Kings of the Wyld (The Band, #1) by: Nicholas Eames

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am so glad I found this. There was a time where my brain consisted of heavy metal music and swords and magic. Kings of the Wyld is to me a very fresh take on a fairly common fantasy trope and in the running for my fantasy books of the year. Wild, rowdy and just damn fun, the older I get, the more I want my reads to make me smile and engage me.

If you are of the older generation, it will tug a bit at your feels too, a super read all the way around, I will be hitting the road and following the band, Mr Eames.

200 out of 5 stars

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Kurt Wallander Is Challenged by Two Very Perplexing Cases

As the fifth entry in this series opens, Swedish police detective Kurt Wallander is looking forward to his upcoming vacation, but then he answers a call to a farmer's field where a young girl has been standing all day in what appears to be a catatonic state. Just as Wallander arrives, the girl douses herself in gasoline and burns herself to death. Wallander is naturally horrified and cannot imagine why the girl would have chosen to end her life, especially in such a painful manner. His task now is to identify the young woman and notify her family of her fate. This will prove to be a difficult process.

Shortly after the girl's death a retired Swedish Minister of Justice is murdered by someone who smashes his head with an ax and then takes his scalp. Wallander and his team are on the case, but have no obvious suspects. For the remainder of the book, the P.O.V. switches back and forth between Wallander and the killer who is on a mission that becomes clearer as the book progresses. As it does, a couple more men will be murdered and scalped and it becomes pretty clear that neither Wallander nor anyone else on his team will be going on vacation anytime soon.

This is another very intriguing and entertaining entry in the series and, as always, it allows Mankell to make observations about a number of social issues. There are a number of troubled families in this book, for example, including Wallander's own. His difficult relationship with his daughter, Linda, has significantly improved, but his father is slowly sinking into dementia and Wallander realizes that they will have little time to repair their fragile relationship. 

The plot is compelling and moves along swiftly; as always the characters are very interesting, and all in all, this is a book that should appeal to large numbers of crime fiction fans.

Over Sea, Under Stone

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
Reviewed by Jason KOivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A Nancy Drew-esque adventure in which some kids with the last name Drew attempt to find the Holy Grail.

"Another book on the Arthur legend?" I groaned before commencing a hearty dismissive snore. I guess I didn't read the description close enough on Goodreads or on the back of the book. I knew it was YA, but expected magic. Even sampling of it. This was not the fantasy novel I was looking for.

These days reading about three English kids romping around the Cornwall seaside in search of King Arthur's grail is just not my cup of tea. Don't get me wrong, it's a damn fine book! I think if I was growing up in the '60s when this was published, I would've been over the moon to get my hands on Over Sea, Under Stone. Now though, there's a plethora of much more fun fantasy to be had.

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Joking Hazard

Joking Hazard
Publisher: the creators of Cyanide and Happiness
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars










Back in the day, my girlfriend at the time turned me on to Cyanide and Happiness, a webcomic that was in alignment with my own twisted sense of humor.  Now, a decade later, the keys to the universe are in the hands of me and 2-4 of my closest friends.

Joking Hazard is a card game for people with a dark and twisted sense of humor.  The box includes 360 cards, each a panel from a Cyanide and Happiness strip, and the instruction sheet.  The game is pretty simple.  Whomever's turn it is flips over a card from the deck, adds one of their own to the strip, and the remaining players try to end the comic strip in the funniest of ways.

For example:

Yeah, it's a hilarious experience.  The replay value is pretty high.  We've played a few times now and it hasn't worn thin yet.  I'm chomping at the bit to get the expansions for even more demented fun.

Joking Hazard is a hilarious game that should appeal to fans of Cards Against Humanity and dark humor in general.  Five out of five stars.

The Trouble With Elves

Therese Woodson
Dreamspinner Press
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

Cal Martin loathes Christmas music, especially the clichéd carols pumped through the mall speakers on endless loop. Even worse is the holiday-themed hell of Santa's Village that looms right in front of the sports store he manages. It's yet another hurdle for Cal as he tries to survive the world of retail during the soul-sucking holiday season… until he catches a glimpse of one of Santa's elves and becomes infatuated with the cheery, gorgeous guy dressed in candy-cane tights.

Of course, just walking up to the guy and asking him out isn't easy, and a botched attempt at matchmaking ends up turning a simple courtship into a mess for the gossip page. What can Cal do to overcome his social ineptitude, correct erroneous assumptions, and maybe have a merry little Christmas of his own?

My Review

Cal is a former baseball player with a bad knee now managing a sporting goods store at the local mall.

Though he hates Christmas music and actively avoids the Santa’s Village near his store, a certain elf has captured his interest.

This was adorable, sweet, and funny, with just enough problems and misunderstandings to counteract the sugar.

I adored all the characters, even the annoying ones, and loved the perfect ending.

A holiday treat that can be enjoyed all year long.

Inhuman, Volume 3: Lineage

Inhuman, Volume 3: Lineage by Charles Soule
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

New Attilan faces off against Ennilux over Iso and Lineage finally makes his move.

The Nuhumans get put to the test defending New Attilan.


They get some help from an unexpected place. I really like the Nuhumans along with the new Inhumans created for the series. The new characters are quite a diverse cast. They broke the old mold for Inhumans all being part of Attilan and following Black Bolt and the Royal Family.

Looks aren't everything, but perhaps it's best to be more skeptical of a guy who looks like the devil. Lineage always seemed as though he was up to more than he was saying and in this volume he proved that.

All the Nuhumans got some attention in this volume and they are an interesting bunch. Mixing them in with the Royal Family has been positive overall.

I think Inhuman was a good start, but they need to make a lot more Nuhumans to even come close to being a viable MCU replacement for mutants. The effort put into strengthening the Inhuman brand is already paying off and I'm looking forward to the Inhumans future.

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Dirty Ol' Bryson

Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Huh. Turns out Bryson is a dirty ol' bugger!

This travel-across-Europe journal is fun, educational and entertaining. I love travel and I like learning about far-off places. Europe has been done and overdone, yet I still find it fascinating.

Bryson's recollections are from when he wrote the book in the '90s as well as from a previous trip he and his friend Katz took. Regardless of when the reminisces come from, details ring true from the experiences I've had of the same places, such Paris and parts of Italy. Apparently some things never change. However, it was cool to get his take on the place.

At times he gets a little grumpy, but overall this is lighthearted and goodnatured. He has a adequate store of patience and his take-it-as-it-comes attitude keeps most of this from sinking into endless gripes.

Fun as this was, it's not my favorite of the six or so of Bryon's works I've read to this point. I haven't found this in his later books, but earlier on his writing seems to show a distracting obsession with sex. That's fine. I mean, I'm a dirty bird too, but I really don't want to know about the fetishes of a mid-aged man. I am one and it's not pretty. Hey, I'm sure that's someone's bag. Somewhere out there some sad sod is thinking, "I wonder what gets boring, bald and wrinkled old Phil from accounting off?" But that's not me...not yet anyhow. Who knows maybe someday my sexuality will warp in an unexpected way.

Oh, who am I kidding...*zip*

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A Little Light On The Funny

Seriously... I'm Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

5 GLORIOUS STARS!!! is what I wanted to give Seriously...I'm Kidding when I first picked it up. The peace and kindness message is great, but this lacks the funny far too much for an autobio from a comedian.

I love Ellen DeGeneres. Wait, let me back up. I love the idea of Ellen DeGeneres. I really like her show. Her stand-up...meh. Unfortunately, this book is more like her stand-up. This very quick read (actually, I listened to her read it and it was only 3 cds) is filled with her silly titter-inducing jokesque things. It's also filled with fluff. There are whole chapters of filler. There are sections of her making nonsensical noises, her eating, and her saying nothing. Literally intentional silence. As if that wasn't bad enough, there's a whole bit about dreams. I would've preferred more silence.

I'd say about halfway through I thought Seriously...I'm Kidding deserved about 3 stars, but the latter half took a complete nose-dive. Very boring, tedious even.

That's sad. I had high hopes. I guess I'll go back to checking out Youtube clips of her show. Those crack me up.

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White Jazz

White Jazz by James Ellroy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Dave Klein, the dirtiest cop in town, catches a burglary, he quickly becomes entangled in a web of drugs, prostitution, and murder...

James Ellroy's four volume treatise on family values and the integrity of the Los Angeles police department comes to a conclusion in White Jazz. White Jazz ties up some nagging lose ends leftover from the previous three volumes. Gone is the "trinity of sin" structure of The Big Nowhere and L.A. Confidential, replaced by a first person narrator, a throwback to The Black Dahlia.

Ellroy's machine gun style is ratcheted up to an insane degree in this one, the short choppy sentences hitting like the needle of a sewing machine. Honestly, it got a little hard to follow what was happening at times. However, the crazy style added something to the book, giving it a frantic, paranoid feel.

The story itself continued in the vein of the previous two; the corpse of the integrity of the LAPD was exhumed, violated in every orifice, and buried again. What starts as a burglary investigation tears the scab off of the gaping wound of the LAPD's narcotics division and exposes the infection beneath, namely their longtime relationship with the Kafesjian family. Dave Klein, a cop, lawyer, and mob enforcer, finds himself navigating a maze of filth to figure out just what the hell is going on, caught in a power struggle between two of the most powerful men on the force.

After finishing LA Confidential, I mentioned that I thought Dudley Smith was James Ellroy's Randall Flagg. After reading this book, I stand by that. The master manipulator was in fine form in White Jazz, doing his puppeteer act from the sidelines for most of the book. Once all the cards were on the table, the book got so frantic I thought I might have an anxiety attack.

As with the previous books, the dialogue and relationships between the characters threw a lot of gas on the fire. Klein's complicated relationships with his sister and Glenda, as well as Junior and the rest, made him another of Ellroy's shitbird characters that you couldn't help but root for, especially since all the other shitbirds had a lot more blood on their hands.

While I didn't like White Jazz quite as much as the other two books in the LA Quartet, it did a great job wrapping things up. Hell, when the three previous books are of such high caliber, they're hard to follow. Four out of five stars.

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Happily Ever Before

Jaye Valentine
Self-Published
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

Featuring the White Queen and the Red Knight from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There," this erotic short story by Jaye Valentine incorporates Carrollian elements of nonsensical comparison and White Queen-specific time distortions, all wrapped up in a beautiful gender-bending package.

My Review

This deliciously erotic treat was perfect reading between naps on a long flight and short enough to gobble up in a single bite.

Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classics, this is a cleverly written, humorous, and very steamy story about one of no doubt many passionate flings between the White Queen and his devoted Red Knight.

I thoroughly enjoyed the flowery language, the banter, and the deep affection the lovers had for one another.