The Unknown Dumas

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nothing can live up to the exciting, over-the-top adventures Alexandre Dumas concocted, except maybe the real life exploits of his father.

The subtitle "The Real Count of Monte Cristo" is speaking of the writer's father Thomas Alexandre Dumas, a mixed race soldier from the former French colonies in the Americas. He was the basis for the tragic, wronged, swashbuckling heroes of The Count of Monte Cristo, the Three Musketeers tales, and more.

Tom Reiss' biography tries to bring back the memory of an unfortunately forgotten hero of the French Revolutionary Republic. General Dumas rose up from a common soldier to lead thousands during France's Revolutionary Wars. Reiss portrays a man passionate about the cause and willing to risk his life in the most daring of ways for the ideal of equality for all.

The Black Count marches linearly ahead at an admirable pace, mixing the history of father and son (and even grandfather as it applies to his future generations), tantalizing and revealing at just the right moments. A high quality history text that, regardless of dwelling rightly upon human atrocities, can't help but entertain considering its adventuresome subject matter.

Reiss certainly seems biased towards his subject and even tries to put General Dumas on a pedestal...literally by the end there is discussion and lament over a statue of him. However, if you can forgive him his slant, I think you'll find this a highly enjoyable read!

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The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels

The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels by Joe R. Lansdale
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jack, Bob, and Crier leave the Orbit Drive-In behind for the open road, encountering dinosaurs, slithering strips of film, and a martial artist named Grace. Will they find the end of the road before Popalong Cassidy finds them?

As you might be able to tell from the synopsis, the second Drive-In book is stranger than a fever dream. While in recovery from their crucifixion, Bob and Jack, with Crier, venture out into the wasteland the Earth became while they were trapped in The Orbit. A woman named Grace shows up and suddenly Jack decides they're heroes. As a man who has gone titty-blind (as Lansdale calls it) on occasion, it wasn't hard to relate to the guys in this one.

As with the last book, I read this book shortly after the dawn of time so I remembered very little about it. Much like the first book, it's a fun book full of gore, cursing, cannibals, and funny dialogue. The Lansdale wit, while still in its adolescence, was present in droves.

It's a pretty slim tale but a lot of interesting and often times hilarious shit happens. I liked it a little less than the previous one, though. It didn't feel like a retread in any way, unlike most sequels. Popalong Cassidy had big shoes to fill after the Popcorn King and left the shoes empty enough to leave blisters. Still, the aftermath was quite bizarre and I'll be taking my third trip to the Drive-In shortly. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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Stealing Serenity

Tami Veldura
Bottom Drawer Publications
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

“Serenity,” a photograph worth four million dollars, was sold at auction to an anonymous bidder. Stealing it will represent the largest payday Daniel will have ever had. To make that happen, he poses as a photography curator to attract the attention of Kearin, the auction house owner.

Kearin takes Daniel under his wing to work in the non-profit branch of his business, but it’s a cover for his desire to see Daniel naked, bound, and needy for the camera. Kearin has a client interested in a very specific portfolio—filling the request would put him at the top of his field.

Daniel thinks he can use the modeling to get closer to “Serenity.” What he doesn't expect is to fall for Kearin's brand of intensity instead. So does he go for the photograph or Kearin's heart? He wouldn't call himself a master thief if he couldn't steal both.

My Review

Daniel Hogan is a thief with big plans to steal a $4.3M dollar photograph titled Serenity, so he insinuates himself into the good graces of Kearin Gerard, owner of Gerard Photography, the company who organized the sale to an anonymous bidder.

What Daniel didn’t anticipate was the intense attraction he felt for Kearin. His strong personality and personal photo collection piqued Daniel’s interest even further. He has no intention of letting his desires get in the way of obtaining information about the person who possesses Serenity, and takes every opportunity he can to look for clues. In the process, he learns more about Kearin, whose computer he now has access to. Kearin’s photographs of bound young men and the peaceful expressions on their faces captivate Daniel. He is surprised when he learns Kearin is looking for a model and doesn’t hesitate to accept.

This story takes place a little over a two-week period and is told from Daniel’s perspective. Each fragment has a date, time, and location, but the story is told in linear fashion. The tension builds up, as Daniel gets closer to learning about the anonymous bidder and getting his hands on the photograph. Meanwhile, the sexual tension between Kearin and Daniel becomes intense as Daniel submits to the restraints while being photographed.

There is no romance or sex here, just desire, slow-burning eroticism and elegant descriptions of Shibari. Kearin is an ambitious man who is looking to enhance his career and Daniel badly wants that photograph. While I enjoyed the details of Daniel’s bold art heist, it was Kearin’s elaborate knotwork and Daniel’s submission in front of the camera that captured my interest.

This was a very well-written and cleanly edited story with two well-developed main characters and a small cast of secondary characters. The conclusion was clever and open-ended, but I was a little dissatisfied at how some details were addressed, like what was so special about this photograph?

“Daniel felt his eyes focus on the far wall of the studio as Kearin ducked low, and he saw it. Serenity. Stripes of blue and green. A photograph framed subtly on the wall, so nondescript in performance that it could easily be glanced over. Just another design photo. Just another print."

Really? This was worth $4.3 million dollars? Since such a large part of the story was focused on the art heist, I need a much better description than that!

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this imaginative and erotic story and definitely plan to read more of this author’s work.

Faith and Moonlight

Faith and Moonlight by Mark Gelineau
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Roan and Kay are orphans that are lucky to be alive after a fire destroyed their orphanage. The two find themselves with a chance to enter the School of Faith, but they are much older than the normal applicants. They are given one month to prove they belong. They desperately hope to stay and to stay together.

Faith and Moonlight is one of the short stories that makeup the Echoes of the Ascended series. The series is made up entirely of novellas and short stories. This is my first experience with this world and I learned halfway through that I'm starting in the middle. That didn't seem to matter overall, although I imagine there are certain aspects of the world I'd understand more if I started at the beginning. I plan to do just that when I have a chance.

Roan and Kay attempting to enter the School of the Faith is loaded with familiar storylines. An amazing school only for the worthy and an unexpected chance are the few I can mention without spoiling anything. The characters are interesting. Roan is incredibly strong individual and absolutely devoted to Kay. Kay on the other hand was raised an orphan likely from birth so hope is a four letter word to her that was dangerous to speak or think about. Her doubt seems to be eating her alive from the inside.

Faith and Moonlight was a good short story with rich world building. There is a lot to like in the story so I will absolutely be sure to read more stories in the Echoes of the Ascended series.

3.5 out of 5 stars

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows by Dan Slott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Peter Parker isn't just Spider-Man anymore, he's a husband and a father.

He's doing his best for his family and his home. When heroes start disappearing Spidey heads to Avengers mansion to find out the cause. A group of heroes were already there discussing just that.

As the team prepares to face the Regent, they call a team of heroes who are at a prison break to join them even though all the prisoners escaped. One prisoner in particular forces Spidey to swing home rather than fight with the Avengers.

Peter saves his family while the Avengers are annihilated.

Peter vows to protect his family over the entire world as the Regent culls the remaining population of superpowered heroes.

"That was the day The Avengers died. That every last hero died. Even 'Spider-Man.' It just looked like him standing there. But that was just me. Peter Parker. A Dad in a stupid red and blue suit. That was the day I learned what trump's great power...an even greater responsibility. "

I think being a Dad made me really love Spider-Man Renew Your Vows. As a father I can't imagine anything I wouldn't be willing to do to protect my family and seeing Peter Parker's decisions in this miniseries really hit home for me...as much as a man with spider powers in spandex could. To watch Peter Parker choose to hide rather than fight to protect his family was touching. Peter was completely unwilling to place his family in harm's way.

This is easily the best Secret Wars miniseries I've read so far. The funny thing is I only picked it up because my library had the individual issues and I thought sure why not. This was really really good and I was griped by the events taking place. The focus was far from Secret Wars overall which makes this a great story on it's own. I can't get past how good this story was.

Spider-Man Renew Your Vows is the best comic volume I've read in a while.

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MOXIELAND BY LAUREN BEUKES

Moxyland by Lauren Beukes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”And it makes perfect sense. The process has to be managed. Fear has to be managed. Fear has to be controlled.

Like people.”



As people have become more disconnected from reality and spend more and more time in game worlds and social media, these sites have become sanctuaries, more “real” than real life. In the process, people have become so much easier to manipulate.

It is all about who controls the spin.

And about apathy.

Corporations in this dystopia are more powerful than governments. Allegiances to corporations are taken more seriously than any patriotism to countries. Orphaned AIDs babies are grabbed and thrown into corporate schools. Indoctrination and dependency are established early. This might be the future, but it isn’t the far future. I just read an article about the fact that the University of Phoenix wants to get into teaching lower grades. They want to provide an alternative to public school. They plan to have the students jacked into the internet all day, learning online.

The future becomes the present.

Lerato was one of those AIDs babies and now is trying to jostle her way to the top of a massive corporate structure where the higher you go the better the view. She is a brilliant programmer. She is promiscuous with preapproved men from the same corporation, which eliminates the need for signing reams of nondisclosure agreements. She looks down on those normal people who are unassociated with a corporation. I would guess that outlook was encouraged at the corporate school. She is set really. She understands the politics and knows that, even in a group of bright people, she is still a half a step ahead of the rest.

So how does a woman like this get hooked up with a bunch of revolutionaries?

Her connection is Toby. An ex-friend with benefits who has just been cut off by his “motherbitch,” and now he is trying to pick up some extra cash wherever he can. He is constantly streaming video to his podcast, so he is also always looking to make his life more interesting so he can attract more followers, syndicate his stream, and snare some sponsors. He is a bit of an ass, which is probably why his mother cut him off, but from my experience in social media, the bigger an asshole you are the bigger your following. When Tendeka, a rich boy revolutionary, contacts him needing his help, Toby doesn’t give a crap about the revolution. He cares about the added spice it will give his streaming.

They need a programmer's help, and that is where Toby connects Lerato to Tendeka. In that black corporate heart I’d like to think there lurks a bit of humanity, but in reality Lerato is thinking about changing companies and wants to leave with a backdoor she has written into the code that will allow her access into the company software. In other words, she is willing to help because it helps her.


They don’t need your face to know who you are. They know everything they need to know about you from your phone and from your footprints online.

Kendra is the last piece of this jumbled puzzle. She has sold her soul to a corporate sponsor, which is actually kind of sad because out of the four main characters in this book she is probably the only one who actually has a soul worth owning. She is a photographer, one who uses real film, nothing digital for her, and the film she is able to procure is old and unreliable, which actually helps to give her photos many more unexpected, artistic elements.

The corporation shot her up with nanobits that keep her from getting sick and give her beautiful body an added healthy glow. Their logo radiates beneath her skin. Worked into the potent mixture they give her is also an addiction to a new soft drink they want to market called Ghost. They want this lovely woman with ”hair streaked in fat chunks of copper and chocolate” to be seen drinking their product. Not only drinking it, but craving it. She is a walking advertisement.

She meets Toby and gets snared in the mess he seems hardwired to always find.

The police have dogs that are controlled by some of those same nanobits swimming around in Kendra’s blood. These modified dogs are used to secure people who have stepped outside of the rules. The police also have the ability to DEFUSE a person, which means locking up the chip in their phone and making it impossible for them to go online or even open doors in the physical world. It completely cuts them off from the online culture. Life becomes very real at that point.

Can you imagine if punishment entailed cutting off people from Facebook, Twitter, online gaming and gambling, and *gasp* Goodreads? Can you image the reaction? Mass hysteria, contemplations of suicide, people wandering aimlessly muttering to themselves, dramatic homicide rate increases, and prayers lifted to the demigod called INTERNET.

*Shudder* it is too terrible to consider.

One of the games that Toby accesses is called Moxyland, and the moment he enters, even though this is really supposed to be a kid’s game, the other more experienced players attack him, beating him up. They routinely thrash any new players. Mob mentality, we can’t seem to escape it even online. Our worst traits in real life appear online, only magnified by the power of ten by the anonymity that hiding behind avatars gives people.

The four main characters all come together in one desperate bid to try and change the world. The question will be, is resistance futile, assimilate or DIE?


Lauren Beukes looks like the nerdy cute girl next door, but in that mind lurks some dark, dark thoughts.

Lauren Beukes presents a dystopia that is not far from where we are now. I’ve been harboring fears for many years that corporations would give up any pretense of allowing governments to exist. This book was an all too real version of a future I hope I don’t have to see realized, but I worry that we are almost there now. While reading, I kept having flashbacks to early William Gibson novels, made more current with a flashy slang created by Beukes. Don’t let the slang bother you; I soon caught the groove. There is plenty of social commentary layered into the plot. This world she has created is not a stretch for the imagination, which makes it all the more terrifying.

Addendum: A few weeks ago my company had a Strategic Planning Session with a facilitator. The facilitator told us that she had a tattoo of her corporate logo on her arm and asked us what sort of tattoo design we would envision for our company logo. I thought it was odd, but after reading Moxyland, now I think it was the future finding me in the present.

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Hellknight By: Liane Merciel

Hellknight by Liane Merciel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yes, I went and bought some more Pathfinder tales, Hellknight is pretty cool, the various kingdoms and organization of the hellknights is very interesting to me. Ms. Merciel's story is a bit brutal and the three main characters are very cool, they are essentially three sides of the same coin, all serving the concept of order, but in different ways.


I dig the series, and so far haven't read one I didn't like..so you might as well get ready for me to review more.

If you like your fantasy characters on the chaotic evil side..check this out.



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Dark Run By: Mike Brooks

Dark Run by Mike Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am a bit torn with this book, It has everything I like, action, backstory, world building, good characters, interesting concept and decent dialogue, the problem is..it's nothing new. While I enjoyed the read, it was a overwhelming sense of the deja vu, bits and pieces felt like things I had seen here and there. Now your opinion may vary, because my tastes run wide...I tend to see alot of stuff.

That being said, it is a well written entry into what will probably be a fun series, 3 stars if you are hunting something totally fresh and new, 3 and 1/2 if you just need a good beach read.



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OH CANADA!

The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada and the coming of the White Man (illustrated edition) by Stephen Butler Leacock (1869 - 1944)
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Harken ye to the very dawn of mankind!

...in Canada.

There's no "big bang", no great revelations, just a few minor ones, which are interesting in their own right. I'm always happy to read and reread about the Norsemen in America stories of which maybe one day we'll know the whole truth. I hoped for and expected more about the Inuit culture, but didn't get much here.

Just when I was about finished I discovered the author, Stephen Leacock died in 1944. I looked this up because I was beginning to notice that some of the information in this book was only marginally correct or flat out wrong (The most obvious example: he was of a time in which misinformation was spread about the ancients believing that the world was flat.) That cast doubt upon everything I was reading and I felt I had to be on my toes. However, that's not a bad thing. We should all be more cautious about what we're reading (I'm looking at you, people who get their politics from memes posted to Facebook!).

Regardless, there's plenty of solid history here about Canada's beginnings and I feel I have a slightly stronger grasp on the subject, and it's written in a readable style, which can't always be said about histories.

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Miracleman, Book Two: The Red King Syndrome

Miracleman, Book Two: The Red King Syndrome by Alan Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When his pregnant wife is kidnapped by Dr. Gargunza, Miracleman and Evelyn Cream go looking for her. But what is the sinister connection between Gargunza and Miracleman and what plans does Gargunza have for his wife?

The Red King Syndrome collections issues 5-10 of Miracleman, some of which I have vague recollections of reading at some point.

Book Two further deconstructs Miracleman's origins as Captain Marvel's bastard son of sorts. In this case, Doctor Sivana is a short Mexican scientist with thatch of black hair and much more practical plans. Miracleman's origin is further explored. Meanwhile, it seems that Johnny Bates might not be the vegetable we all thought he was.

Back in the day, I bought comics from Mile High Comics whenever I could scrape together enough money for an order. My twelve year old self was puzzled why I would need to be over eighteen to buy Miracleman #9. After reading it, I'm not so puzzled. That was one graphic childbirth scene!

The brutality in Miracleman surprises me. In the last decade or so, we've seen Black Adam and Superboy Prime punch the heads off of more Teen Titans members than I can count and Hyperion inflict mass destruction in the pages of Supreme Power. Pfft! Miracleman was doing that shit in the early days of the Reagan administration. Miracleman does a fantastic job of showing what would happen if Superman-level beings existed in the real world.

People like to point to Watchmen and The Dark Knight as the comics that made everyone go darker. After reading the first two volumes, I contend that Miracleman was that comic instead. Four out of five stars.

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