Jason Waltz > Recent Status Updates

After that dismaying start this actually turned out quite well. Stuck to the story, rendered good scenes, commemorated the key parts, and gave us a new look for Conan.

Major faux pas right from the start. Introductory paragraph introduces a different Conan story than the promised "Beyond the Black River" and they talk about Conan's family just getting wiped out. Geesh.

THE DAIN CURSE is a dandy story! Talk about a long & convoluted road! Layers & layers with more rearing up when you think we're reaching a climax. The last few pages were a massive info summation dump, but as it all still came in our POV dick's voice, it worked. There were a few times I didn't quite grasp the aphorisms or anecdotes Hammett employed, & a brief space I didn't understand why folks were mad at our hero.

Holy horror. Mike Kurth, Specialist radio operator, shares an intimate and intense recollection of his events and losses.

What a great phrase: "... my subconscious will detect the murky fin of doom cutting through the water."

Jury's out on Delia but I like her.

Pages 88-90 are hilarious and awesome! Camaraderie, Conan, costumes, criminal minds. Good stuff.

Damn, Raleigh Cash's account of events is hard-hitting and personal. A wide range of emotions and experiences.

And now I have finally read "Red Harvest." Mickey was my favorite character. This was quite the caper, definitely a den of double-crosses and dubiously dead folk. Numerous great lines, some real solid chuckles, and a doozy of a dame.

JC Hocking as usual pens a dark, dangerous, diabolical tale. Unfortunately that lucky prick Benhus escapes his comeuppance yet again.

Intensity. Insanity. Unimaginable. Amazing courage and perseverance and professionalism.

Adventure mysterious and nicely bloody. Looks like Cussler, feels like Crichton. Hey! Chips keeps the Cs going.

Running out of room here. We've assembled the team now but with only a quarter of the book to go and long travel ahead, I don't see how we reach our buried treasure in this book. I enjoy the character creations and definitely our main hero, though his easy readiness to just spill his story and reasons for what he's doing seems really unusual for the type of character he's written as.

74ish, no page numbers. This is a fun rendition of 'Assemble!' - Fultz is cleverly leading our characters into each other's paths. Some nice magicks, deadly fights, and interesting intrigue thus far.

Tension builds, big problems looming!

Omari definitely has attitude, let's see if he also has smarts. Interestingly lots of grammatical and editing errors, quite unexpected.

Well...I'll give it a few more chapters. Not confident our gentleman vampire won't cry about having to kill.

Had this in the TBR a lonnnnng time. I enjoy vampire stories. Many, not all. Not sure of this, seems...weak.

What an awesome sentence:
"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts."

Never knew Patton competed with a broadsword, though no indication of how he did. I did know he fenced (but not at West Point), winning in the 1912 Olympics.

Some old time writing here! Fun old wordings and turns of phrase. Mystery thickens.

Healy's protagonist Lukan seems rather fun and quite familiar. I enjoyed the character; the story read a bit disjointed and somewhat basic.

Cool reprint from Maberry. Heavy and dark, filled with S&S Attitude. Good interview, too.

About 50 or so pages back I realized something: while Saint and Nix (and Norma and Misty) are well-drawn characters with full lives and personalities and hearts and Saint is so beautifully created and Nix has the largest shoulders...it's Sammy that makes this all possible. It's the drunk womanizer who shares the largest heart and makes the largest difference thus far.

This is almost surreal in its telling, its stunning improbability and enticing beauty. The relationships hurt, they're written so well. The style choices still disrupt, an odd disservice to this story, though they've mostly been muffled through the depictions of those relationships. Rather fascinating, where we've been and have yet to go.

Wow, lots of wonder and wonderful scene-setting and character depth-ing! Great historical writing really puts us there in place and time. Delicate, intricate relationship writing really puts us in these disparate roles, adult and child, human and not. Fascinating reading, honestly.

Definitely sinks its fingers into you, though the 'literary' attempts sure try the patience and kill the momentum. Lots of feels.

Had me at "...hits like a sledgehammer." Hazards of working in a bookstore.

Cool to read about and see some of the Korshak SFFH Art Collection. I'm not much read on Basil Copper's work, but reading about him and it was interesting.

Wow, things just seem to grow more tense and fraught with unvoiced dangers the further and deeper the story goes. You can see the lines coming together even on the other side of the world. Exciting, and certainly raising hopes.