Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2022 discussion
White Plume Mt. (48 books)
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The Virtually Certain Man’s Next Climb
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#38 - Tales From the Outerverse by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, etcSeverely underwhelmed, I’m afraid. Nazi witches, tentacled things, blood, chaos…the alternate world this is set in makes little sense, frankly, but Mignola needs his Nazis.
Hoopla.
#39 - The Hunter by Richard StarkDonald Westlake writing as Richard Stark. This is the introduction of Parker, a rather sociopathic but efficient thief — one who’ll let no-one get in his way, or fail to respond to a betrayal.
In this outing Parker shows up in New York City, looking for his wife (who shot him) and the team partner who coerced her to do so after a major heist. He’s looking for payback, of course…but he also wants his money, and if that means going up against the mob, he’ll do exactly that.
This book is a masterclass in writing noir thrillers — it’s tight, efficient, gripping, and pretty damn grim. Parker is easy to understand, but unlikable, a beast with a brain. For all that, a compelling read.
Hoopla
#39 - The Handle by Richard StarkBook 8 in the Parker series. Parker’s now taking jobs from The Outfit, who want him to rob an elite gambling island forty miles off the coast of Texas, then burn the facilities to the ground. As he’s planning the job, the feds get involved — they’re willing to overlook Parker’s history of villainy if he delivers the Baron, the former Nazi war criminal who owns the place, to them. Parker’s willing to do that, but refuses the boatman they bring in — a pedophile just out of prison.
And that’s where the job goes sideways….
To be honest, this is one of the weaker Parker entries — the writing is as taut as ever, but there’s much less time spent on the core of the story and more spent on the Baron, on Alan Grofeld, and in the aftermath.
Hoopla.
#40 - Junkyard Dogs by Craig JohnsonBook 6 keeps the action in Absaroka County, once again in a terrible winter. The book starts with humour and sarcasm (hello, Vic) as well as grumpiness, Deputy Sancho deciding to quit, and Walt being confronted with the fact that his battered and aging body needs a lot of medical TLC. Things turn bad pretty quickly, though, when a dismembered thumb turns up in the Municipal Dump, and murder pays a visit to the junkyard.
Johnson keeps things ticking along nicely, and the pleasure is as much in the characters and background as in the bloody havoc that drives the plot.
Scribd
#41 - The Man With The Getaway Face by Richard StarkAh, the good old days when we thought plastic surgery could work miracles in completely changing a face without visible indications. In this case it’s professional thief Parker, looking to change his face after falling foul of the Outfit…aka the Mob. As a result, his funds are running low, and he needs to organize a new heist, this time of an armored car. Things, of course, go wrong in unexpected ways — someone murders the plastic surgeon, and Parker is a suspect.
The story takes a seeming step sideways just after halfway, but remains compelling even as it heads for a surprisingly quiet finish that proves Parker really is a soulless monster.
Hoopla (audiobook)/Scribd (ebook)
#42 - Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four, Vol. 2 by Stan Lee, Jack KirbyIssues #11-20 and the 1963 Annual. Slow improvement here and there, even as Kirby’s imagination gets wilder and wilder. First appearances of The Watcher, Rama-Tut (a version of Kang The Conqueror), the Molecule Man, and further appearances by Doctor Doom and an increasingly aggressive Sub-Mariner.
ComiXology Unlimited
#43 - Super Sons: Escape to Landis by Ridley Pearson, Ile Gonzalez Conclusion of the trilogy, as rushed and scattered as the first two books, now with extra royalty and Talia Al Ghul. Jon and Damian chase across this very alternate world to grab a virus sample, their friend Tilly follows along, and the bad guys try to kill Superman (that trick never works.) All’s well that ends, Candace becomes Empress, and…well. Hopefully this has an audience in the under-10s, as anyone older is going to be uninterested.
Hoopla
#44 - This Long Vigil by Rhett C. BrunoA man whose entire experience of life has been a couple of decades alone with an AI on a generational ship only in the guest stage of its journey, taking care of the minor physical things he can do, watching fellow passengers be born, live asleep in life support tubes, and mostly die in those tubes. It’s a horror story, in essence, even though the protagonist gets to break his cycle in the end, choosing how he dies (and forcing Dan the AI to have another baby born to replace Orion.) Eventually the ship will reach Tau Ceti…eventually. But no part of Dan will.
Audible Plus
#45 - Photographing the Dead by Dean KoontzThe second of the Nameless series finds the nomadic vigilante dispatched to deal with landscape photographer and serial killer Palmer Oxendale, the son of a rich senator who lives on a massive inheritance while he stalks and slaughters hikers. Nameless’ unseen controller, Ace Of Diamonds, wants Oxendale unnerved while he’s run to ground, but things go sideways….
Kindle Unlimited
Steven wrote: "#45 - Photographing the Dead by Dean KoontzThe second of the Nameless series finds the nomadic vigilante dispatched to deal with landscape photographer and serial killer Palmer Ox..."
I really enjoyed this series (and the second one too).
CinCO wrote: "Steven wrote:I’m enjoying it so far, though I find it middling…but this could be turned into a TV series very easily, even a very short one if you wanted to stick with arc of the story rather than padding it out.
I’m going to finish the series out. The familiar elements make it very easy to read.
#46 - The Praying Mantis Bride by Dean KoontzNameless is dispatched to deal with a Black Widow killer, a woman who has amassed a fortune by murdering rich husbands. First, though, he has to talk to the woman’s ghastly mother, who herself admits to murdering her husband. The plan: drive the widow insane using the superstitions she fervently believes in.
As it turns out, she’s tougher than Nameless and his associates realize, and for the first time it all goes terribly wrong.
There’s a lot of familiar elements in these Nameless tales, which actually makes them easier to read and excuses sone of the 1970s TV thriller stuff. Koontz also subtly hints at where this overall story is going.
Kindle Unlimited
#47 - Red Rain by Dean KoontzThere’s a lot of formula inherent in these stories, but this is a genre where formula is the point. We meet Nameless as he begins a mission, follow his path as he learns more about the case, then we meet the villain du jour, who’s usually at least a dedicated sociopath. In this instance the chief bad guy is a genius firebug, and there’s three associates, all of whom were involved one way or another with a woman whose store was torched, accidentally killing her kids and disfiguring her.
Unfortunately, Koontz seems to have written this one on autopilot. Everything goes far too easily, and the main problem for Nameless is a powerful vision he has.
Kindle Unlimited.
#48 - The Mercy of Snakes by Dean KoontzFifth of the Nameless (season one) series from Koontz. They’re efficient, formulaic little spyfi type thrillers. Nameless travels to a place where his usually unseen support team provides equipment, clothes, and a self-destructing briefing, then Nameless carries out a plan worked out far away. Sometimes things go badly wrong, sometimes just minor points. Then Nameless moves on.
In this book we get further indications that Nameless’ mindwipe/programming is breaking down, as he sees what appears to be ghosts, and he’s had a recurring vision of either the past or the future. This doesn’t interfere with this mission, though — dealing with the owners of an assisted living facility who’re acting as a pipeline for prescription drugs with a sideline in murdering rich residents so that impatient relatives can inherit.
Oddly enough, this is the one that reads most like a treatment for a TV episode so far.
Kindle Unlimited
With this…off to the next rock!
Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2022
Books mentioned in this topic
The Mercy of Snakes (other topics)Red Rain (other topics)
The Praying Mantis Bride (other topics)
Photographing the Dead (other topics)
Photographing the Dead (other topics)
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A quite interesting book, though it tends to elide great swathes of time and significant elements — the Goon Show barely gets mentioned. It concludes with the possibility that the Tories will finally destroy Auntie on behalf of capitalist cronies (including the poisonous Rupert Murdoch.) Various scandals are mentioned, but Clement Freud is ignored. Also ignored is Bamber Gascoigne, *the* face of BBC higher education efforts.
I listened to the audiobook, read by the usually reliable Gideon Emery. Unfortunately he manages to cock up in a number of places, including referring to ITMA — It’s That Man Again — by saying “ I, T, M, A”…no, it’s IT-MA. “Quatermass” not “Quartermass.” And so on.
Scribd