Boneshaker

Cherie Priest
Tor Books
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Nancy

Summary

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.

My Review

Dazzling inventions, air pirates, evil bad guys, underground vaults, goggles, daring rescues, gold, Blight gas, a one-armed bartender, a princess, zombies. Oh, what fun!

The setting was vividly described and rich in details. The main characters were well developed and fascinating. Briar Wilkes, widow of Leviticus Blue, eccentric inventor, searches for her teenage son, Zeke, in a walled-off section of Seattle, where a dangerous yellow gas shrouds the city, forcing the remaining inhabitants to live underground. Lots of action, suspense, and vibrant, quirky characters helped move the story along at a brisk pace.

I thoroughly enjoyed the twists, surprises, and very satisfying ending of this riveting adventure story.

White Mountain

White Mountain by James T. Witherspoon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Nameless was born into a tribe of hunters that live in an icy tundra in the north. Nameless's father is the clan chief who is renowned for killing bears with his bare hands, his brother is blessed with incredible balance, and his best friend can use magic.

Nameless has yet to display any exceptional ability. Since he's part of a tribe that names its members for their exceptional abilities, he remains nameless. Until the day everything changed.

White Mountain was an interesting tale of a younger son Nameless who becomes a skinchanger. The skin he changes into is shocking as it's his tribe's main source of food and clothing...a bear. Fortunately for Nameless he changes into a large white bear rather than the brown bears that live near his tribe. After transforming into a white bear, Nameless's father finally gives him his name White Mountain.

The beginning of the story really pulled me in. I liked Nameless and felt for someone with no particular talent in a tribe where talents aren't just lauded they in fact become a persons name. The story stayed interesting as he changed into a white bear earning the name White Mountain. I got excited about seeing a training of sort where the skinchanging White Mountain learned to harness his abilities and even change into different types of animals.

Unfortunately shortly into that the story changed from a young man adjusting to his skinchanging abilities to a story on how people are just other animals and shouldn't feel they are more important than any other living thing. The dialogue at one point literally says that with no room for interpretation. All this is accomplished while the main character as a white bear hunts and kills seals to sustain himself and his partner. The story took on a national geographic in the arctic tone which wasn't too interesting to me.

One other thing that I personally disliked is that Nameless/White Mountain's internal dialogue read at times as though he was explaining everything that was happening to the reader rather than the reader experiencing it right along with him.

White Mountain certainly has moments that really caught my interest, but overall it was just OK.

2.5 out of 5 stars



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Starve vol 1 By: Brian Wood and Danijel Žeželj

Starve, Volume 1 by Brian Wood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am a life long comic reader, I learned TO READ with comics, so I decided to dip into some comic reviews for a change.

Lately, I have kind of gone against my usual grain, reading things I don't like. Several young adult books, a horror book, and although I loved Starve, I am not a Brian Wood fan, more on that later.

Starve is what happens when you lock No Reservations, Iron Chef, the Hunger games, and bleak ass future in a mixer and hit puree'. The chef Gavin Cruikshank, is kinda in my mind what Anthony Bourdain would be today, wild, gives no shits whatsofuckingever, and without a doubt, the baddest man in the room. He created a show Starve which is the cooking show to end cooking shows, but left and went into exile.

Now you are wondering, Kevin..you dangerously into spoilerville and you don't do that shit..so I'll stop you right there.

I am not a Brian Wood fan because he tends to be preachy, I agree pretty much most of what he "preaches" I don't like having stuff rammed down my throat, that being said. Starve works on all accounts, it is a story of redemption, a tale of the have and have not's, and a man living the way he wants and getting his shit together and making things right. Who doesn't love watching "the man" get it in the end.

(not tooooooooooo spoilerish)

The art isn't your typical comic art, dark and gorgeous and I love the covers, if you are a comic fan GO BUY.

NOTICE: I didn't review the trade, I read individual issues but I intend on adding the trade to my digital library, and although I am sure the first story arc is issues 1 through 5, I would recommend story wise adding 6 to your reading, it rounds the tale out better in my eyes

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Rebel Yell That Could've Been Louder

Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Wow, that was incredibly adequate! If you don't want to be overly impressed with a historical work on the American Civil War, Embattled Rebel is where it's at!

Who wants deep insights, anyhow? I'd rather hear a broad recap of the entire war with the occasional tenuous link to Jefferson Davis' role as President of the Confederate States of America. Sure, James McPherson might've dug deeper to given the reader a more meaningful account of Davis. We might've learned more about the man's motivations. However, McPherson stuck to his guns and kept his subject at a distance. Bravo!

Yes, yes, this was a rather thorough retelling of the Civil War from the South's perspective and I definitely have a better understanding of their strategy as well as Davis' reasoning for the moves he made, but let's be honest, I didn't know jack shit about the South's side of the story prior to reading this book, so anything would've been more than nearly nothing. This was more than nothing.

Very serviceable writing here, as well. I don't recall the last time I read the placing of one word after another in such good order without them venturing into lyrical territory at least once in a while. McPherson laid it out pure and simple. No frills here folks! So few in fact, he might've been writing about the ancient Spartans.

Champions of the Galaxy Wrestling Card Game

Back in the olden days, I ate, drank, and slept professional wrestling.  For years, I noticed ads for Champions of the Galaxy, a pro-wrestling game using cards, charts, and dice with characters straight out comic books.  I think I was fifteen when I finally plunked down my precious thirteen bucks and gave it a shot.  My world was changed forever.

Before I knew it, I was running a wrestling federation, recognizing my own titles, and basically nerding it up hardcore.  With the dawn of the internet, it became a snap to share your results with other promoters and nerdification reached unheard of levels.  As time drew on, my focus shifted to things less likely to keep me from getting laid, although I still occasionally bust out the dice, cards, and charts and play a few shows.

The game features easy to learn mechanics.  It takes minutes to learn but the simplicity is what has kept the game going for the better part of three decades.  Couple that with great art and memorable characters and you've got a winner on your hands.

These days, Champions of the Galaxy is 30 years old and Filsinger Games, the parent company, now features an online version and other card games featuring the same engine, like Legends of Wrestling, Ring of Honor, and 80's Mania Wrestling.  There's also a documentary chronicling the game and a live event DVD featuring real world wrestlers portraying characters from the game!

Several years ago, Tom Filsinger and company decided to revisit the original edition with new, full color art by Darryl Banks.  Take a gander at these!

To fans of professional wrestling and comic books, I cannot stress the fun factor and replay value of Champions of the Galaxy.  I have countless fond memories of spending an evening building feuds, booking title matches, and recording results.  Five out of five stars.

Click here for more information!

Fender Lizards

Fender Lizards by Joe R. Lansdale
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

High school dropout Dot Sherman's life was going nowhere, working at the Dairy Bob and living with her mother, grandmother, and siblings, until her uncle started living in a van in the front yard. Now, she's forming a roller derby team and searching for her long lost father...

As I've said many times before, Joe Lansdale is one of top five favorite authors. He brings the usual mojo to the table in this one.

Fender Lizards is the story of a roller-skating waitress trying to get her shit together before she ends up like her mother and her older sister. Dot plasters her older sister's no good drunk boyfriend with a 2x4 pretty early in the proceedings, setting off an interesting chain of events.

I liken Joe Lansdale's writing to sitting on tailgate having a conversation with the man and this tale is no different. However, I felt like I've read it before. It felt like pieces of other Lansdale books at times. Hell, the man writes books as often as a dog licks its asshole so it's no wonder he treads familiar territory a time or two.

I've got some mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it's par for the course Joe Lansdale, prominently featuring interesting characters, white trash awesomeness, hilarity, and Joe's trademark front porch wisdom. On the other hand, I feel like it's nothing new. How many coming of age tales does Joe need to write? 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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The Cocoanut Grove Fire

Stephanie Schorow
Commonwealth Editions
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Stephanie Schorow’s excellent Drinking Boston briefly mentioned the tragic Cocoanut Grove fire, an event I had no knowledge about prior to reading. 492 people died in the blaze, and over a hundred were injured. The glamorous Cocoanut Grove nightclub was frequented by couples and families celebrating special occasions, celebrities, servicemen, politicians, and athletes. Famous people were not immune to the horrors of that tragic night of November 28, 1942. Several members from entertainer Mickey Alpert’s house band perished, along with Buck Jones, a Hollywood cowboy star. Fortunately, the Boston College Eagles suffered a devastating loss to the Holy Cross Crusaders and canceled their victory celebration at the Cocoanut Grove.



This concise, well-researched and very readable little book provides a history of the nightclub and its owners - first Mickey Alpert, then Charles “King” Solomon, a mob boss who controlled Boston’s bootlegging operations, and finally, his lawyer, Barney Welansky, who used his connections with the Mafia and corrupt city officials to willfully violate the safety standards in existence at the time by overcrowding, blocking side exits to prevent guests from walking out without paying their tabs, using highly flammable decorations throughout the nightclub, hiring unlicensed electricians, and employing minors.



Not only does this book provide details about the fire and its aftermath, it also tells the stories of victims and survivors who courageously rescued others from the fire and the firefighters who tirelessly battled the blaze and hauled out hundreds of charred bodies. There was the head cashier who perished for refusing to leave her post and the club’s profits unattended, and other staff members who waited to be rescued and ended up losing their lives. There were numerous reports of cash, wallets, watches and rings stolen from burned and trampled bodies. There were heartbreaking stories of people who survived the fire only to die horrible deaths later on.

Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center) and Massachusetts General had their work cut out for them. Though treating extensive burns was their major focus, there were large numbers of patients with severe respiratory problems from inhaling smoke and toxic chemicals, infections, and fluid loss. During this time, there were considerable advances in burn treatment, as well as the use of penicillin, which was used by the military and not yet widely available to civilians.



It makes me sad to know that greed and corruption is still the order of the day in Boston.

Ghosts of Tristan Basin

Ghosts of the Tristan Basin by Brian McClellan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Tristan Ghost Irregulars, along with all the other militias fighting for freedom in Fatrasta, have been called to defend Planth. An overwhelming brigade of Kez are headed to Planth, including Privileged and Wardens. The story takes place 8 months prior to the events of Promise of Blood.

Ghosts of the Tristan Basin is a story about Taniel and Ka-poel's time fighting the Kez in Fatrasta's war for independence. Taniel is busy doing what he does best, using a little powder mage magic to eliminate the enemy two bullets at a time. I found Taniel interesting in this novella because he is different than when he's introduced in Promise of Blood. He's seemingly more thoughtful and concerned about people than he is anytime in the main series. That could easily be attributed to the events that took place before the beginning of Promise of Blood and perhaps he's suffering from PTSD of a sort from the Fatrasta war.

Despite expecting this story to be carried by Taniel and Ka-poel, it was Mad Ben Styke that stole a lot of attention. He's a lancer with magically enhanced armor who is known to ride into hopeless situations along with his Mad Lancers and save the day. He was quite memorable and I have to wonder if this was on purpose since the next book in the series is supposed to be happening in Fatrasta.

The story was a good one and it definitely has me excited to see what happens next in the powder mage universe.

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Ready Player One

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You’re I'm not quite evil geeky enough. You’re semi-evil I'm semi-geeky. You’re quasi-evil I'm quasi-geeky. You’re I'm the margarine of evil geeky. You’re I'm the Diet Coke of evil geeky, just one calorie, not evil geeky enough.

I'm not even easily identified as a geek. If I was walking down the street you couldn't point me out as a geek. After talking about superheroes in high school a friend of mine called me a mimic because I could fit in with any group.

I bring this up because it's likely a large reason Ready Player One didn't resonate with me as it did with so many of my full fledged geeky friends. I'm just not quite geeky enough. Another big reason is that I was only a little kid in the '80s so a lot of the references were lost on me.

Ready Player One was a slow starter for me. The standard dystopia future and the large info dumps were annoying. If I had to rate the story at that point I would've given it 2 stars. I wasn't all that into the story until about 100 pages were left and then I couldn't put the book down. At that point most of the info dumps and standard dystopia future references had vanished so it helped me finally get into what was happening. I would've given the last hundred pages 4 or 4.5 stars.

The massive online world of OASIS sounded really interesting and it wasn't hard to see how that could get addictive. If such a game existed even scaled down for today's gaming systems I don't think I could resist picking it up and playing it like crazy.

Ready Player One had some really enjoyable moments. I imagine someone who remembers the '80s well would enjoy far more than me because of its reverence to the '80s.

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AN INSIGHTFUL, HONEST ACCOUNT OF BASEBALL AS YOU'VE NEVER KNOWN IT

Ball Four: My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Big Leagues by Jim Bouton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“A ballplayer spends a good piece of his life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”


Why you looking at me that way, BOWton?

This is probably the most controversial book and the most honest book ever written about baseball. It is interesting how the words honest and controversial seem to travel together like a Harley Davidson with a sidecar. Jim Bouton won two World Series games in 1964 with the New York Yankees, but in 1965 he developed arm troubles that turned the pitching phenom from a starter into a bullpen pitcher. When we catch up with Jim, he is with the Seattle Pilots expansion team, trying to learn how to throw a knuckleball in an attempt to resurrect and lengthen his career. Now if you haven’t heard of the Seattle Pilots, don’t feel bad because I’d never heard of them either. They only existed for one year, 1969, and then they were moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers.

Probably few would remember this organization except for the fact that Jim Bouton was with the team. He was taking notes and immortalizing most of the one year this team was in existence. This book hit baseball players/managers/owners like a psycho nun with a steel studded ruler was rapping their knuckles over and over again. I wonder how the baseball commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, felt about the book? Ahh yes, he called Ball Four “detrimental to baseball.”



Now a normal writer can’t buy publicity like this, but Bouton was still trying to pitch in the major leagues, and the reaction certainly made things more difficult for him. The book went nuclear. Athletes, in general, who are not known for reading, were reading this book, and for the most part, they had negative reactions. Most weren’t quite as vocal about it as Pete Rose, who anytime Bouton was pitching screamed from the dugout steps: ”Fuck you! Shakespeare!”

My question is who told Pete Rose about Shakespeare?

The controversy was over Bouton revealing the everyday stupidity that sometimes colossally bored baseball players got up to. Not to mention the rampant alcohol and drug abuse, greenie anyone? Greenies were speed, and pretty much everyone on the team was using them, at least in their minds, to ramp up their abilities on the diamond. Wrapped around all this was the serial infidelity that was just considered one of the perks of being a professional ball player. One of the coaches of the Pilots would always remind the guys before letting them off the plane to go meet up with their wives…”Act Horny”.


1964 after a World Series win. Mantle and Bouton were still friends.

Now all of that was bad enough, but where Bouton stepped over the line for many baseball fans was revealing the less than stellar lifestyle of the legendary Mickey Mantle. Sportswriters have a long history of protecting athletes. Most recently, though it was common knowledge among reporters, nothing was reported on the infidelities of Tiger Woods. His image, as far as the public was concerned, was that of a brilliant athlete with the perfect wife, the perfect life. The press was well aware of Mantle’s excessive epic drinking and his infidelities, but never wrote a word about it.

Then comes along Jim Bouton.

Bouton is a rookie on the Yankees, and one of the first stories he tells about Mantle is the whole team gathering around him on the rooftop of their hotel that, by the way it is angled, gives them a bird’s eye view into hotel rooms across the way. They could watch women undress. I’m not sure, since this was a group effort, that we can even really call this Peeping Tom or Toms. The guys called it ”Beaver Shooting,” and they put a good bit of effort into finding ways to see women exposed. One player drilled holes into the connecting door of his hotel room so he could spy on whoever was in the next room. In another case a player drilled a hole through the back of the dugout wall so he could peek up the skirt of an unsuspecting fan. They had mirrors that they would slide under hotel room doors. The list goes on and on.

It was almost a pathological obsession.

It reminded me of one time when I was about fourteen, and I was hanging out at the bottom of a set of stairs at the high school waiting for a friend when several girls started down the steps. I looked up to see if it was my friend coming, and my line of sight gave me a perfect uninhibited view of the girls’ underwear. I was gobsmacked. I was turned to stone. I forced my eyes away after what felt like fifteen minutes, but was only probably a fraction over a second. I was sure they knew! They were of course oblivious, but it didn’t keep me from turning thirteen shades of red as their mingled perfumes brushed by me.

Beyond the controversy, the book provides an incredible view of what it is like to be a ballplayer. The paranoias, the insecurities, the unfairness, the pranks, and the joys when a knuckleball breaks off the plate the way it is supposed to. The constant worry about being traded or sent down to the minor leagues. ”Us battered bastards of baseball are the biggest customers of the U.S. Post Office, forwarding-address department. I’ve seen letters chasing guys for months, years even. Sometimes you walk into a clubhouse and there’s a letter on the table for a guy who was released two years ago.”

Now certainly, Bouton created more stress for himself because it wasn’t long before everyone in the clubhouse knew he was writing a book. He had a sneaking suspicion that the head office might not be all that happy to know he was keeping track of their activities, and the ball clubs antics, and the decisions that were being made behind the scenes. He had the normal ball players paranoia times ten.


You, too, can learn how to throw a knuckleball.

I have to admit it was fun coming home from work each day and spending some time with the Seattle Pilots. They might have been all too human, but they were certainly real. I have to hope that this book also had some positive impacts on professional baseball. I hope that clubs took a look at the drug use and the after hours carousing. I have a feeling a few wives had a few questions for their baseball playing husbands. Maybe even some ball players seeing themselves in this light, exposed (that would only be fair), made some changes to how they conducted themselves. This wasn’t the era of exorbitant salaries, but they were certainly making more than the average American who came to see them play. Whether they wanted to be or not, they were/are role models not only for kids, but for fans of all ages.

Now, I have to go back to work. Anyone got a greenie?

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