Doug Lewars's Blog, page 7

All You Can Kill

All You Can Kill by Pasha Malla

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

If you don't like whimsy take a pass on this book. It's what you might get if you concocted a stew out of Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver's Travels, Kafka, Inspector Gadget with a touch of Lord of the Flies for spice. I would have awarded it five stars except for two glaring faults. The first is the ending which was banal. The second were the lists. They were amusing to begin with but went on for far too long. In fact I was listening to the audio version of this book and found myself tuning out every so often so if the author lost me he probably loses other readers as well. Had an editor done just a bit of pruning this book would have been great.



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Notes From the Bathroom Line

Notes from the Bathroom Line: Humor, Art, and Low-grade Panic from 150 of the Funniest Women in Comedy by Amy Solomon

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

I listened to the audio version of this. It was over six hours in length and I laughed once. Given this is billed as humour from 150 of the funniest women in comedy, these women need to do a bit of work on their material. To be fair, however, I wasn't the intended audience. This book is directed toward Gen-Z and late stage millennial women who are attuned to movie and television culture. If you don't fall into that group you may want to take a pass on this one. Many of the references to, presumably actors or media people of some sort went right over my head as I'd never heard of them. Likewise various musical groups were referenced I was unfamiliar with, so I think you need to be attuned both to the cultural and demographic niche targeted by these women to really enjoy the book and its humour. That's the problem with writing humour. If your audience is not on the same wavelength it doesn't work very well.



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Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

I listened to the audio version of this book and it was very well done. It's an excellent whodunit. Before reading this I read the second book in the series, 'Everyone on This Train is a Suspect' and of the two, I preferred that one. It, too, is a fine mystery novel, but it has the added advantage of satirizing certain elements of the literary establishment which I found particularly appealing. This book didn't satirize anything except, possibly, the mystery genre itself with the frequent reference to various rules for mysteries none of which I regard as important. Although I enjoyed both books, I felt references to this book in book #2 made it seem as if there would be a much larger body count. I expected Earnest to be about the only family member to survive and felt a little disappointed there wasn't a higher body count. Still, it was good nonetheless.



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Microserfs

Microserfs by Douglas Coupland

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This book is definitely not for everyone. I enjoyed it because I worked with computers for many years and was something of a geek myself, but others with a different background might not care of it. Although technically fiction it reads like a memoir and is presented as a journal by someone working first at Microsoft and then at a start-up. Occasionally the author fills space with stream of consciousness word association and that I could have lived without.

This book is written primarily for Gen-x although those Boomers in the computer business might enjoy it but I don't think many Millenials or Gen-z will care for it. If you feel nostalgic for geek culture of the 1990s then this is the book for you.



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Blue Dahlia

Blue Dahlia by Nora Roberts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This is a romance and I generally don't read the genre. As far as it goes, this one was okay and there was a bit of a ghost story tucked in as a subplot but overall it was fairly bland. If you like romance novels this one is probably worth reading.



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Everyone on This Train is a Suspect

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This was an excellent story. The pacing was good, the plot exciting, and the structure was sound. I don't usually read Whodunits because I can never figure out who the murderer is and I'm too lazy to work at it so I just follow and enjoy the story. I figure the protagonist can do the heavy lifting. On the other hand, while I don't try to figure out who the victims and murderer are, I generally know who I would like them to be. In this case the first victim was obvious from the beginning so I could dismiss that one; however, I had hopes for who the second victim or at least the murderer would be but the author had other ideas.

This book is more than a whodunit. It's also a combination of farce and satire within the umbrella of the Mystery genre. I don't know the literary world well enough to be able to identify actual individuals being lampooned, and of course the author specifically says there aren't any but he'd have to do that anyway to keep his butt legally covered; nevertheless there are certain archetypes I enjoyed watching him skewer. In fact I met one of his characters in real life at at writers' group but as he says, MOST writers are very nice people.

If you have the text version you'll have no difficulty as you'll be able to jump to where you want but if you listen to the audio version - and I did - you may find yourself blindsided. There is a PILE of garbage at the beginning of the book. I came close to DNFing it before Chapter 1, before, in fact, even reaching the Prologue. It would have been a great pity had I done so because the story itself is excellent. Therefore if you have the audio version I recommend jumping right to Chapter 1. If you like prologues, this one is okay, but merely okay. It contributes next to nothing to the story. It is, however, useful for those who treat whodunits as puzzles and want to solve them. Likewise, the epilogue may be skipped. It's told from the POV of the love interest and could easily relate to an entirely different book. There's nothing really wrong with it but I thought it was unnecessary and overdone. While I loved the story, I did DNF the book at the end of the epilogue. The author states he plans to acknowledge everyone who contributed to the book with no one left out. There were still nine minutes left and I saw no need to listen to him rattle off names from the telephone book for so long a time.

I fully intend to listen to the first and third volume of this series but I will follow my own advice skipping to chapter 1 and stopping after or perhaps before the epilogue if one exists.



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Uncharted Territory

Uncharted Territory by Connie Willis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This was a fairly good book but it was far from Connie Willis at her best. It starts out as a sci-fi adventure, seems to turn into a thriller, and finally devolves into a romance. It was also a novella masquerading as a novel. To me it seemed as if she started working on a novel, was sidetracked, faced a deadline and finished up as quickly as she could. The ending seems really, really rushed. In addition, the discussion regarding the mating habits of various species was good at first but became tedious by the end of the book. Again, the book isn't bad, just not great.



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First Person Singlular

First Person Singular: Stories by Haruki Murakami

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

DNF. If you enjoy watching grass growing or paint drying you'll love this book. The stories are so bland they make vanilla pudding seem exciting. Of course if you suffer from severe insomnia and are desperate for sleep, this book will solve you problem.



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The Eye of the World

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

If you really enjoyed Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne, you probably won't enjoy this very much. In this one the farm boy survives and makes good as the hero forecast in ancient prophecies. Mind you this being the first book in a series he's still got a long way to go but he certainly sent the bad guys packing with their tails between their legs. It also took a lot of verbiage and quite a bit of whining for him to manage it. Still it's a pretty good read for the most part. Some critics have complained the author lifted far too much from LOTR. Frankly I don't see it. Yes there are some parallels but in the world of high fantasy, there pretty much has to be some overlap and I don't think the author overdid it. If you like fantasy, and don't mind the farm boy makes good trope - which I don't - then you can read and enjoy this one.




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The Three Assassins

Three Assassins by Kōtarō Isaka

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

I enjoyed approximately 2/3 of this book but the protagonist is so annoying the final third made me almost consider DNFing the thing. It's pretty bad when you find ALL of the bad guys more interesting than the protagonist. I like Kotaro Isaka's books but his main characters tend to be less than stellar and this one was the worst of the lot. It might be tempting to skip every third chapter but then the book wouldn't make much sense. In addition the ending, likely intended to be somehow symbolic of something or other, was unimpressive. This is book 1 of the Assassins series so I'll try book 2 and see how things go but if things don't improve I might bail before book 3.



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