Steven E. Wedel's Blog, page 11

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...

The case for alt certified teachers

A friend and colleague recently showed me this article in last Sunday’s Oklahoman newspaper. The article quotes an educator with some pretty derogatory and fallacious things to say about teachers with emergency and alternative certification. For instance:

“Emergency certified personnel may have had zero experience with children, may have achieved a 1.0 grade-point average or lower with a major in physical education at University of Phoenix, may be alcoholics with pornography addictions, but t...

Review: The Life We Bury

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Life We Bury is one of those books where you can see what’s coming from a long way off, but the characters are compelling enough that you want to keep reading. But then everything happens pretty much just like you predicted and you’re all like, meh. It was a decent book and I did enjoy the characters despite very little growth.

Joe has to write a paper for an English class, so he goes to an old folks’ home thinking there’ll be som...

Review: Man Hunter

Man Hunter by Dusty Rhodes
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a novel about Superman playing Santa Claus dressed as Josey Wales in the Old West. It ranged from mildly entertaining to borderline frustrating for over 500 pages, then came to an anti-climactic ending.

As I’ve stated before, I break Western novels into three categories: 1) Shoot-em-ups that are just plot, virtually no character development, 2) Stories set in the Old West that have some character development and at least one theme a...

Review: Wolves

Wolves by D.J. Molles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is another one that was compelling enough that I almost gave it five stars, but in the end I held back because it didn’t really have any deeper meaning than just a really, really good story about a man who’ll stop at nothing to avenge the memory of his wife and daughter.

Huxley, his wife, and their daughter survived “the sky fire” and built a new life for themselves in a commune on the western edge of “the wastelands”, and area that seems t...

Review: To the Far Blue Mountains

To the Far Blue Mountains by Louis L’Amour
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The continuing adventures of Barnabas, founder of the American Sacketts, L’Amour’s most famous family saga. Still more of a swashbuckler than a western. I think I liked it better than the first book, but Barnabas was still too arrogant, too sure of his destiny, too skilled in things the reader had no idea he knew about.

It was frustrating how Barnabas kept exposing himself to his enemies, almost as if L’Amour was just trying...

Review: The Pearl

The Pearl by John Steinbeck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Pearl was not only the very first John Steinbeck novel I read, it was one of the books assigned to me by my favorite high school teacher, Wilda Walker. So, it’s a pretty special novel for me.

This is the story of Kina, a very poor pearl diver, and his wife and their baby. The day the baby is stung by a scorpion and refused treatment by the doctor is also the day Kino finds “the pearl of the world,” a gem of magnificent size and quality...

Review: Demian

Demian by Hermann Hesse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This may be one that grows on me as the ideas it planted take root and blossom. For the moment, though, I was considerably less impressed with Demian in comparison to Siddhartha, which I loved.

This novel starts out with young Emil Sinclair making up a story about stealing apples, only to find himself at the mercy of a bully who wants to tell the farmer who’s been stealing apples. Living under this threat nearly ruins young Sinclair, but then...

Review: Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine

Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine by Eric Weiner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Consider this a 3.5 star review. There were things I really liked, and things I really didn’t like, but overall I’m glad I read it.

Former journalist Eric Weiner had gas and went to a hospital, where a nurse asked, “Have you found your God?” After a good fart (I presume), Weiner, a gastronomical Jew, decides he needs to fill the god-shaped hole in his life. So he travels the world exploring different faiths...

Review: Sackett’s Land

Sackett’s Land by Louis L’Amour
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Despite my love of Westerns, I’d only read a couple of Louis L’Amour’s novels prior to this one, plus his autobiography. I just wasn’t a fan of his style. But I wanted another Western series to get into, so I decided to give L’Amour another chance and read some of his Sackett series. I’m still not impressed.

Barnabas Sackett is the patriarch of what will become the Sackett clan in the New World, but when this first book of the saga ope...