Dark Matter

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On the way home from the local bar, Jason Dessen is ambushed by an unknown assailant in a geisha mask. After being injected with something, Jason wakes up and his world has been turned upside down...

As I mentioned in the past, I tend to resist books with any amount of hype attached. I even passed on this when it initially came up on Netgalley. However, the gang at Goodreads made me change my mind. So, yeah, the gang was right. Every once in a while, a book feels like it was written with my admittedly peculiar tastes in mind. This is one of those books that caught lightning in a bottle.

As with reads like The Man from Primrose Lane and The Great Forgetting, I'm going to keep this as vague as possible to retard spoilage. Dark Matter is a thriller with a science fiction bend. The What-the-fuckery level is quite high and I wolfed it down in two sittings. It's so damn readable I want to punch Blake Crouch in the junk.

Jason Dessen made for a great lead, a scientist with a loving family and a life he wasn't that enthused about. When he wakes up in another life, he quickly finds himself driving up diarrhea drive on four flat tires.

Since this wasn't my first ride on the weirdness wagon, I tipped to who the masked man was before the big reveal. However, I had no idea the magnitude of the mind fuck headed my way. I pretty much cleared my calendar to wolf down everything after the first 24%. It was that damn gripping.

The ending was great. I kind of guessed how things would go but Crouch hit the ball out of the park.

I don't really know what else I can say without spoiling things. I didn't think Blake Crouch could top Pines but top it he did. Dark Matter is a Twilight Zone episode written by Phillip K. Dick. 5 out of 5 stars.

View all my reviews

En Memoriam

Tami Veldura
OldeWolff Alternascents
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

Paul has seen Victor before, he just can’t remember where. The rush of fear in his stomach when Victor glances his way is familiar. Paul knows the slant of his smile. There’s nothing safe here, but when Victor offers to meet over coffee, Paul is swayed by this sense of knowing. Victor’s touch feels like an old lover. His hands have been here before.

Paul is sure he once learned something Victor is trying to hide. His hair stands on end whenever Victor gives him attention, like his body reacting to danger that his mind can’t recall. He’s not sure uncovering more is a good idea but he craves what Victor might give him.

Paul wants to know why he longs for Victor’s voice. He dreams about conversations they’ve never had. He desires a darkness he’s never seen before. They met only once, but this longing is too intense. Victor is keeping secrets, Paul just can’t remember them.

My Review

Sexy, dark, and dangerous.

Having read and enjoyed Tami Veldura’s Stealing Serenity, I was very confident that I would enjoy her take on vampires and their use of glamour, even if they often feel tired and overdone. Fear not, dear reader! En Memoriam is a fresh and unusual short story, with strong, memorable characters and a ferocious sexual intensity that had me fanning myself.

Each time Paul encounters Victor, there is an element of fear, and also a feeling of familiarity. He knows he’s done this before. Many times, perhaps, but he just can’t remember.

With one swipe of Paul’s temple, Victor deprives Paul of his memories of their encounters. The problem is that Paul is unable to move on with his life. Alcohol, work, and other men can’t fulfill him or erase that feeling he’s lost something. He has desires that only Victor can satisfy, and he keeps coming back. Victor is not accustomed to staying with one person, yet there’s something in Paul.

So curl up under a warm blanket and spend some quality time with two incredibly sexy and determined men who are not afraid of taking what they need. You won’t regret it.

Battle Scars

Battle Scars by Christopher Yost
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sergeant Marcus Johnson was an army ranger fighting in Afghanistan with his best friend Cheese.

Things were crazy, but just regular crazy. Marcus then learned his mother died and he headed home to the funeral.

Unfortunately he learned she didn't simply die, she was murdered. That wasn't all, whoever had killed his mother was after him too for some reason.


Battle Scars was an interesting story. I knew the gist of what was happening when I started reading it, but it was still really strong anyway. Marcus is a war hero that could've been a pro football player making millions of dollars, but instead of doing that he joined the army at 18. He's just a likeable guy who reacted in a completely understandable way when he discovered his mother was murdered, he wanted revenge. I for one wanted to see him get his revenge because this guy was handed a raw deal to say it nicely. Battle Scars also handled some delicate matters in a really effective way.

View all my reviews

THE DROWNED WORLD BY J. G. BALLARD

The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”The solar disc was no longer a well-defined sphere, but a wide expanding ellipse that fanned out across the eastern horizon like a colossal fire-ball, its reflection turned the dead leaden surface of the lagoon into a brilliant copper shield. By noon, less than four hours away, the water would seem to burn.”



Solar radiation has melted the polar ice caps, and the oceans have risen to engulf most of the major cities of Europe and America. These cities have become tropical lagoons with only the upper floors of the tallest building sticking up out of the water and silt. Flora and fauna baked by radiation have grown to enormous sizes reminiscent of the Triassic era.

A team of scientists have come to investigate and analyze the changes that have occurred in London since humans were forced to flee North. Some of the members of the team start to have strange, primordial dreams.

”’What are these nightmares you’ve having?’

Beatrice shrugged. ‘Jungle dreams, Robert,’ she murmured ambiguously. ‘I’m learning my ABC again. Last night was the delta jungles.’ She gave him a bleak smile, then added with a touch of malicious humour: ‘Don’t look so stern, you’ll be dreaming them too, soon.’”

Ballard explains what is happening to the scientists with a bit more detail beyond just calling them jungle dreams.

”Just as psychoanalysis reconstructs the original traumatic situation in order to release the repressed material, so we are now being plunged back into the archaeopsychic past, uncovering the ancient taboos and drives that have been dormant for epochs… Each one of us is as old as the entire biological kingdom, and our bloodstreams are tributaries of the great sea of its total memory.”

Beatrice Dahl is a beautiful woman made more lovely by the fact that she is the only female on the expedition. She has found an exquisite apartment that with the help of a generator still has air conditioning and ice. She has a sexual relationship with Dr. Robert Kerans, but she seems rather apathetic about her lover. Of course, it could be the heat.

Temperatures climb to 140 degrees by midday.

There is a Max Ernst painting on the wall of Beatrice’s apartment, and the longer they are there, the more the painting reminds Kerans of the real world.


I wonder if the Max Ernst painting was something like this.

As the day approaches that they will have to leave, Robert and Beatrice become more convinced that they are going to stay. It doesn’t make any logical sense. Within a matter of months they would be out of fuel to drive the air conditioning and food would begin to be a problem, but the desire to stay and become part of their jungle dreams clutters their thoughts.

This novel has a Conradian feel, specifically one of my favorite books Heart of Darkness, so Ballard had my attention from the very first page.

I’m a fan of post-apocalyptic books, and J.G. Ballard was obsessed with the worlds that are created by the chaos of destruction. The characters in this novel go against the norm for post-apocalyptic novels. They aren’t resisting the apocalypse. They are intent on joining it. The novel becomes even stranger when some scavengers show up led by the pale, thin man aptly named Strangman.

Ballard explores the urges that are normally repressed by civilized human beings. The call of the wild is in our DNA. When we are dipped in the primordial soup of a tropical lagoon, we feel the need to escape the bondages of civilization. Something on a cellular level is telling us that we are missing the fundamental purposes of life. Kerans is intent on escaping the clutches of all that is trying to bind him and head South into the uncertainty of a new world.



”His commitment to the future, so far one of choice and plagued by so many doubts and hesitations, was now absolute.”

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

View all my reviews

Making Reading History!

Uneasy Money by P.G. Wodehouse
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Uneasy Money is easily my least favorite P.G. Wodehouse book in the history of me reading P.G. Wodehouse books!

The characters are flat. The writer's trademark humor is almost completely absent. The story is boring.

This rags-to-riches, boy-meets-girl tale unnecessarily drags on at a languid pace. The premise is ridiculous, yet not ridiculous enough to be funny. Unlikely romances in which the rich guy falls for the poor girl were all the rage in the early 1900s, so I'm led to understand, and this is another one of them. More's the pity.

However, for what it is, it's still written with an apt hand. Again, I'm led to believe this dime-a-dozen genre of romance often had less than a nickel's worth of quality imbued within its prose. So, the best I can say for Uneasy Money is that the words are all there, in the right order with a proper beginning, middle and end. It's just, the end couldn't come fast enough for me.

I did a little research, checked out his bibliography and such, and I feel confident in saying that in future I should steer clear of any pre-1920s Wodehouse. That's all right, since the man wrote steadily into the 1970s. I once saw an interview with him in which the interviewer asked how many books he'd written. He said something to the effect that he'd written a book a year all his life, and since he was 84 he guessed he'd written 84 books. It was like something out of the mouth of Bertie Wooster.

View all my reviews

United States of Japan

United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In a world where the Axis won World War II and Japan controls the western United States, a censor named Ben Ishimura and a secret police agent named Akiko Tsukino are trying to find the source of a video game called USA, which allows players to play in a world where America never fell...

I initially passed on this when I saw it on Netgalley but Peter Tieryas seems like a pretty cool guy on Goodreads and on Twitter so I gave it a shot when it went on sale for $1.99.

United States of Japan is a spiritual successor to The Man in the High Castle, which I really need to read one of these days. The USJ is a paranoid dystopia where the Emperor is everything and to speak against him means death. Skyscraper-sized mecha patrol the cities and everyone carries a portable computer called a portcal.

Ben Ishimura is a censor whose attitude prevents him from going anywhere in his career. Akikio Tsukino is a cop whose career means everything. What happens when these two get forced to work together? A fun tale full of action and gore, that's what!

United States of Japan was a fun read, full of gruesome deaths, gore, cyberpunk awesomeness, and some giant robots roaming around the periphery. The paranoid feel made it pretty gripping at times. I had a feeling who was responsible for the USA game but I was off by a degree or two.

I didn't actually care for Ben that much. He's pretty passive for a lead character and his attitude got on my nerves. Akiko, on the other hand, ran the gauntlet over the course of the book and wound up being my favorite character, far from the mindless duty-bound cop she started the book as.

Aside from Ben, the only complaint I can think of would be that there weren't enough mecha battles. As a child of the 80's, I loved getting home from school in time to watch Voltron or Robotech and as such, can't get enough of giant robots duking it out.

United States of Japan makes dystopian alternate history fun! 3.5 out of 5 stars.

View all my reviews

Tame a Wild Human

Kari Gregg
Riptide Publishing
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

Drugged, bound, and left as bait on the cusp of the lunar cycle, Wyatt Redding is faced with a terrifying set of no-win scenarios. Best case: he survives the coming days as a werewolf pack’s plaything and returns to the city as a second-class citizen with the mark—and protection—of the pack. Worst case: the wolves sate their lusts with Wyatt’s body, then send him home without their protection, condemning him to live out the rest of his short life as a slave to the worst of humanity’s scorn and abuse.

Wyatt’s only chance is to swallow every ounce of pride, bury his fear, and meekly comply with every wicked desire and carnal demand the wolf pack makes of him. He expects three days of sex and humiliation. What he doesn’t expect is to start enjoying it. Or to grow attached to his captor and pack Alpha, Cole.

As the lunar cycle ends, Wyatt begins to realize that the only thing to fear more than being sent home without the pack’s protection is being sent home at all.

My Review

After reading a few reviews that piqued my curiosity, I ultimately decided this short story about wolf packs and their insatiable lust just wasn’t my thing. But now, thanks to the Lendle gods, I now have a copy in my hot little hands!

Which I’ve read in one sitting and enjoyed way more than I expected to. I feel dirty enough as it is. Don’t judge me.

Wyatt Redding is an up-and-coming lawyer who drives a Mustang, owns fancy Italian shoes, and is dating Sandra. He also has a brother who’s a scumbag.

Andrew kidnapped, drugged and blindfolded Wyatt, leaving him at the mercy of a ravenous wolf pack during a full moon. In Wyatt’s world, people stay indoors and secure their homes to avoid becoming human sex toys. Poor Wyatt doesn’t stand a chance. In order to survive, he must submit to the depraved wolves for three whole days.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the world building is scanty. That didn’t bother me so much, as I didn’t choose to read this story for rich atmosphere or plot, just the rough and dirty sex and D/s elements.

There is a relationship, unconventional that it is, but there is no romance. This is erotica, with non/dubious-consensual sexual situations and explicit violence which involves torture of a minor character.

Heed all the warnings, folks!

While there is a smattering of beauty here, including the successful taming of Wyatt and mating with his alpha, Cole, this will likely trip all your triggers.

“While hothouse blooms and cultivated flowers splashed bits of color on the city landscape of steel and concrete, the unspoiled forest was a banquet of hues in riotous greenery. The gorgeous plumage of flitting birds mesmerized him, as did clusters of wild grapes twined among vines draping trees, and lush blossoms in reds, purples, and vivid blues. Every breath he sucked in was clean and pure, scented with pine instead of a car exhaust.”

There was a surprising little twist and the satisfaction of knowing Wyatt’s brother will likely pay for his actions.

I’m happy.

Star Wars: Darth Maul - Death Sentence

Star Wars: Darth Maul - Death Sentence by Tom Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Being cut in half wasn't enough to stop Darth Maul. He's returned with metal legs and his brother Savage Opress.

Their first target is a foolish business man who put a price on their heads.

There are so many stories the prequel trilogy could have told them would have improved it. Among my favorite is the idea that Darth Maul survived being cut in half and obtains metal legs. The fearsomeness of Maul along with massive cyborg legs would have at the least added to the cool factor of the prequel series. This story touches on an expanded universe where Maul survived, takes his brother as an apprentice, and seeks to destroy Obi-Wan Kenobi.

It's a much better story than Attack of the Clones and there is no whiny teenager Anakin Skywalker with his unbelievable love interest to bog the story down.

Death Sentence shows Darth Maul is a sith through and through while demonstrating just how dangerous he truly could be.

View all my reviews

AGENT 110: AN AMERICAN SPYMASTER & THE GERMAN RESISTANCE IN WW2 BY SCOTT MILLER

Agent 110: An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII by Scott Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”My husband doesn’t converse with me, not that he doesn’t talk to me about his business, but that he doesn’t talk about anything.... It took me a long time to realize that when he talks it is only for the purpose of obtaining something…. He has either to be making someone admire him, or to be receiving some information worth his while; otherwise he gives one the impression that he doesn’t talk because the person isn’t worth talking to.” Clover Dulles, wife of Allen Dulles


The dashing and enigmatic Allen Dulles. Mary Bancroft said for many decades after she’d last had contact with him the memory of his laugh would always bring a smile to her lips.

I get the impression that Allen Dulles always felt an inordinate amount of pressure to compete with his older brother John Foster Dulles. This can lead to reckless, unprincipled behavior in a younger sibling, but in Allen it seems to have fostered (I couldn’t help it) a focused need to succeed. This book primarily covers the WW2 years of Dulles while he was working for the OSS (Office of Strategic Service) in Bern, Switzerland. I first learned about the OSS from a retired judge who used to come into the bookstore I worked at in Phoenix. The guy was nuts about books, maybe even more nuts than I am. He told me stories about his work in the OSS. He was one of the guys in on the capture of Hermann Goering. As he said to me, “I had the privilege of laying hands on that evil man.”

The OSS is the precursor of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). Receiving this Bern assignment was a perfect fit for Dulles. He was on his own. Any bosses he may have had were generally thousands of miles away. He loved the freedom and, as Scott Miller alludes to, he chafed under the strictures of a normal, hierarchical, office situation later in his career. I’m sure he didn’t want to have to consult with others. He wanted the ability to say, let’s do this or not, without having to get approval from a committee of people.

He was effective, and especially during wartime, if a person proves themselves to be competent, they are generally given the latitude to what they feel they need to do with very little interference. Dulles hired a secretary, a saucy, married, American woman by the name of Mary Bancroft. He needed someone who would make his spies feel more at ease. Miller never actually states that Bancroft may have also worked her feminine wiles on the series of spies she helped Dulles manage, but she certainly, briskly warmed Dulles’ bed for a while. As we learn more about Dulles, we realize that he flipped an hourglass over on every sexual relationship the moment it began. ”Such an affair was not unusual for men of Dulles’s generation, who considered such relationships an entitlement for the wealthy and powerful.”


I’ve looked at several pictures of Mary Bancroft and do not see the beauty that was attributed to her, but we all know how deceptive the lens is. I have a feeling her mannerisms and personality added to her attractiveness.

And women, married or otherwise, seemed to find Allen Dulles irresistible, despite knowing or maybe because they knew the relationship was doomed to be a fleeting one. There is speculation that his affairs may have numbered in the hundreds. Normally, I would think this would make him vulnerable to blackmail or to inappropriate pillow talk, but my impression is that he never really trusted anyone, and women were really just a source of pleasure, not confidants.

From Bern, Dulles did manage to make contact with several, important or certainly dedicated Germans intent on helping bring down Hitler’s Germany. They wanted their Germany back. It was through this network that he learned about Operation Valkyrie, which was the July 20th, 1944, plot to assassinate Hitler. His network was also how Dulles came into contact with Waffen-SS General Karl Wolff, who under the Operation name Sunrise was trying to peacefully surrender the German troops in Northern Italy. Beyond all the spy work that was going on within Germany, there was a growing understanding that the Soviet Union was going to be a problem after the war. As Germany grew weaker, the Russians became more emboldened, and soon the war focus was more about what the Russians were up to than concerns about Hitler and his remaining, beaten German forces.


The July 20th bomb should have killed Adolf Hitler, but by a quirk of fate he survived unscathed.

The Cold War began, a game that Dulles was particularly perfectly suited for.

Scott Miller provided me with a several insights about Dulles in Bern that I didn’t know before. There was a prominent psychologist, which I will leave as a surprise for the readers, who provided him with in-depth analysis about Hitler and other prominent Nazis. Hitler’s inner circle was a perverted and broken bunch of human beings, whose loyalty to him was their need to belong to something for the first time in their life. They finally had a place in society where they could judge others as they felt like they had always been judged. Dulles lost people, some were apprehended and some just disappeared. Tension of this magnitude requires a special person. I sense that there was a distance between Dulles and every person he ever became “friends” with, and in the spy business this may have been a real source of strength.


President Kennedy and Allen Dulles, a duel of contrasting personalities.

This book is a great way to meet Allen Dulles before he became the icon and face of American Intelligence, which lasted even beyond his summary dismissal as Director (officially a resignation) by President Kennedy in 1961. With the revolving door of CIA directors, his tenure stands as a testament to the value of his service. If you like spy novels, in particular John le Carré, you will enjoy experiencing the real life adventures and tribulations of the men and women who were trying to defeat German from within.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

View all my reviews

New York 2140 By: Kim Stanley Robinson

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have read alot of Mr. Robinson's work, and no offense..you usually don't read him for the story but for the massive ideas that he puts forth. HOWEVER, I am proud to say with this new novel not only is it a vast step up in storytelling in my opinion, it is filled with the big ideas that you love with Mr. Robinson's work.

Stunning world, information coming from all directions, characters I actually liked, (major step up) if this is an evolution in his work, then I look forward to the future, (unless it's as the story predicts)

View all my reviews