislature’s job of funding teacher salaries onto the shoulders of everyone in Oklahoma, hurting the poor the most. And so it failed. One can hope people voted it down because it was a regressive tax and not because they feel like Oklahoma teachers are overpaid, but … Who really knows?
Oklahoma ranks 48th out of 50 states and D.C. in the quality of education our kids receive. You get what you pay for, as we also ranked 48 in pe...
November 14, 2016
Review: Stranded: A Novel
Stranded: A Novel by Bracken MacLeod
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a good one. Is it a horror novel? A science fiction novel? An adventure story? Why choose? It’s all the above!
Noah Cabot is a deck hand on the Arctic Promise, and the ship is in a very violent storm as the story opens. The storm passes, but the fog that follows is incredibly thick. Then Noah sees that ice is starting to form in the ocean. Next thing you know, the ship ain’t moving because it’s beset by ice. But that ain’...
November 6, 2016
Review: Fate and The Exorcist: An In-depth Interview with William Peter Blatty
Fate and The Exorcist: An In-depth Interview with William Peter Blatty by Brian James Freeman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Not really a biography, but an extended interview with William Peter Blatty. It left me with a lot of questions that still aren’t answered, but it was an interesting read. You’ll learn more about the author of The Exorcist by reading his memoir I’ll Tell Them I Remember You, a book that was never brought up in this interview.
October 30, 2016
Review: In the Season of the Sun
In the Season of the Sun by Kerry Newcomb
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I just didn’t care for it. The story was too heavy on the romance. This will sound sexist, I know, but honestly, the romance was such an important element of the story that I thought Kerry was a woman. Yeah, sue me. Whatever.
The writing is competent. The story isn’t horrible, if it’s the kind of thing you’re into. I was looking for more Western-style action. I found the story to be pretty predictable and the characters one d...
October 20, 2016
Review: Wolf: The Lives of Jack London
Wolf: The Lives of Jack London by James L. Haley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Call of the Wild has long been one of my favorite books, and it’s the first novel we read together in my AP Literature class to illustrate The Hero’s Journey and introduce literary movements. I’d read London’s The Road memoir of his life as a tramp previously and liked it, so when I found this full biography at a Half-Price Books there was no leaving it behind.
To say London led an amazing life would be a gross und...
October 17, 2016
Review: ‘Salem’s Lot
‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
So many years since my first visit to Jerusalem’s Lot! Way back in the halcyon days of the early 1980s, when the teenage version of myself decided to move out of high fantasy and explore the horror genre, I began by buying an H.P. Lovecraft collection of stories, and another called Night Shift by Stephen King. I liked both, and wanted something longer, so I bought King’s Salem’s Lot and was hooked. It remained one of my favorite King nove...
