Doug Lewars's Blog, page 61

IF The Haunting Fits, Wear It

If the Haunting Fits, Wear It by Rose Pressey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This book is fluff and needs to be evaluated accordingly. On the cover is an endorsement from Janet Evanovich and it seems like the author was attempting to follow Ms. Evanovich's formula for success.

The heroine is a bit of a ditz who is surrounded by quirky characters. in this case the characters are ghosts. She has a feisty grandmother who happens to be dead and possessing the body of a cat. She has an arms-length mother who is supportive nonetheless and she has two boyfriends - one of whom she's thinking of marrying - in more of a philosophical sense. That one is a policeman.
In the case of Evanovich's protagonist, Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter and is therefore responsible for finding people who skip out on bail. Cookie Chanel, the heroine of this book stumbles across the recent deceased who request her to find their murderers and won't go away until she does. All that is fine and some humor is derived from Cookie's need to explain why she periodically seems to be talking to herself but in these days of tiny phones I found that wearing a bit thin. Both characters are largely inept and stumble across the truth as much by accident as design. In the end, each heroine gets into a life-threatening jam and is rescued by one of the boyfriends. That's the formula and it works very well for Evanovich but not so much for Ms. Pressey.

For one thing, Cookie is utterly disorganized. She has no plan - nothing - for finding the murderer but goes around supposedly interviewing people who might have some information but she is incapable of formulating and pursuing a line of questioning. She periodically breaks into somewhere dangerous in order to look for clues when she could simply have one of her ghostly companions drift through the wall to take a look and then report back. She tries to sneak up on people in order to eavesdrop on their conversation when she could request a ghost to go straight up to them, listen and then report back. Yes the character lacks focus but I suspect that in fact the author is more concerned with churning out verbiage than paying attention to the details of her plot.

Still the book is reasonably pleasant to read and since this is a bestselling author then presumably there is a suitably large demographic of readers who don't feel constrained by a lack of rationality so, as a fluff read I think this is reasonable but hardly exceptional.



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Too Many Curses

Too Many Curses by A. Lee Martinez

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

If you like frivolous fantasy along such lines as The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett, then you'll love this. When an evil sorcerer - a top ranked evil sorcerer no less - has an accident and perishes, then his magic starts to come unraveled. But this was a sorcerer who was, perhaps, a bit too clever for himself. He arranged matters for himself so that he couldn't die - yet his body was certainly gone - and as a result he finds himself locked in a state of limbo. As a result, his magic doesn't quite dissipate. It merely gets a little strange. His servant - cook, cleaning lady, castle administrator - finds herself in charge of running the castle. Her chief objective is, and always was, to be competent, diligent, industrious and organized. Suddenly unusual things start happening and this is not to her liking. Too Many Curses is a romp through a menagerie of dark magic, an evil villainous, a demon turned loose, a hell-hound and lots of other weirdness. Our heroine is aided in her struggles by a bat - who was once a great hero, an echo - who was once a poet, and her monster-who-lives-under-her-bed.

I recommend this unconditionally to lovers of fantasy and lovers of humor.



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Yiddish for Pirates

Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

The title is a bit of a misnomer. There are a few scenes involving pirates but mostly this book is about survival - and frankly the characters don't do so well. Among other places, it is set in Spain during the fifteenth century. The Spanish Inquisition is in full swing and Jewish people aren't popular - unless, of course they have money in which case they're a bit too popular. Specifically they're being killed or driven out of the country and the church is more than willing to confiscate their assets in the name of the Lord. Some have converted to Christianity but those are the ones that are in the most danger because if they are accused of recidivism they can be burned at the stake.

The tale is narrated by an African Grey Parrot. Accompanying the protagonist they escape the inquisition with their lives intact - barely - and rescue some friends and important books along the way. Among other things he accompanies Columbus on his first trip to America, remains behind, becomes a pirate for a while and sets out to discover the fountain of youth.

Basically the story is one of seeking for what is important. It may be treasure, youth, or the love of your life but mostly these are dreams - little more than smoke on the horizon - there for a moment and then gone again. The endings of the various subplots in this book are not always happy but at the same time they're not generally unhappy. The author appears to take the position that life is life. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Always you play the game because - well, what really are the options?

I thoroughly enjoyed the tale and I highly recommend it. Admittedly I had to skip over some of the Yiddish expressions. Some are part of the common vernacular but others were more obscure. It's generally possible to get an idea as to what is being said although the specifics might be a little vague.

After I finished the book, I noticed that there was a note on the cover indicating that this was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Had I seen that at the beginning I probably wouldn't have bothered reading this story because generally the kinds of books that the judges like are the kind I dislike but, in this case, it appears that my tastes aligned with the judges - at least up to the final round. Therefore if you happen to be like me and shun books that have won prizes, you can still read and enjoy this one. As the author might say, it is not schmaltzy at all.



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Blood Count

Blood Count by Jack Batten

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This falls under the detective or mystery genre but, although it seems like a whodunit, it isn't. It is, however, an interesting story that keeps the reader engaged from the beginning to the end.

The protagonist is Crang and if his last name was mentioned I missed it. He's portrayed as what you might get if you cross bred Mickey Spillane and a latte liberal - hard nosed but cultured. He's also a criminal lawyer so in order to be portrayed as a detective, the author needs to find a means of getting the police to back off. In this case the means is cultural stereotyping. It works.

The author alludes to, but omits the normally obligatory sex scene for which I was truly grateful. When authors attempt to create eroticism they generally either just create humorous or boring prose. In the equally obligatory fight scene, the protagonist escapes mostly by luck and is laid up for the next couple of days which I thought added a touch of realism to the story.

Overall I can recommend this book to those who like detective novels with plenty of twists and turns in them.



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Speaker for the Dead

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible spoilers ***

On a distant planet humanity has encountered a race of intelligent creatures that living in a primitive state. Rule number one is that they must be left alone to find their own way in the universe. But it becomes clear that leaving them alone is not an option.

This book explores the themes of guilt, religion, love, truth, genocide, the relationship between humans and aliens and whether a sentient computer program can survive with humans. It's a very powerful and well-crafted novel and thoroughly enjoyable. In addition it quite relevant for today's reader as globalism makes inroads into every aspect of life. In some respects I found it a a little heavy-handed in terms of its moral perspective but overall I think this is an excellent book to read.



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Romance

Nights of Fantasy by Sherelle Green

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible spoilers ***

This was, by far, one of the most difficult books I've read in years. Romance is not a genre I care for but I think it's important to read read across genres from time to time so I selected a romance novel and read it. Reviewing it is even more difficult. Obviously I, and anyone who doesn't like romance novels wouldn't enjoy it so it's necessary to evaluate somewhat clinically - as something that someone who does enjoy this genre might read. As a result I rated it a 3 but I suspect it deserves a higher rating given the constraints under which the author was working. Unfortunately I can't really tell if it's exceptional or bad so I chose a number in the middle.

It contains some fairly standard tropes - the handsome man - with exceptional abs, the beautiful woman and a conflict between them that generates heat which morphs into passion and then love. That, basically, was done all the way back in Pride and Prejudice although the order changed - plus they didn't do the now obligatory sex scenes. One has to have a certain grudging respect for an author who can write a sex scene without causing her audience to chuckle. I have to admit that I chuckled but I doubt that someone who seriously liked this sort of thing would so that was well done.

There were other ingredients that were used to enhance the atmosphere. Our heroine has three best friends and they all love one another - platonically of course. This wasn't LGBT material. She has a mother to whom she is close and to whom she can confide anything. Both hero and heroine are hiding deep dark secrets - secrets which really don't seem to be that deep or dark - at least to this reader but awkward nonetheless. In fact our heroine is being blackmailed. I have to admit I was curious as to how that would turn out because real violence is not part of the romance genre but it turned out the blackmailer was female so no violence was necessary. The heroine was reasonably well off. She was a high-roller in the fashion industry - at least a new high-roller - nowhere near the major houses of Paris but climbing steadily. He was very rich - but then he'd have to be wouldn't he. He was in real-estate and flipped properties. This one rather surprised me because I have a very low impression of real-estate and property-flipping individuals in general. To me they seem sleazy but I guess to the readers of romance novels they're okay. He was working for a tyrannical father and eventually had to quit in order to win the woman he loved. Of course his resignation didn't entirely 'take' but there's no sense in giving away too much. After all, it's a romance novel. It needed a happy ending and there can be no happiness in unemployment and the very thought of being middle-class or even poor is enough to transfer the genre from romance to horror.

One thing that caught my attention was the diversity in the novel. None of the characters were WASP. All were various shades of brown and that suggests that the demographics of the romance genre has broadened over the years. I guess the years of the Harlequin perky nurse and domineering doctor are gone forever. Clearly the author understands what sells and is working hard to target her market.

Overall, I think I can recommend this book to those who enjoy the romance genre. It's definitely not for me but that's irrelevant. The author has created a book with love, lust, uncertainty, self-doubt and plenty of salacious descriptions - but always with feelings - and I believe that she's done a very good job in the process.



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Super Extra Grande

Super Extra Grande by Yoss

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


*** Possible spoilers ***

To start with I thoroughly enjoyed this book. That said, there were a few things I didn't care for but let's start with what is most impressive. This author did not stop at world-building. He did some galaxy-building. He created several sentient races - a couple methane breathing, two more oxygen breathing and one that breathed hydrogen. I didn't quite understand the biological constructs that went around the latter. These races cooperated for the most part although the protagonist is required to save the galaxy from a war breaking out. Mostly, however, the main character is a veterinarian who specialized in large animals - very large animals. One of his patients is measured in a diameter that is somewhere around 100 kilometers and that's quite some critter. In this case it was an amoeba. That's right - just one cell but a biggy. Anyway, occasionally one of these creatures either by design or by accident consumes something or someone of value and our hero had to go in and make a recovery or a rescue. How he does this makes up the bulk of the story. In fact, the entire plot hinges around the treatment of two such patients along with a goodly amount of backstory.

As I said, I enjoyed the book and I'm pretty certain the author did a fair bit of research so as not to make any foolish mistakes although my knowledge of biology is not up to the challenge. However the one thing that I did not like was that all the dialog was in Spanglish. The narration was in English that had probably be translated from Spanish but the dialog was somewhere between Spanish and English. Apparently in the author's galaxy Spanglish is the dominant language. It was possible to read for an uni-lingual English speaker since Spanish is a romance language and one tends to pick up a bit here and there but it did break up the rhythm of reading and that's why I didn't care for it. In general, however, I thought this book was entertaining and worth reading.



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Hidden Codes & Grand Designs

Hidden Codes & Grand Designs: Secret Languages From Ancient Times To Modern Day by Pierre Berloquin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible spoilers ***

I found this to be an interesting book but don't look to it for organization. Anything that can possibly be used to represent something else is a code to this author and with the bit firmly planted in his teeth he runs with it. So simple transposition of letters is included along with art symbols.

There is some interesting history that is included. He discusses certain aspects of the crusades and the Knights Templer that I hadn't encountered before and he suggests the possibility that when the Templers were disbanded, some wound up within the Freemasons although he states that there isn't any real proof of that.

There are a lot of exercises in decoding and code breaking for the reader but I was mostly interested in code generation and the history so I didn't bother with those. In terms of technicality the book is a little thin because, while it mentions PGP it doesn't dwell on it in much detail. A little less history and more on modern computer encryption might have been a good trade-off.

For those who are both history buffs and interested in the development of coding techniques and how codes have been deployed in the past I can recommend the book. Just don't expect the material to be really well organized.




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Old Mars

Old Mars by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

These short stories are a nod to the era of pulp sci-fi. In those times it was quite common for authors to chose Mars as a setting for their story. Then science determined that Mars was a lifeless desert and authors chose other venues for their work. But fiction is fiction and this set of authors decided to have some fun with the red planet once again and the produced a number of excellent stories that are fun to read. Martians come in all shapes and sizes. Many are cool to humans, some are helpful and some warlike. They're all different and all entertaining. If you like sci-fi with plenty of improbable critters and lots of action then this is a great book to read.



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Blood of Angels Wings of Men

Blood of Angels, Wings of Men by Jon Jacks

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

I came across this book entirely by accident. I was poking about in Smashwords.com and I noted that there were something in the order of 75,000 books that were free. Now I'm aware that many so-called books are merely single short-stories that the authors put there to get attention but still, 75,000 is a lot no matter how you cut it. This was one of them and it was one of the longer ones so, purely on a whim I read it. It was pretty good.

Initially I thought that the author was being too clipped in his phrasing but once I realized that this was the voice of a soldier it made sense. It was a character who was doing a difficult job, didn't expect much in return, and was simply getting on with it. The protagonist was well crafted as was the world being build. No long explanations were provided. The reader needs to figure out the social structure from those things that impinge upon the protagonist's consciousness. So we have a soldier, who is part of a battalion, marching off to confront a superior opponent and who expects to die along with all her companions. She isn't particularly afraid or bitter. She accepts the situation for what it is but what it is needs to be figured out over time by the reader.

When the heroine encounters new and unfamiliar technology both she and, by extension, the reader is confused. As a result, we look at the situation through her eyes knowing nothing more or less than she does. It holds interest in a truly impressive fashion because the reader always wants to find out what will happen next.

This was a great book and I thoroughly enjoyed it although I thought the ending was a bit wishy-washy. Still it was a good read and I can recommend it to those who enjoy page-turners. Plus the price is right.



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