Steven E. Wedel's Blog, page 11
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...
October 5, 2016
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...
October 3, 2016
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...
September 26, 2016
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...
September 14, 2016
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...
September 2, 2016
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...
August 30, 2016
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...
August 15, 2016
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...
