The Cutting Room

Louise Welsh

Canongate U.S.

Reviewed by: Nancy

3 out of 5 stars

Summary

When Rilke, a dissolute and promiscuous auctioneer, comes across a collection of highly disturbing photographs during a house clearance he feels compelled to unearth more about the deceased owner who coveted them.

Driven to discover whether the images represent a real event or a fantasy, Rilke is drawn into a nether world of illicit urges and powerful obsessions.

A compulsive journey of discovery, decadence and deviousness follows.


My Review

Rilke is a gay auctioneer in his 40’s, who enjoys drinking, smoking, and casual sex. While clearing out the house of his latest client, an elderly woman, he comes across a collection of erotic books and photos that belonged to her deceased brother. She doesn’t want to see any of it and asks that he destroy everything in his private study. Instead of honoring her request, he wishes to learn more about the disturbing images of a woman that appears to have been murdered. During his search for the truth, he encounters drug dealers, porn shop owners, an amateur filmmaker, and a woman who poses nude for the camera.

This was a very stylish, moody, and atmospheric thriller. I enjoyed the glimpse at a dark and seedy side of Glasgow, the workings of an auction house, and the deeply flawed character of Rilke. What I didn’t enjoy so much was the weak mystery, the flat secondary characters, and the ending that fizzled out and left me rather disappointed.

Still, I would recommend this story to readers who enjoy literary crime novels, morally challenged characters, and don’t mind graphic and disturbing situations.

Poetically Written, But Lacking Heart

Red Sky in Morning
by Paul Lynch
Published by Little, Brown and Company

Reviewed by Amanda
2 Out of 5 Stars

Red Sky in Morning has rightfully earned comparisons to the terse, brutal writing of authors like Cormac McCarthy and Daniel Woodrell. This is a bleak story and a pervasive sense that all will not be well by the end hangs over every melancholy word. This is a book that I should have liked and why it didn't resonate with me is something I've been pondering for a few days.

Set in Ireland during the 1800's, the novel begins with the classic conflict between tenant and landowner--only this conflict ends in an accidental death that costs Coll Coyle not just his farm, but his family and his country. Fleeing from vengeance in the form of a foreman named Faller, Coll is forced to leave Ireland and sail to America, where brutal work and animosity against the Irish awaits. However, Faller is a single-minded hunter willing to pursue his quarry across the ocean and will not rest until Coll has paid for his crime.

Of course, the tale of a man trying to outrun the sins of his past and the weight of regret through a physical journey is not a new one. And I think that's part of the problem here. This is an oft told story and, to my mind, it's been compellingly told by other authors--McCarthy's No Country for Old Men and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain come to mind. Red Sky in Morning never delves into the relationship between man and God, good and evil, sin and forgiveness with McCarthy's philosophical complexity, nor does it use the landscape as evocatively as Frazier does in revealing Inman's inner turmoil as the sinner hoping for salvation in a world gone to hell.

There is no doubt that Lynch can write beautifully, which is both a strength and weakness of the novel. While in Ireland, the harsh landscape bears silent witness to Coll's failings, refusing him shelter or succor from his sins. This idea of land as witness to the frailties and failings of man seems Hemingway-esque in a The Sun Also Rises sense; there's the feeling that, for all man's follies, only the earth abides. Lynch's depiction of this landscape is poetic, but begins to veer into a tedious purple prose before it mercifully shifts to the sea voyage, which picks up the pace as dialogue and plot begin to take the reins. I had also hoped that Ireland itself would be more present in the novel, but only a third of the book takes place in Ireland and, other than the Irish dialect and colloquialisms, the story could have easily taken place in any other European country in the 1800's.

Ultimately, though, my disappointment with the novel comes down to this: there is no one here to champion. None of the minor characters are likable and, while Coll is undoubtedly a victim in a system that has robbed him not just of his power, but of his humanity, he's also not a sympathetic character. Refusing to take any form of responsibility for his actions, putting those he loves at risk, and leaving his family behind (with only the occasional pang of regret or remorse; he goes chapters without thinking of his wife and children) make it difficult to connect with him. There is also the odd device of providing his wife with a very limited voice periodically throughout the novel. These chapters feel wedged into the narrative and serve only to reveal the source of the conflict that led to Coll's downfall. To read more about her life in the aftermath of Coll's desertion may have provided more of an emotional touchstone for the reader and salvaged something from the novel.   

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS BY FRED KAPLAN

John Quincy Adams: American Visionary by Fred Kaplan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

”If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams at age 29 by John Singleton Copley. JOHN HAD HAIR!

I don’t know if there has ever been a better son in the history of sons of famous people. His mother Abigail was always worried about his immortal soul. He knew exactly the right things to say to reassure her, especially when he was in that den of iniquity (Europe). His father John Adams, second President of the United States, was a man of passions, often feeling untolerated and intolerable. He made enemies easier than friends and would never toe the party line. To be his son, his eldest son especially, it must have been like being born in a tea kettle on full burn. JQA spent long hours every day working at his studies because his father wanted him to. He was supplied with tutors and never did attend regular public school.

Somehow he handled his father when others found him impossible.

When John Adams is dispatched to Europe to help negotiate treaties and try to convince foreign powers to lend the burgeoning United States money, 11 year old JQA accompanied him. JQA went to France, Netherlands, Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. He spent very few of his formative years in America. It was funny, but he made a note of the pretty girls of Sweden who made his heart go pitter patter. When I say he made a note, what I really mean is he made a journal entry. In 1779, he started keeping a journal and kept adding his daily observations until right up just before he died in 1843. This journal is 50 volumes of pure gold to researchers not only about his life, but also about the times he lived in.

He picked up languages very quickly and became a scholar of Latin and Greek. He translated Juvenal for fun, even though it was a bit racy for him. He also later read Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which made me laugh out loud because I’m sure there was plenty of squirming in his seat and tsk tsks muttering from his moralistically bent mind. I have to believe the way that he sought works like this out over the space of his life that he may doth protest their inappropriateness a bit too much.

JQA was a poet. ”A man who writes so well in prose perhaps should have no need to be a poet. But Adams did.” Here is an example of him having fun when a servant girl is found to be with child...well after she has the baby.

Poor Betsey was a maiden pure
Declined in years, but so demure
That Man was her aversion;
And night by night her door she barred
With treble bolts, her fame to guard
From Slander’s foul aspersion.
When lo! all in the dead of Night
Came Mary, breathless with a affright
Wringing her hands and crying
“Oh! Mistress! Mistress! Rouse! Awake!
To Betsey come, for Heaven’s sweet sake!
Poor Betsey!--She’s a dying!”
The Lady, tender and humane,
Starts from her bed, and flies amain,
The wonder to unravel.--
Flies to where Betsey lays and moans
And straight perceives what caused her groans
--Poor Betsey!--was--in travel!!

JQA had the soul of a poet, and if he had been a different man’s son, he may have been a poet, but if there was ever a man born and bred to be a politician, it was John Quincy Adams. Here is his version of a European tour.

He is nominated to go to the Netherlands as a diplomat by George Washington from 1794-1797.

He married Louisa Johnson in 1797. She is the daughter of an American merchant with dubious financial difficulties. She will later become the only foreign born first lady of the United States.

He is nominated to go to Prussia by his father and then president John Adams from 1797-1801. They accused the Adam’s family of nepotism, of course, but frankly there wasn’t a better qualified person in America than JQA to represent us overseas.

He is nominated to go to Russia by James Madison from 1809-1814, then to London from 1814-1817.

He was a man that desperately wanted to come home.


John Quincy Adams looking a bit more portly and bookish.

From 1817-1825, he was Secretary of State for Monroe. He is considered by most historians as the greatest Secretary of State in the history of that office. In what will be only one of a long list of important documents that he will be entrusted to compose in his lifetime, his most long reaching one was when he wrote the Monroe Doctrine. “It became a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States and one of its longest-standing tenets, and would be invoked by many U.S. statesmen and several U.S. presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and others.”


John Quincy Adams White House Portrait by GPA Healy.

It is a good thing that the 1824 Presidential election was not decided in the boxing ring, or by pistols at dawn, or by the flashing of clashing sabers for John Quincy Adams was pitted against the fiery, strong willed, strong armed, hero of New Orleans, made of Old Hickory, the one and only Andrew Jackson.

Jackson won the popular vote and the electoral vote helped by the three-fifths compromise which boosted Southern seats in Congress by counting each slave as three-fifths of a man. Jackson was measuring the oval office for drapes and rugs and looking for the best place to keep his drubbing cane near to hand. He did not win the majority of electoral votes so the decision is passed to the House of Representatives. They were to choose between the top three candidates Adams, Jackson, and Crawford. Now Henry Clay came in fourth and was not allowed to be on the ballot, but as speaker of the house, he was “clothed in immense power.” (Okay I stole that from the Lincoln movie, but man I love that line.) Clay swung the vote to Adams, and Adams promptly nominated him for Secretary of State which in those days was saying this is the next President of the United States.



Jacksonites went berserk. Jackson probably spent more than a few nights howling at the moon between furious bouts of scribbling out his enemies list in blood. It was in many ways a stolen election, and even though I like Jackson, despite my disagreements with many of his policies, I couldn’t help but feel vindication for the 5’7” scholar from Massachusetts.

Maybe good, old dad said: “Son, I’m so proud that you finally made something of yourself.” *Sigh*.

One point I really want to make about this situation: Jackson was wildly popular and certainly could have initiated a coup, justifiable in his mind by thinking it is really just a coup for a coup. It didn’t happen. When things were hinky with the Rutherford B. Hayes election...no coup attempt. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 and was, in my opinion, denied his rights to a recount in Florida. He conceded (best speech of your life Al) with grace and dignity. New Hampshire, don’t think I’m not still casting a disappointed look at you over those 2000 election results. There were angry people over the results, but no armed insurrection (and believe me, here in the states we are armed to the teeth). Somehow, even when we know things aren’t right with our political system, we still trust that it will all work out eventually.

Well, JQA, being the practical man he is, decided to stop the practice of patronage with government positions. He wanted people judged by their ability not their political affiliation. Both he and his father were becoming less than enamoured with political parties.

”There is not a party in this country with which an honest man can act without blushing, and I feel myself rather more strongly attached to my principles than to the ambition of any place or power in the gift of this Country.”
That was senior saying that, but for reelection in 1828 JQA would need all the help he could get. He certainly would have increased his chances if he had packed all the government jobs with his own loyal following, but more than likely, Jackson would have still won.

Speaking of political affiliations, JQA did struggle mightily with party politics. He started out life as a Federalist, like his father, until 1808. From 1808-1830, he was a Democratic-Republican. From 1830-1834, he was a National Republican. From 1834-1838, he was Anti-Masonic. He ended his career a Whig. Talk about a guy finding it hard to find a political home. I really identified with this part of his nature because I have always found it hard to join any organization.

A couple of comments on his presidency. He is ranked anywhere from 11th to 25th (really WSJ?) on presidential rankings, and with averaging out all the 18 polls he came out 17th. He cut the national debt from $16 million down to $5 million which allowed his successor Jackson to completely eliminate the National Debt. He was a proponent of government led research and education that would benefit all. He also passed the 1828 Tariff Bill which almost started the Civil War early. There was this problematic state...hmmm...let me remember which one...oh yes...SOUTH CAROLINA who passed a bill choosing to ignore the Federal Tariff law and decided to negotiate their own terms with foreign nations. They also arrested black sailors from British ships because they didn’t want any free black people walking around their state.

We always talk about the great work that Jimmy Carter has done after his presidency, but few people know that JQA did something no other president has done. He continued to serve in public office. He served a stint as a Senator, but then found a better place for himself in the raucous halls of the House of Representatives. His remaining son Charles was mortified. It was unseemly. It was frustrating for JQA, but also invigorating. He was a great writer and orator. He gave all party affiliates, including his own of the moment, more trouble than they wanted.

He also famously took on the Amistad case after several high profile lawyers found themselves too busy to participate. JQA had become a more and more outspoken abolitionist as he aged. Even though he felt he was a little past his prime in 1841, he spoke for four hours in the defense of the free blacks and won the case.

As if I didn’t like him enough, JQA also was a tree guy. He would extort every ambassador going abroad to bring him back seeds of local trees. He planted over two hundred trees at the White House and devoted hundreds of his acres in Quincy to hardwoods. I have had to settle with more modest goals. I do have a corner lot and have managed to sandwich 15 trees onto my property. JQA was a reader, not a socializer. He continued to devote large amounts of time to learning throughout his lifetime. He was too practical and too much his own man to ever be a great politician.


JQA in 1843.

He suffered substantial tragedy with two younger brothers consumed by alcohol, debt, and shortened lives. He and Louisa had numerous miscarriages and two dear sons, George and John, perish as young men. He had several genetic eye complaints which were excruciating for him because they took him away from his books and writing. He hurt his hand in a pistol accident and couldn’t use it to write until it healed. Louisa had to, during his recovery, record his journal entries and wrote down his latest thoughts of the current political situation. His work ethic was remarkable, even putting my own to shame. He served his country to the end, dying on the job at the House of Representatives at the age of 80.



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A Real Horror Story

Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, A Life Reclaimed: A Memoir of the Cleveland Kidnappings by Michelle Knight
2014
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars


This is a horrifying memoir. Michelle Knight had a traumatic childhood that included abuse, neglect and molestation, and she ran away from home when she was 15, during which time she slept under a bridge and briefly worked for a drug dealer. In 2002, when she was 21, she was kidnapped by a Cleveland bus driver named Ariel Castro and then held captive in his house for almost 11 years. While she was imprisoned, she was frequently raped, beaten, starved and abused.

During those hellish years, Castro kidnapped two other girls, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, and also kept them chained in the house. Michelle often begged Castro to let her go so she could see her son again (on the day she was kidnapped, she had been on her way to court to see if she could regain custody of her son, Joey) and Castro would often beat her if she started crying. With three kidnapped girls in the house, he said he wanted them all to be a happy family. "I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This warped dude had kidnapped me, beat me, and raped me every day -- and he expected us to be a family? I knew he wasn't just sick; he was a total psycho. He was living in his own fantasy world -- and I had to find a way out of it."

The women would sometimes talk about trying to escape, but Castro had rigged the house with elaborate locks and alarms, and he frequently carried a gun and threatened to kill them if they disobeyed him.

"He kept his gun on his hip most of the time, but to be honest with you, he didn't really have to. By 2008 we were trained. After years of being in prison a crazy thing starts to happen: the locks move from off of your wrists and your ankles and up to your brain ... After you've been raped, humiliated, beaten, and chained for so long, you get into the habit of doing what you're told. Your spirit starts crumbling. You start not to be able to imagine anything different. And it feels like your captor is all-seeing and all-knowing."

In May 2013, Amanda noticed that an inner door was left unlocked and she called out to a neighbor, who broke a hole in the storm door so she could crawl out. She was able to call 911 and police soon rescued Michelle and Gina. Castro was arrested and sentenced to life in prison.

"Some of what he said in court made me furious. He talked about his porn addiction and how he was abused when he was a kid. I had heard it all before. Plenty of people get abused, but they don't go out and kidnap three women. I didn't feel sorry for him; I was still angry."

One month into Castro's sentence, he was found dead in his cell, hanging by a bed sheet. It was ruled a suicide. "What a punk! I wanted him to sit in his cell and rot away a little bit at a time for the rest of his life, just like he forced me to do. 'He couldn't even deal with one month of the torture that he put us through,'" Michelle later told Gina.

"Finding Me" is plainly written and the style could be immature, but it was so engrossing that I finished it in just two sittings. However, the book is so disturbing that parts of it made me ill. I would not recommend it to sensitive readers. If you were upset by Emma Donoghue's novel "Room," about a 5-year-old boy and his mother who are held captive in a small shed, then you should avoid Michelle's memoir, because it is a real horror story.

Critical Success - An interview with Robert Bevan

Today's guest is Robert Bevan, author of the Caverns and Creatures series.

How did you hook up with DeadPixel Publications?
The founder, Robert Brumm, emailed me out of the blue one day. As it says on our website, www.deadpixelpublications.com, we're just a bunch of people with day jobs, trying to make a go at this writing thing.

What made you want to write Critical Failures?
I was writing another book at the time... a different sort of story altogether. I was getting near the end of it, and I had lost a lot of my motivation, because it sucked. The premise behind Critical Failures just popped into my head one day, and I knew it had a lot more potential than what I was currently working on. So I hurried through to the end of the shitty book I was writing, even though I knew I wasn't going to publish it, and got to work on Critical Failures. I think it's good for an aspiring writer to bash out one steaming pile of crap novel before they write something they intend to publish. You learn from your mistakes, and there's some discipline involved as well. A whole lot of work for seemingly zero reward. That's a feeling all aspiring novelists should come to terms with.

How many stories are in the Caverns and Creatures series so far?
As of this interview, there are two novels and twelve short stories. After I wrote Critical Failures, I wrote Cave of the Kobolds just for fun. Writing a full-length novel is exhausting, so before delving into CF2, I thought a little mini-adventure might be fun to write. And I could price it cheaply. Maybe someone who wasn't willing to shell out five bucks for a novel by an unknown author might be willing to risk a dollar to see what the guy can do. Or I could give it away for free.

That turned out to be an effective strategy. Sales of both books went up considerably. So I wrote another short story, and another, and so on. I stopped myself at six, so that I could put them together in a bundle for the savvy shopper. After writing Critical Failures II, I wrote six more shorts. My plan is to stick to this 1:6 ratio throughout the entire series. It's great for marketing. More titles = more exposure. And the shorts are really fun to write.

Are the characters based on people you know?
Maybe Julian, though I wasn't conscious of it when I first wrote him. But in the group I used to play with when I started the C&C series, there was a guy who had never played before. His name also started with "J", and he's Jewish. I'd say there's a lot of me in Tim and Cooper. Dave was added because the party needed a cleric and the author needed a punching bag.

Who would you cast in a Critical Failures movie?
Ha! You've interviewed a lot of authors, so it probably comes as no surprise that I've actually put a bit of thought into this already. Cooper's easy. Danny McBride. Tim? Maybe Jason Bateman. Julian... I don't know. Someone a bit younger. Off the top of my head, Michael Cera. Jonah Hill might make a nice Dave.

Is there a Critical Failures III in the works?
You bet your ass there is! I'm currently 26,000 words in, and this might be the best one of the bunch.

Are you currently a D&D player?
I haven't played in about a year. I live in South Korea. It's difficult to get a group together. Plus, I've got that pesky day job, and a family. Between that and actually getting some writing done, it's hard to make time for anything else.

Favorite D&D campaign setting?
No group I've ever played in has actually used any of the campaign settings. We've always just made up our own as we went along.

Favorite D&D magic item?
For practical purposes, I'd have to go with the Bag of Holding. It's great for a disorganized person like myself. It's better than a quiver when you've got to shoot a shitload of arrows, or you could smuggle your undead army into a city if you like.

For a game-wrecker, my choice would have to be the Deck of Many Things. If your group ever gets bored with a campaign and wants to start from scratch, I recommend wrapping it up with a Deck of Many Things. Some players are just going to flat out die. Others are going to become stupidly powerful, and then die. But, depending on what you're all drinking, it's going to be a hilarious final night of the campaign.

Who is your favorite author?
Douglas Adams. He turned me on to comedy, and really got me into reading.

What is your favorite book of all time?
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The whole series really. No other book has ever made me laugh to the point of not being able to breathe before.

What are you reading now?
I'm reading through a list of some of my fellow DeadPixel authors' work.

Is there a book that made you want to be a writer?
Not really. I just started writing one day because I had an idea that I thought would make a good story. As it turned out, that idea turned into my aforementioned shitty first novel, which I didn't publish. And then inspiration struck for Critical Failures.

So I guess that if I wanted to sound like a total douchebag, I could say that Critical Failures made me want to be a writer.

What do you have coming down the pipeline?
I ate some fish last night that might have been a little off.

Any advice for aspiring writers?
It's the same generic advice that any author worth their salt will give you. Read a lot. Write a lot. Seriously, just hammer out some words. Finish what you start, even if it's crap. If you're just starting out, don't worry that you're writing crap. Just finish it. The psychological victory of completing a novel-length work, even if it's a lousy one, lets you know that you're capable of such a feat.

Also, don't publish crap because you feel entitled to some recognition for all the hard work you put in. Put that shit in a drawer and get to work on the next book. Like any skill, you become better through practice.

Critical Failures and Critical Failures II

Critical Failures by Robert Bevan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Tim, Dave, Cooper, and Julian play a game of Caverns and Creatures with a new Cavern Master, they get more than they bargained for. Trapped in the game world in the bodies of their characters, can they survive long enough to make it back to the real world and settle the pompous Cavern Master's hash?

Back in the day, around the time the oceans drank Atlantis, I played a fair bit of Dungeons and Dragons. Sadly, I recognize a lot of what goes on in this book.

Critical Failures tells the story of what many a Dungeon Master would like to do to disruptive characters, i.e. throw them into the game world and teach them a lesson. The cast isn't quite the bunch of gamer stereotypes I thought it might be but some of them are present, like the noob and the disruptive loudmouth. More than once, I empathized with Mordred the Cavern Master.

The story is full of humor and actually has some good adventure-y bits. I think you probably need to have gamed in order to fully appreciate a lot of it. The humor ranges from Python-esque to dick and fart jokes, crossing from one side of the humor spectrum to the other.

The story ends unexpectedly, not exactly a cliffhanger but not what I expected. Luckily, I got this and the sequel for 99 cents each so I'm be attacking the second one directly.

If you've ever spent nights drinking Mountain Dew and covered in nerd sweat and Cheetoh dust around a gaming table, this is the book for your. Four out of five stars!



Critical Failures II: Fail Harder by Robert Bevan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Trapped in the world of Creatures and Caverns, Tim, Dave, Cooper, and Julian struggle to find their way home, meeting a community of individuals also accosted by Mordred along the way. But what has happened to Katherine and Chaz?

The gang from Critical Failures is back in a second outing, continuing their quest to escape the world of Creatures and Caverns and settle Mordred's hash.

The humor of the first book is in full effect in the sequel. The D&D in-jokes continue, as does the bodily function humor. In addition, the boys have matured a bit, both in experience level and character-wise.

The story is a direct continuation and deals with another group of displaced C&C players, making a go of it in a fantasy world after being banished there by Mordred.

I thought the vampire subplot was very well done. My favorite part of the book, other than the masterwork wooden stake carved in the shape of a penis, was the excellent use of the Bag of Holding.

If I had to pick something to gripe about, it was that the humor was wearing a little thin by the end. However, since I just finished the first book, I imagine I was suffering from overload. Wait, I have something else to gripe about: Where is the next book?

If you're a D&D gamer with a sense of humor, you won't want to miss this. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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The Crimson Campaign

The Crimson Campaign by Brian McClellan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Tamas is lost behind enemy lines and presumed dead. Taniel Two-Shot is wasting his life away in mala dens. And Adamat is hunting for his missing wife. Not only that, Kresimir lives and is looking for the man who shot him in the eye...

So yeah. This was pretty great. As much as I loved the first volume, Promise of Blood, this book slightly surpassed it.

The Crimson Campaign is everything the second book in a trilogy should be. The danger is ramped up to 11 and beyond, the characters continue to evolve, and the principles find themselves in even greater danger by the end of the book.

From the early goings, The Crimson Campaign grabs the reader by the short and curlies and won't let go. Tamas soon finds himself on the run from the Kez army with a comparatively small force. Taniel, once he emerges from his mala haze, finds himself opposed by his own army. Adamat takes a tremendous beating in the course of finding his missing family.

Brian McClellan is a cheeky little hamster. The shifts in viewpoint come at the perfect dramatic times, forcing me to read well past my bedtime and compelling me to forego housework as well. Hell, it Tamas showed up on my doorstep, I'd leave my white collar life behind and ride with him to hell and back.

For me, one of the measures of a good writer is to make me care about something I previously considered mind-meltingly boring. P.G. Wodehouse did it with golf and Brian McClellan did it here with military tactics. While we're told Tamas is a military genius, this book and the previous one do a phenomenal job showing him in action.

I know I've been gushing but I still don't feel like I've done this book justice. It deliviers the goods on all levels: action, intrigue, character development, even a bit of humor. Not only that, the books are coming out in timely fashion. In these days, it's rare to wrap up a fantasy trilogy in a decade and it looks like McClellan is going to do three books in three years.

The Crimson Campaign. Go buy it! Five out of five stars.

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A Classic Hard Boiled Novel from John D. MacDonald

Reviewed by James L. Thane
Four out of five stars


This is a stand-alone novel, first published in 1955, and written by John D. MacDonald, who is best known for his Travis McGee series. It's a classic Fawcett/Gold Medal novel in which the protagonist starts out with an apparently reasonable objective but soon finds himself in over his head and in danger of losing his life in some very unpleasant way.

In this case, the protagonist is a man named Tal Howard, who had the misfortune first of going off to war and then of being captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. The camp, of course, was a horrible experience and while there, Tal became friends with another prisoner named Timmy Warden who came from a small town named Hillston.

Sadly, Timmy died in the camp, but before he did so, he confessed to Tal that he had stolen $60,000 (at a time when that was still a lot of money). He had embezzled the money from his brother, George. To add insult to injury, Timmy had also been sleeping with George's trampy wife, Eloise. Timmy tells Howard that he buried the money and that only a woman named Cindy would know where to find it. Timmy regrets all of this now, and hopes only to survive long enough to return to Hillston and make things right with his brother.

Timmy dies before he get a chance to make amends. Tal Howard is eventually rescued from the camp and after he recovers is at loose ends. After his experience in the war, he has no interest in resuming his old life and so decides to go to Hillston, find the mysterious Cindy, dig up the money and live happily ever after.

Naturally, this won't be easy. And once Howard reaches Hillston, he realizes just how complicated a task he has set himself. To make matters worse, there's already another ex-POW from the camp named Fitzmartin, who apparently heard part of Timmy's story and who's arrived in town ahead of Howard, also determined to find the money. Fitzmartin is a psycho S.O.B., typical of the villains that MacDonald tended to create, and obviously he's going to pose a formidable obstacle in the way of Howard's objective.

If all that weren't bad enough, little Hillston proves to be a town with a lot of dark secrets and mysteries, and the deeper Howard digs, both literally and figuratively, the more trouble he's going to be in. Along the way, naturally, he'll also encounter any number of interesting females, and the end result is an engaging tale that should appeal to any fan of classic hard-boiled crime fiction.

A Minority of Tension

The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not an old, crusty sci-fi fan who read this when it came out in '56. No, I'm a neophyte who only knows about The Minority Report because of the 2002 movie version. It's hard not to associate this solid, yet too short short story with that blockbuster flick starring Tom Cruise...



...and I'm not even going to try. Why? Because I loved the movie, even though I hate Tom Cruise. Maybe "hate" is too harsh. Let's just say I've never liked him and have only tolerated watching his movies, all the while wishing it was someone else in his role.

Even with my anti-Cruise bias, I really enjoyed the heck out of the movie and expected the same with the story. Well, that didn't happen. Oh, I enjoyed it all right. It's perfectly fine. However, it lacks tension. Certainly high-stakes are on the line for our hero Anderton, the head of police force that captures and incarcerates would-be criminals before the crime is committed, but figuring out what's going on is made all too easy for him. It needed to be teased out a bit more.

I have to hand it to the screenwriters and director Steven Spielberg for tricking out this pedestrian story and turning it into a fast, fun, 2+ hour thrill ride. In comparison, the original story is like a quarter's worth of floppy anti-climax on one of those sticky, paint-chipped, slow-moving mechanical rides out front of your typical beat-down grocery store.

Japanese Artist: Junko Mizuno

Collector File 002: Junko Mizuno's Illustration Book by Junko Mizuno
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*** Images follow which are not safe for the kiddies and work-place viewing! ***

Japanese artist Junko Mizuno creates some psychedelic art that is often bizarre...



And sometimes a little gross...



The most common subject is a young woman, often partially disrobed, commonly with an intensely cute and petite beastie of some sort, and almost always with massive amounts of hair...








My wife, fresh from a year of teaching English in Japan, indoctrinated me into current Japanese youth culture. I bought into it with a hipster's irony, but eventually I found that I was actually falling in love with some of its aspects. Anime and manga have been with us a while now, but Japanese comic art has been a staple of mainstream illustration and animation for decades. Those old holiday cartoons and the Rankin Bass versions of The Hobbit and Return of the King that I've adored since I was about 5 years-old were all drawn by Japanese artists. So, a seed had already been sewn within me, it just took a guiding hand to lead me back to the new Japanese art-world order.

While being no expert on that subject, I nonetheless feel that Mizuno has contributed something with some importance to the current movement. Her use of color catches the eye, the dreamy quality of the images mesmerizes, and just as you begin to think this is all nothing but nonsensical imagery, something pops (or poops) out at you and, in the very least, raises a smile upon the viewer's absorbed face.



Bought this years ago at a book signing in Hollywood. Nearly silent, bobble-headed Mizuno sat at a table signaturing away with her gaze perpetually lowered. I said something like "Love your stuff. Thank you!" but what I meant to say was "I want to put you on my keychain and take you home with me!".... I think that's why she was avoiding eye-contact with us monstrous pail-skins, fearing the gigantic blue-eyed devils would kidnap her for trinket usage. The following picture of Mizuno (middle) displays her wee-ness...HA! "wee-ness". Why do I feel like she'd be happy to hear someone said she possessed a wee-ness?