The Wanderer in Unknown Realms

The Wanderer in Unknown Realms

The Wanderer in Unknown Realms

John Connolly

Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Available: Now!

Soter, a former British soldier turned private detective, is charged with investigating the sudden disappearance of wealthy recluse and obsessive book collector Lionel Maudling. Soter’s boss, the wealthy bookkeeper of the missing man in question, urges the utmost discretion in the search for Mr. Maudling’s whereabouts. Can Soter find Maudling before the trail runs cold or will an unknown presence jeopardize Soter’s already fragile state of mind?

Connolly does a great job here working within the constraints of a novella. That being said, this could easily be expanded into a fully fleshed out novel. Both the characters and plot are very strong and it’s a shame that we only get to spend such a short amount of time in this world. However, I feel like that’s kind of an unfair criticism and that the book should be judged purely on what it is – a quick read that packs an emotional punch.

Connolly’s protagonist, Soter, is a fascinating character. Shell-shocked from his time spent fighting in the first World War, Soter has little to offer anyone other than his employer, Quayle, who uses Soter from time to time in dealing with clients who find themselves in less than desirable positions. While he’s not outwardly downtrodden, he certainly has strong opinions on those who did not serve alongside him but rather hold judgement against those who had.

The hatred for ex-soldiers on the part of those who had not fought was something I could not understand. They wanted us to disappear. There were no more parades now, no more kisses on the cheek. Soldiers were no more than beggars, and nobody likes a beggar. Perhaps we made them feel guilty by our presence. They might have preferred it had we all died in the mud and been buried far from England in places whose names we had not even learned to pronounce properly before we perished.

Just like in his Samuel Johnson novels, the prose differs from his trademark Charlie Parker series but still retains that trademark wit and supernatural style. While it does come across as something fresh and outside his comfort zone, it still reads like a Connolly novel. There are also a few illustrations injected between select chapters from artist Emily Hall, giving it that extra bit of creepiness.

I can see a lot of people having issues with the ending but I loved it. I’m not going to tread into spoiler territory here but let’s just say that Connolly leaves it very open ended.

Cross Posted @ Every Read Thing

The Other Parker

The man himself.

John Connolly’s Parker series is directly responsible for me becoming a constant reader.

In the fall of 2008, I had been looking for something new to read. I was searching for something outside of my steady diet of pro-wrestling biographies. I posed a question in an online forum and the first thing that came back was John Connolly’s Every Dead Thing. I thought the title sounded cool enough and a mass market paperback was available for under $10. Sold! I didn’t realize at the time that when I cracked the cover to Connolly’s debut novel, that it would lead me to a new passion that would eventually monopolize much of my free time.

I Am Not Myself These Days

Josh Kilmer-Purcell
Harper Perennial
Reviewed by: Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

I Am Not Myself These Days follows a glittering journey through Manhattan's dark underbelly -- a shocking and surreal world where alter egos reign and subsist (barely) on dark wit and chemicals...a tragic romantic comedy where one begins by rooting for the survival of the relationship and ends by hoping someone simply survives.

My Review

I’m not much of a TV person and have never seen The Fabulous Beekman Boys or heard of Josh Kilmer-Purcell, retired drag queen. Still, I’m glad I found this little gem about two misfits in love. By day, Josh works for an advertising agency. At night, he lovingly and painstakingly transforms himself into Aqua, a 7-foot blonde beauty who carries goldfish around in her plastic boobs. His boyfriend, Jack, is a very well-paid escort known as “Aidan” to his clients, and lives in a posh apartment building guarded by doormen. The two guys enjoy a routine life of reading the paper together and ordering lunch from the deli, while listening to Jack’s beeper go off and occasionally running into his unusual clients.

“The truth is, there’s no movie of the week about a drunk drag queen and a crackhead hooker in love. There never has been. It’s not the kind of thing people would care about. People would flip right by the channel, either unbelieving or uncaring. Who’s the good guy? Who’s the bad guy? Aren’t they both bad? If they didn’t get what they deserved by the first commercial, it’d be on to the breast cancer movie.”

You’re so wrong, Josh. Right from the first page, I cared. I loved reading about your transformation to Aqua. You reminded me of my little brother, who got a kick out of trying on my mom’s dresses and heels. Your work hours and lack of sleep exhausted me, reminding me of my own hectic days working full-time, part-time, taking classes, and still finding time to party. You also reminded me of a close friend who appeared to be the happiest person in the world to everyone else, but drowned his pain in vodka. I loved your crazy and dysfunctional relationship with Jack in a city that has no mercy, yet is a haven for those who are different, and I loved your friendship with Laura and your relationship with your supportive mom who didn’t know the difference between transsexuals and drag queens.

“You know that if you want to have an operation that’s something you can talk about with your dad and me.”

Your story was beautiful, honest, and hilarious. If it wasn’t so darn funny, I would have cried.

Also posted at Goodreads.

Three (plus nine) Questions with Jay Posey

Today's guest is Jay Posey, author of Three.

How long was Three in your head before you put pen to paper?
I had the seed of the story for a good couple of years, but I’d never been able to find quite the right home for it in terms of setting.  I ended up writing a short story that I thought was going to be completely unrelated but a few months after I finished it, I discovered it inspired some of the missing pieces for Three, and it all finally fell into place for me.

How did you hook up with Angry Robot?
I had the support of two great writers, Richard Dansky and Matt Forbeck.  They were both kind enough to point me in Angry Robot’s direction and provide the necessary introductions.  And then of course the Robot Overlords were kind enough to extend their Assimilation Forceps and everything is a little hazy after that, but from what I recall they’re the greatest publisher ever and we should be thankful for their soon and coming benevolent reign.

What are the big inspirations behind Legends of the Duskwalker?
In terms of themes and setting, the Classic Western I think is a pretty obvious one, with a splash of anime and cyberpunk mixed in.  I think the heart of the story, though, really comes from a personal desire to explore some ideas about sacrificial love and surrogate fatherhood.

How many books in the series do you have planned?
I’m finishing up the second now, and have the framework for a third.   I think after that I’ll probably take some time to see how my brain is doing creatively and whether or not people actually want more books in the series.  There are a lot of stories still to be told in that world, but I’m hesitant to get too far ahead of myself.

Who would you cast in a Three movie?
This is one I’d rather leave up to the readers’ imaginations.  I’m actually very curious to see how other people imagine the characters from the book.  Several of the people who read the early manuscript had wildly different ideas of what Three looked like, which I thought was awesome.

What are you reading now? 
Well, I was supposed to save it as my reward for finishing The Sequel to Three, but I decided to sneak a peek at Wesley Chu’s The Lives of Tao.  I’m on Chapter 26 now.

What is your favorite book of all time?
Good grief, you’re not one for softball questions are you?  There are so many great books out there and so many I still have yet to read.  If I don’t overthink it though, I guess my reflexive answer is The Hobbit.  It has such a great mix of humor, adventure, danger, and wonder, and it manages a great balance between light and heavy things.  It’s probably the book I’ve read the most times in my life.

What writer would you say is your biggest influence?
Probably unsurprisingly, I would guess J.R.R. Tolkien, though I think I’m more influenced by how he thought and talked about writing than I am by his actual (legendary) works.  When I get stuck, I don’t really ask myself “What would Tolkien do?” or anything (because if I did I’m pretty sure the answer would be “He’d do something you are incapable of because he’s a genius and you’re a hack!”), but I’ve read some of his essays and lesser known works, and just found a lot of what he had to say about Story to be compelling and personally significant.  His essay On Fairy Stories in particular meant a lot to me.  Also, in the foreword  to one of the editions of The Lord of the Rings that I have, he recounts the difficulty he had in completing it (over a 13 year period) and his honesty throughout that piece helped me realize that a lot of the doubts I’ve faced as a writer weren’t mine alone.

Is there a particular book that made you want to be a writer?
I can’t think of a single, particular book that made me want to be a writer, and I really can’t even identify a specific time where I felt like I suddenly decided “I want to be a writer!”.  I’ve pretty much always enjoyed making up stories, and I think it was more of a gradual discovery for me to think that maybe I could take writing more seriously and do it professionally.  I grew up reading a lot of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s work, and I remember using my assigned journal time in middle school to write short stories in a similar vein.  It wasn’t really until I was in my twenties though that I decided to give it a shot as a profession.

What is your favorite post-apocalyptic book, movie, and video game?
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (book), The Road Warrior (movie), and The Last of Us (video game).  I really appreciated how The Road handled making such small things significant.  And of course watching The Road Warrior is pretty much a rite of passage.  I actually haven’t gotten to spend very much time playing The Last of Us yet, but already from the little bit I’ve played, I just feel like Naughty Dog did an amazing job of capturing the feeling of a post-apocalyptic world while keeping it accessible.

Any non-Duskwalker books in the works? 
I have several projects on various back- and side-burners.  The Duskwalker series is definitely my focus for now and the immediate future, but I have a more military sci-fi thing that I’d like to put more time in eventually.  I also have more of a fantasy-type thing that’s been lying dormant for a number of years that I would like to get back to one day.

Any words of wisdom for aspiring writers?
Get in the habit of writing every day (or five days a week), even when you don’t feel like it.  Maybe especially when you don’t feel like it.  Writing is a lot like exercise, and if you can stick with it and make it a habit, you’ll eventually find that you feel weird if you go a day without writing.  And of course, the most important thing to remember: no one can actually keep you from being a writer but you.

Special Bonus Feature:
Angry Robot is giving away two signed copies of Three.  Each stop on this Blog Tour of Three by Jay Posey has a unique question.  Be sure to enter your answers into the giveaway by dropping by My Shelf Confessions and enter your answers in the rafflecopter widget! You can answer as many or as few as you like as each answered question gets you an extra entry!

Here's the questions for my stop: Question #3  "What genre does Three get filed under?"

Jay Lake Pre-Mortem Readathon, Review the Fourth: PINION

PINION (Clockwork Earth #3)
JAY LAKE
Tor Books
$26.99 hardcover, available now
Reviewed by Richard, 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Rejoin the adventure in the third novel of Lake’s Clockwork Earth series. Paolina Barthes, young sorceress, is crossing the Equatorial Wall, attempting to take herself and her magic away from the grasp of powerful men in the empires of the north. Emily Childress is still aboard the renegade Chinese submarine, along with her devoted Captain, and the British chief petty officer Angus al-Wazir. They are all being sought most urgently by the powers that secretly rule the Northern Earth--the Silent Order and the White Birds. And a third power, of the Southern Earth, has its eye on Paolina; she will not be allowed to bring the political turmoil of the North into the more mystical South.

My Review: It's been my habit to put these Jay Lake Pre-Mortem Read-a-thon reviews up early on my appointed blog-posting day. This one's going up almost the next day. It's been very hard to write.

I started this project as a way of making sure that one reader of Lake's novels says a public thank you to the man before he finishes his journey. To my pleased surprise, he's noticed this and graciously acknowledged it. The Jay Wake, his self-hosted funeral festivity, is in the immediate future; I'll have another review before then; but Pinion, the final Clockwork Earth novel, brought home to me just that: Finality.

While the story lines of Boaz, the Brass man from the days of King Solomon's court, Paolina the brash miracle-worker, Emily Childress the librarian-turned-avebianco-Mask, Wang the librarian and traitor whose destiny is at right angles to his desires, and even Hethor, the clockmaker's apprentice who saved the world, are wound into a charming tassel herein this is the last visit we'll pay to this marvelous, blasphemous, gorgeous alternative Universe with its radically different laws of physics.

Oh heavy heavy sigh.

Well, that said, let's get on to the story. The Chinese Empire and the British Raj are, as great empires are wont to be, on the brink of war. The Chinese want to (re)build the Golden Bridge that once connected the industrial and mechanistic Northern Earth to the Edenic, spiritual Southern Earth. The British don't want them to do that before they themselves build a tunnel to accomplish the same purpose.

Both sides want the prize, the booty, the imperial power over the Southern Earth. The avebianco and the Silent Order, opposing mystical societies with special and nonmaterial means of control, don't want the Wall that the Earth's gears travel atop (remember I spoke of the alternative physics of this world) breached for their own reasons. No one takes much account of what the Southern Earth's peoples might want. (This should sound familiar.)

At the heart of this conflict are the actors on our literary stage, the wild Paolina and the librarian/Mask Childress. They spend their efforts to prevent a ridiculous war, release a dead Queen from mechanical bondage to earth, and preserve God's ordered construction against the day that the sides can be brought together without ill will or evil intent.

What a great thing this Wall is! The almost-accidental destruction of colonialism prevented by a physical, insurmountable barrier that is peopled by scary monsters. I love this idea, and the idea of the Brass people created by King Solomon and vivified by his Seal! It's a beautiful Earth, this one. The Seal of Solomon (Place me like a SEAL upon your heart, like a SEAL on your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Song of Solomon 8:6) set the Brass into action in the world, and in their immensely long lives the world's peoples benefited from the wisdom of their detached-yet-present perspective. The slow, inevitable decline of any powerful people has come upon them. Now Boaz, a rebel from their midst and an uncontrolled actor in their controlled society, finishes King Solomon's plan for the world:

The threads within his mind were a chaotic stir, not unpleasant, but not simple. He tried to listen, to pick out what they were saying, but just as he'd wanted them quiet before, now he wanted them to speak out.
Was this what it meant to be human? To wish for the impossible, to never clearly hear the tenor of one's own thoughts?
If that was the price of love, he was willing to pay it.

And that, really, is the message of the books of the Clockwork Earth. It's fitting that the series end here, with that clear insight into the murk of having a soul, and that clear acceptance of the price a being pays for being capable of insight. Resistance is, in fact, futile: Run away, hide as best you can, life comes down to that. Do you accept the price of being conscious and aware, or do you dream your life away?

Maybe it takes a Clockwork Earth, a created artifact of a divine mind omnipresent, to make the starkness of the choice we're all required to face this clear and sharp.

Sharp things cut. Never forget that.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Suffering from Superhero Fatigue? Image Has the Cure for What Ails You!

Does the tidal wave of superhero flicks at the movies, the never ending "Biggest Crossover Event in History!"  comic series specials, or just the nakedly aggressive marketing of the big two publishers in comics have your tights in a bunch?  Never fear--Image is here!  (And, seriously, what the hell were you doing in tights to begin with?)

Now, don't get me wrong, I love the established franchises as much as the next gal, but sometimes I get tired of having a bazillion different titles revolving around the same superheroes, the watered down content to keep the PG-13 crowd dropping coin, and the lack of fresh ideas that comes with trying to keep tried-and-true superheroes relevant to the next generation.  And that's what makes the comics of indie publisher Image so great.  They're not afraid to take chances--just look at writer Brian K. Vaughan and illustrator Fiona Staples's unpredictable space opera Saga (a comic whose praises I sung in a previous review, if you want to look it up).  Image knows the value of a self-contained story, fresh characters, new worlds, and adults-only content (because not everyone who reads comics in 13 years old).  So, without further ado, let's look at some of my recent favorites, available at a comic shop near you:

Jupiter's Legacy
Written by Mark Millar
Illustrated by Frank Quitely

**Issues 1 and 2 now available

A new spin on the superhero tale, Jupiter's Legacy explores the pressures and pitfalls of celebrity when your parents just happen to be the most powerful beings on the planet--and they are uncompromising in their belief that you, too, should be using your powers to protect and defend humanity.  

Brandon and Chloe are the hedonistic and nihilistic (two fancy words for "asshole") children of the Utopian, the leader of the first generation of superheroes (the how and why regarding their acquisition of supernatural power remains cloaked in mystery).  Their privileged upbringing has not come without a price--instant fame and its attendant henchmen: drugs, alcohol, and casual sex; the heavy weight of responsibility to others at the sacrificial cost of the self; and a domineering father whose ethical code is noble, but clearly flawed.  

Jupiter's Legacy does veer dangerously close to soap opera territory (feuding families, ill advised loves, generational power struggles, reckless behavior), but that's part of what makes it fascinating in a reality tv sort of way.  It asks the question of are these bright, shiny, gifted people as happy as they appear to be on the outside?  The answer, of course, is an unequivocal "no."  The Utopian in particular is a fascinating character.  Consistently disappointed in the antics of his children (isn't it embarrassing when your super-strong son gets drunk and decides to lift a cargo ship in a misguided attempt to get it to port more quickly?), he's also at odds with his brother, Walter, whose powers manifested themselves in more psychic/intellectual ways.  The Utopian seems mired in the past, dedicated to the idea of the superhero as the strong arm of the law, while Walter advocates for superheroes who take a more politically active role in changing the world.  Frank Quitely's art is beautiful (although some of his younger characters will inexplicably look like elderly versions of themselves in some panels), and Millar raises some interesting questions about morality, responsibility, and family.

Five Ghosts:  The Haunting of Fabian Gray
Written by Frank J. Barbiere
Illustrated by Chris Mooneyham

**Issues 1 - 4 now available

Part Indiana Jones, part Gambit, part James Bond, and all pulp, Five Ghosts is a fun throwback to the classic adventure narrative of the 30's and 40's.  Fabian Gray is a charming and handsome master thief who has spent his life acquiring some of the world's finest antiquities, with the help of his twin sister.  However, when he and his sister attempt to steal The Dreamstone, things go cockeyed.  Now his sister is in a coma and Fabian has five shards of The Dreamstone lodged in his chest--and within each stone is the essence of an archetypal figure:  the detective, the samurai, the wizard, the archer and the vampire.  Trapped within Gray's body, Gray can draw upon the powers of these "ghosts" to aid him in his newest quest--to find the artifact that will cure his sister.  

Set in the 1930's, Mooneyham evokes the look and feel of the pulp comics from that time period adding to the overall narrative.  Things won't be easy for Fabian--supernatural forces are working against him, exotic locales must be visited, beautiful women need ravishing, and the "ghosts" are becoming increasingly unhappy over their imprisonment within Gray.  Granted, if you were to just tell me the premise of this comic I would dismiss it for setting off my "that's ridiculous" alarm, and this is one of the advantages of your local comic book shop:  knowing what I enjoy, I was encouraged by the owner to give this a whirl and I'm glad I did.   

Ten Grand
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Illustrated by Ben Templesmith

**Issues 1-3 now available

A supernatural noir, Ten Grand is another title with a ludicrous premise that works beautifully.  A former mob hitman, Joe Fitzgerald's life is turned around when he meets and falls in love with the angelic Laura.  Convincing Joe to leave his life of crime behind, Joe agrees to one final mark before retiring.  Unfortunately, the target of this hit just happens to be engaged in a demonic ceremony when Joe comes for him.  I cannot stress this enough:  if you catch someone in the act of summoning the forces of hell, do not fuck with them.  Because then they track you down, kill the love of your life, and leave you for dead.  

As Joe is drawing his final breath, an angel comes to him with an offer.  Behind curtain A we have:  die now and spend eternity in the fiery pits of hell far away from your Laura.  And behind curtain B we have:  work for us and every time you die a righteous death in our service, we will grant you 5 minutes with Laura.  Joe picks curtain A and is now known for helping people in occult matters.  His fee?  Ten grand.  Just enough to keep the lunatics at bay.

Joe is a traditional pulp/noir anti-hero, having a moral code that's compromised by the life he's led and the understanding that life is painted in shades of grey.  At this point, Joe's been around long enough to become jaded to how the battle between good and evil is played out, but he's about to be surprised  by how the past you thought was dead and buried can come back with a serious grudge.

Straczynski dialogue is witty and full of subtle one-liners and dark humor (I love it when Joe goes to a strip-club to summon forth an angel into the vacant vessel of the bored pole-dancer) and I can't say enough about Templesmith's art.  At first I wasn't sure about his style, but it perfectly suits the gritty, seedy world Joe inhabits and evokes an almost cave-wall primitive simplicity, which is a perfect match for a story that boils down to the battle between angels and demons with man caught in the middle.

Lazarus
Written by Greg Rucka
Illustrated by Michael Lark

**Issue 1 now available

Did I save the best for last?  Oh, hell, yes I did!  Only one issue in and I'm hooked.  Lazarus is set in a dystopian future where traditional political and financial systems have collapsed and from their dust rose The Families.  The Families are futuristic feudal lords who own all of the land and all of the wealth.  While they have pledged to provide every man, woman, and child with the basic necessities, it quickly becomes clear that they mean "basic" in the most literal sense.  Those who do not work on their mega-farms are known as The Waste, who are viewed by The Families as parasites for their inability to live on what little the families provide to them.  As we learned from Marie Antoinette, when people get hungry, they get angry and they apparently want more than cake.

Knowing this, The Families select one person from their line to become the Lazarus.  The Lazarus is given every intellectual, physical, and technological advantage available with the intent of protecting The Family and its assets.  For the Carlyle family, their Lazarus is the literally death-defying woman named Forever.  While kicking ass and taking names, Forever has developed a crippling side-effect for an assassin.  Forever is suffering from a conscience, and The Family (or at least her brother) isn't happy about it.

Larks's artwork is lean and austere, and his rendering of Forever is a mini-miracle.  She's beautiful without being highly sexualized, but you never have any doubt that this is a woman who has the ability to remove your heart from your chest if circumstances demand it.  At this point, there's only one issue of Lazarus, but this is an exciting and intriguing premise.  I can't wait to see where Rucka and Lark take us in future issues.  

Seven Forges

Seven Forges by James A. Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Charged with mapping the land beyond the Blasted Lands, a frozen wasteland devastated by a cataclysm centuries past, Major Merros Dulver encounter the Sa'ba Taalor, the denizens of the Seven Forges. The Sa'ba Taalor are a society of warriors living in a fertile valley amid the Seven Forges, seven volcanic mountains. A small group accompany Merros back to the empire. Can they co-exist with the Empire in peace or will war destroy them all?

I got this ARC from Angry Robot. All hail our ill-tempered robot overlords!

Much like Three, I initially became interested in Seven Forges because of the cover. The cover is pretty impressive and the book beneath it is even more so.

While it seems like a pretty straightforward fantasy tale at first glance, it's a lot more than that. It's the tale of two very different cultures coming together and trying to co-exist. However, the people of the Empire have gotten soft after years with no enemies and the Sa'ba Taalor are a race of fighters living in the most inhospitable habitat on the planet, trained to fight from birth. Yeah, this meeting isn't going to go well.

Moore does a great job contrasting the warrior culture of the Sa'Ba Taalor and their seven gods with the politics and religion of the empire. The warriors are frighteningly competent but still well-rounded characters, particularly Tusk and Drask. Merros and Wollis know they're out of their depth most of the time but keep trying to hold up their end of things. Desh, the emperor's wizard, was also quite interesting, forever scheming behind the scenes. I thought Andover would wind up being more important but his thread was also an interesting one and served to reveal more of the Taalor culture.

Speaking of the Sa'Ba Taalor culture, Moore does a hell of a lot of worldbuilding in 330 pages without bogging down the rest of the book. The culture is fleshed out quite a bit but still remains mysterious enough for further books. Hint!

Without spoiling the ending, it reminds of an episode of the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits with a kick in the crotch twist right at the end. Richard Matheson would have been proud.

James A. Moore's writing was a notch above what I was expecting, although I shouldn't have been surprised. Where does Angry Robot keep finding these writers?

That's about all I have to say. James A. Moore entertained the hell out of me with Seven Forges and also made me think. If he writes more books in this world, I'll definitely read them. Four easy stars.



Also on Goodreads

Clean Burn

Clean Burn: Introducing Detective Janelle Watkins by Karen Sandler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

P.I. Janelle Watkins left finding missing children behind after a failure that led to her leaving the San Francisco PD. Or so she thought. Now she's back in the town where she grew up, on the trail of two missing boys. Can she overcome her personal demons long enough to find the boys and bring their abductor(s) to justice?

I got this courtesy of Angry Robot/Exhibit A and Netgalley.

Karen Sandler has been around for a while but this is her first detective novel. I hope she sticks to writing detective novels from now on.

Janelle Watkins won me over right away, from her injured leg, to her dysfunctional childhood and subsequent psychological issues, to her sassy black secretary. About halfway through the first chapter, I started measuring Janelle Watkins and Clean Burn against Carol Starkey and Demolition Angel. Janelle held her own.

The comparison to Demolition Angel proved to be an apt one. Watkins and Starkey are both damaged heroines, Watkins from her dysfunctional childhood and the accident that saw her get chained to a desk with a bum leg and Starkey from the bomb blast that killed her partner/lover and left her off the bomb squad. They both also have bad coping mechanisms: Starkey loves the sauce and Watkins burns herself with match heads. They're both strong ladies when the chips are down.

Watkins' cases take her to her old home town of Greenville and back into her past, confronting both memories of her childhood and the sheriff, her old partner on the SFPD with whom she had an affair. Ken, the sheriff, is working on arson cases. The two inevitably team up and find themselves up against a serial kidnapper/nutcase called Mama.

Things develop along the usual thriller-y lines, chasing down leads and moving closer to the inevitable hookup, a standard trope for the genre. It all came together at the end and the last 30% was nearly impossible to put down.

It was right on the line between three and four so I gave it a four, the same rating I gave Demolition Angel. When's the next Janelle Watkins book coming out?

A Prequel to "Savages"

By James L. Thane
Four out of five stars


One of my favorite books of the last several years was Savages, by the incomparable Don Winslow. It was hip, cool, very funny and enormously engrossing. The trio at the heart of the book included three early-twenty-something Southern Californians: Ben and Chon, two life-long friends-turned-drug producers who grew the best weed available, and O, the enormously beautiful and appealing woman who loved both of them. The book was not only a great read, it was a compelling meditation on the nature of friendship, family and love.

Winslow now returns with The Kings of Cool, a prequel to Savages that shows how Ben, Chon and O came to know each other and how they grew into the people they would ultimately become. It is at least as good, if not better, than Savages.

As the book opens, Chon, who is still a Navy Seal, is headed back to Afghanistan. Ben has just received a visit from a mysterious man who wants to cut in on the profitable dope business that Ben and Chon have established. Ben, a pacifist at heart, chooses to deal with this problem in his own way and does not to tell Chon about this threat to their livelihood. He figures that Chon has enough on his plate as it is. Meanwhile, O's mother PAQU (Passive Aggressive Queen of the Universe) is on O's case, insisting that she either get a job or go back to school.

From that point, the book bounces back and forth between the present day and the counter-culture SOCAL of the 1960s. As Ben, Chon and O deal with their respective problems, we meet a group of surfer dudes, hippies and people involved in the early days of the dope business, which at that point, simply involved moving grass into Southern California and selling it.

Over time, of course, the early days of the counter culture will evolve into something entirely different while back in the present day, the threats to Ben, Chon and O will grow increasingly complicated. Winslow weaves his way through these narratives brilliantly and you simply cannot put the book down as one surprise after another unfolds. The writing itself is inventive, as it was in Savages, and ultimately, the book ends way too soon.

I'm not a huge fan of the movie that was made from Savages and I sincerely hope that people who were not all that thrilled with the movie will still give the book a chance;it's a great read, infinitely better than the film, and I can't imagine that anyone who thrilled to the book will not want to read The Kings of Cool as well.

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots

Pacific Rim

Reviewed by Kemper
4 out of 5 neurally linked stars.

This movie incorporates many elements like giant robots and wanton large scale property damage that generally make summer blockbusters terrible, but somehow director Guillermo del Toro actually made it very entertaining.  Go figure.

As explained in an opening montage, an inter-dimensional portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean started to occasionally belch up enormous monsters of the Godzilla type.    These beasts, named Kaiju, cause enormous devastation and the various military forces find them incredibly difficult to kill.  The countries of the world unite and start building giant robots called Jaegers to fight them.

The bio-interface used to control the Jaegers is too much for single person to handle so two pilots are required to control the machine.  The Drift is a process that mentally links the two pilots via a neural bridge so that they share thoughts and can work in conjunction to run the Jaeger in a process that kind of looks like a really extreme round of Dance Dance Revolution.

While the Jaegers temporarily turned the tide and were able to stop the monsters, an increase in the frequency and aggressiveness of Kaiju attacks leads to the destruction of most of the robots.  With few options left, the world’s leaders decide to pour their resources into building giant walls along the coasts, but the leader of the Jaeger program Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) disagrees with this tactic and has taken the few remaining robots and pilots to the last base in Hong Kong where he has come up a desperate plan to stop the Kaiju once and for all.

Pentecost recruits former pilot Raligh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) to come back and run his old Jaeger.  As Becket and  a new co-pilot Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) struggle to work together in the Drift, research scientists Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Hermann Gottleib (Burn Gorman) try to learn more about the Kaiju and how the breach at the bottom of the ocean can be sealed off permanently.

This is obviously a love letter to Japanese monster and mecha movies, but del Toro was careful to craft it into something new, not just do a homage.  Essentially the story asks what would it be like to live in a world where giant monsters occasionally come out of the ocean and wreck havoc, and it’s that atmosphere that sells the idea that building giant robots was the only logical response.  Setting it twelve years after the Kaiju started attacking also lets us skip over all the reactions of disbelief we’d normally have to wade through in a movie of this type.

Early scenes with the retired Becket forced to work dangerous construction jobs on a coastal wall in Alaska and a sub-plot in which we meet a black market dealer (Ron Perlman) of Kaiju organs and other body parts help expand the scope of the story and give us an idea of what life is like for the average person on the street in these bizarre circumstances.

A solid cast helps flesh out the human elements with Hunnam playing a likable hero and showing that he could probably be a new Hollywood action star if given the opportunity.  Idris Elba projects enough gravity to add some weight to the proceedings while Day provides ample comic relief in scenes where he bickers with Gorman and tries to get a Kaiju brain from Perlman.

Of course, this is still a story about giant robots fighting monsters so that’s where it has to deliver.  And deliver it does.  The designs of the Jaegers makes them look like giant war machines developed over several years in different places, and the Kaiju are weird and alien enough to be genuinely creepy.   Both are cool enough that they should sell plenty of toys.

Aside from just looking bad-ass, the combat between Jaegers and Kaiju is crazy and intense. Whether it’s a fight at sea off the coast of Alaska or in the streets of Hong Kong or at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, care was taken to make the Jaegers move like machines while the Kaiju act like animals.  It’s like Iron Man fighting a grizzly bear who can spit acid.  Plus, the over the top scale of both make for some great visuals like a Jaeger using a cargo ship as a club to beat down a Kaiju.  That’s something you just don’t see every day.  While the editing is sometimes a little fast and can make you lose track of what happened at a given moment, it never descends into the random chaos of a Transformers movie.

While the battle scenes of Jaegers vs. Kaiju are as big and splashy as possible, exciting special effects can only carry you so far, and del Toro smartly understands that all of this should be fun.  He hits a nice tone that features serious stakes without being overly grim, and then he lets his giant robots and monsters loose to beat the ever loving hell out of each other and give the audience a spectacle worth watching.