THE HATCHING BY EZEKIEL BOONE

The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”She didn't know how many of them there were, but they were frantic. Dozens of them at least. They'd been packed in the egg, and they came out in a swarm, their bodies unfolding, alien and beautiful. Big and fast, black apricots thundering against the glass. Skittering.

She put her palm against the glass of the insectarium, and the spiders flew to it."



Professor Melanie Guyer has dreamed about being on the cover of Science or Nature Magazine. When she gets a Fed Ex package from an archaeological dig in Nazca, Peru of an ancient spider egg sac, she has a chance to eclipse anything that has ever been done before.

She can hatch the eggs and bring back a new/old species of spiders.

Why?

Cause it would be cool.

Except these spiders aren’t normal. They are aggressive. They eat flesh. They breed like fleas.

They are an apocalyptic tide of destruction. Good thing they are locked up in the lab.


Nazca spider drawn in the ground by an ancient civilization...maybe as a warning?

In Peru, billionaire Bill Henderson takes his private jet to stretch his legs and see the sights. He has a guide, Miguel, his bodyguard, and three ridiculously beautiful women, thirty years his junior, with him. Without all that money, none of these people would give him five minutes of their time, and he knows it. He steps off the trail to take a piss.

”And then the blackness started streaming toward him, covering the path and moving quickly, almost as fast as a man could run. Miguel knew he should be running, but there was something hypnotic in the quietness of the water. It didn’t roar like a river. If anything, it seemed to absorb sound. All he could hear was a whisper, a skittering, like a small patter of rain. The way the river moved was beautiful in its own way, pulsing and, at certain points, splitting and braiding into separate streams before rejoining itself a few paces later. As it got closer, Miguel took another step back, but by the time he realized it wasn’t actually a river, that it wasn’t water of any kind, it was too late.”

Henderson didn’t wait around. He made a run for the plane. The shrill screams of his entourage only inspired his fat legs to run faster.

Something bit him.

He made the plane and headed back to Minnesota.

Now if you are thinking what a rat bastard, there probably wasn’t anything he could do to save the beautiful trio of muses or poor Miguel, but still... the billionaire... had to make it?

Don’t fret because... well... a spider is going to crawl out of his face. Well, actual do fret because his plane has become the Plague ship Mary.

Bill Henderson is bringing those spiders to YOU.

Meanwhile, a seismic station in India is hearing rumblings beneath the earth that don’t make sense. The Chinese have dropped a nuke on themselves. Of course, being Chinese, they don’t just say we have a HUGE SPIDER PROBLEM. They get all cryptic as if they are too embarrassed to ask for all our RAID MAX SPIDER BLASTER supplies.

So as we start to put all the various reports together, we begin to understand how totally screwed we are. Something has started all these spiders hatching, and it isn’t the brilliance of Professor Guyer because they are hatching everywhere.

I’ve read a few zombie apocalypse books. I’ve read a slew of post-apocalyptic books with everything from nuclear war to the moon exploding to flu destabilizing civilization and sending us back to a more primitive society, but I’ve never had the pleasure of reading about spiders who are capable of stripping the planet of every living thing.

WARNING: there are ramifications and behavior modifications possible after reading this book!


This was nearly me!

I was driving to Woodward, Oklahoma, the other day, listening to Metallica, when a spider the size of a half dollar leaped out of the vent in my dash and landed on the windshield right at eye level. My first thought was that I had to save all of humanity by lighting the molotov cocktail I always keep handy and driving off the road into a deep culvert, grasping a spider leg for what little comfort it could provide (I couldn’t decide if I was Thelma or Louise.), but after my heart rate reduced to normal levels, and I quit screaming like a republican at a presidential rally, I decided that I needed to pull over and commit arachnicide. Now I’m going to blame Ezekiel Boone for the death of that spider, just like I blame Alfred Hitchcock for my natural aversion for flocks of crows or blackbirds or ravens. Those beady eyed black bastards!

I’m also suffering from Eight Legged Freaks (2002) flashbacks.

Boone will convince you to quit worrying about zombies or meteorites or nuclear explosions and start paying better attention to something a little more likely...spiders, a black tide of spiders.

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

The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-boats by William Geroux

The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-boats by William Geroux
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

”The U.S. Merchant Marine’s fatality rate in World War II was approximately 3.9 percent---one of every 26 mariners who sailed on a merchant ship. The only branch of the U.S. military with a comparably high fatality rate was the U.S. Marines. The casualty rate for the U.S. Navy was 1.49 percent---less than half the casualty rate of the Merchant Marine.”



All a man from Mathews County, Virginia, had to do to get a job on a ship was to mention to the person in charge of hiring where he was born. They were not only well respected seamen, but were also expected to rise up the chain of command quickly to become captains. When World War II broke out, many were already serving on ships, but soon most of the men of Mathews County were serving in the Merchant Marine. There were five families who contributed almost every available male to the war: the Hodges family had ten men serving, the Callis family also had ten, the Hudgins family had seven, the Hammond family had three, and the Respess family had two. A predominant number of those men had Captain in front of their name before the end of the war. Many of them never made it home.

”For ten months after Pearl Harbor the U.S. Merchant Marine had kept the war from being lost. They had kept Britain supplied with the oil, munitions, and food needed to continue fighting the Nazis. They had delivered enough oil and raw materials such as manganese and bauxite to keep American factories churning out ships, planes, tanks and other weapons. They had carried tens of thousands of American troops to England for future invasions.”

The Merchant Marines have always had a romantic allure to men from all over the world. It was a organization from which to escape; few questions were ever asked. It was a place a man could avoid his past and make a new name for himself. Spurned by your wife, join the Merchant Marine. Kill a man, join the Merchant Marine. Have a knock down drag out with your father, join the Merchant Marine. I’ve always thought of them as hardworking, hard living men, who lost fingers at sea and lost their wages to crooked card games, to alluring light fingered hookers, and thugs in dark alleys.



I was shocked to discover that, out of all the American men who went to war, the Merchant Marines had the most dangerous job.

”For seven months the U-boats had had their way in American waters, sinking more than three hundred merchant ships and killing thousands of merchant seamen. They had sent millions of tons of Allied food, supplies, munitions, and fuel into the sea playing havoc with the enemy’s supply line.”

So the plan during the first seven months of the United States officially entering the war was to send out hundreds of these ships with supplies and hope the majority of them managed to make it to their destination. These ships did not have any weapons to defend themselves or air cover or destroyers standing between them and the German wolfpack of U-Boats.

It is really baffling.

It didn’t make sense to the German Admiral Karl Donitz either. He was in charge of the wolfpack and had no qualms about sinking unprotected ships. He only knew that the more tonnage that America allowed him to sink, the better chance Germany had to prevail.


A German Wolf Pack of U-Boats.

Sometimes boats would sink slowly, sometimes they went down quickly. In many cases, the U-Boat captains did allow seamen time to escape the ship before applying the coup de grâce with a final devastating point blank torpedo shot. Escaping a floundering ship is difficult.”A sinking ship was a deathtrap that could kill a man in a thousand ways. Falling masts and guy wires snagged mariners and pulled them under. Jagged debris swirled through the water. The ship’s hot boilers could explode from contact with cold seawater.”

William Geroux shares with us numerous stories of sacrifice, of heroism, of terror, of maddening bad luck, of triumph, of death, and even an intriguing story about a baby born on a life raft. The men of Mathews County were at the heart of all these stories.


Allied convoy getting ready to cross the Atlantic.

Donitz was merely putting his wolfpack in the most likely places for allied shipping to be. I was amazed to learn how long the United States thought that loose lips were sinking ships instead of just realizing it was a matter of logistics. Even after the U.S. government decided to begin protecting their Merchant Marine ships, it still wasn’t easy. The run to Murmansk to resupply the Russians was a nightmare. Surviving the constant attacks from German fighters and U-Boats was only half the battle. Once their ships reached Murmansk, the level of danger only increased.

”It had an apocalyptic feel. Fires continuously burned throughout the city. German bombers attacked five to six times a day. Russian fighters rose to meet them, and engaged in dogfights with German fighters. Antiaircraft guns crackled from sandbagged bunkers in the rubble of buildings.”

By 1943, the predators of the deep, the wolfpack, had become the prey. Fatality rates of U-Boat seaman reached 70%.

The women who were left behind had to wonder about the fate of their men. In many cases, they never found out what happened to their father, husband, son, or brother until after the war when German records were available. Their ship was just overdue.

”Overdue, an ominous threat of loss and sorrow trembling yet in the balance of fate...There is something sinister to a seaman in the very grouping of the letters which form this word clear in its meaning, and seldom threatening in vain.”---Joseph Conrad

With not knowing the fate of their loved one, there is always room for hope. Maybe he is stranded on a deserted island or in a hospital unable to tell anyone who he is, or maybe he has been taken prisoner. The burden of not knowing weighs down people more than the burden of grief. It is like waiting in a cell after being condemned to die without knowing when you will be executed. Every time there is a clang of a cell door opening or the sound of hobnailed boots you wonder if this is finally it. For the women of Mathews County, it was the ringing of a phone or the receiving of a telegram, or in the case of the Hodges family, the appearance of Spencer, the son who had to tell his mother each time one of his brothers died.


Sinking Ship during WW2

When I think about my understanding of the scope of World War II, I didn’t know I was missing a major piece of the history of how the allies won the war. I knew about the importance of supplies being in the right place at the right time, but it just never occurred to me to think about the seamen on those ships who took the risks and the part they played in saving the world from tyranny. Geroux brings these men out of the shadows of the conning towers. He discovers the bones of their corpses lying on the ocean floor and brings them back to life, however so briefly, to add their tales of courage to those of the Army, Airforce, Navy, and Marines.

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

The Mortal Tally by Sam Sykes

The Mortal Tally by Sam Sykes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am a bit torn here, first of all I love Sam Sykes, his fantasy world is the kind I love..deep, interesting and full of action. The characters are well fleshed out and the dialogue is smart and funny. Oh, yes my friends the witty remarks run deep in these waters.

However, I do have a few issues, and I mean a few. The book suffers from the second book syndrome, the pacing gets a bit draggy and slow but its all good because things get set up for the next book. Some of the characters are a bit hard to like, but that is a "me" thing, still well done...just not really easy to get behind.

That being said, Sam Sykes writes kick ass fantasy..read it even with minor issues you will not be disappointed.



View all my reviews

The Journey of Crazy Horse

The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History by Joseph M. Marshall III
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You read or hear about Gen. George Custer and think, "oh I know all about Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse" but upon reflection you realize you do not know a damn thing about the Native American side of things...and then you go and do something about that.

Joseph M. Marshall III


The name doesn't sound very "Native American," but Marshall is about as close as you'll get these days. According to his Wiki page he speaks Lakota and "can craft a Lakota bow in the traditional style. He was on the founding board of the tribal college, Sinte Gleska University, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Joseph is an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Joseph grew up in Horse Creek Community near White River (Maka Izita Wakpa, Smoking Earth River) on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota."

He is Lakota. He studies and teaches the Lakota ways and history. What better person to tell you about one of the Lakota's greatest heroic figures of all time?

Marshall's The Journey of Crazy Horse gives the reader more of an insight into the true daily life of this northern plains tribe than most depictions of Native Americans often receive.

How do we know this is true? Granted, much of this is taken from oral history, since written accounts of Crazy Horse have mainly been from whites, soldiers, boastful victors and the sour defeated (funny how the US Army named their loses as "massacres" back then, isn't it? Makes it sound like they were blind-sided in a unfair fight).

I'm on the side of Native Americans and their gripes about the Europeans that took their lands. If there's anyone in America with the right to complain about illegal aliens it's these guys. However, I'm not a fan of whiny losers. You fought, you lost, the victor gets your shit. That's the way war works. Were the Americans underhanded in their dealings with the Native Americans? Hell yes. Did the Romans treat the Celts kindly or did they hunt down their leaders and holy men and stamp out their culture? Did one tribe wipe out another? When they had the chance. It's the way of conquerors. Much of human history is about war. Just think about what gets recorded and retaught, the battles or the times when blood-shed was avoided? History bluffs are more apt to read/write about the strategies at Waterloo rather than poring over the notes and lab hours of Louis Pasteur. To this point, we've been a war-like people. Expect it. Don't be surprised and shocked by its disgusting ways when it shows up upon your doorstep. My point is, I have a low threshold for listening to or reading "woe is us" laments from the losing side. Genocide of a peaceful people is one thing. They can righteously complain all they want and have my heart and ear the whole way through. But a people that pride themselves upon their fighting prowess, and the Lakota certainly did, get a little less sympathy from me.

So, with that rather long harangue in mind, I'm happy to say Marshall's The Journey of Crazy Horse does not go overboard with the laments. Yes, there is sorrow for the tribe and hatred for the whites, which I suppose some with a lower threshold for complaints might balk at, but I didn't have a problem with it. I've seen worse.


(From a '70s anti-pollution campaign. Which bothers me, because the Native Americans were some of the worst polluters. Look into the heaping midden piles they left behind. Again, I'm on their side. I'm glad there are anti-pollution campaigns, but let's have some perspective...and less misguided melodrama, please.)

As far as biographies go, this sets a good tone and pace, and it's the perfect length. I sensed that creeping feeling of boredom I get with a book that's pushing it's interest-limits coming along just as it ended. It's a tough subject to tackle. It's so much easier to research written histories from a people long-versed in writing things down. The Lakota were not that kind of people. However, they did have a long and rich oral history from which Marshall has crafted a fine biography upon a figure that would be intriguing no matter what people Crazy Horse came from.

View all my reviews

Miracleman, Vol. 1: A Dream of Flying

Miracleman, Vol. 1: A Dream of Flying by Alan Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After an almost 20 year absence, Miracleman reappears, throwing his alter ego Mike Moran's life into chaos...

Back in the day, before he was Alan Moore: Supreme Curmudgeon and Master of Beards, Alan Moore was simply a cutting edge comic book writer. Miracleman was his ticket to the big time, before Swamp Thing, before Watchmen, before whatever it is he's doing these days besides seemingly being pissed off all the time.

Miracleman started life as Marvelman, a 1950s British Captain Marvel homage/ripoff. Moore, Alan Davis, and some others brought him back in the pages of Warrior, a UK comic magazine. How does one revive a ripoff character from the 50s and make him relevant?

Spectacularly! That's how. Moore takes essentially a kid's comic, breaks it down, and shows what superheroes might be like in real life. I love how he deconstructs the Captain Marvel-like hero and actually makes it believable. Also, this volume nicely illustrates the carnage super heroes would create in the real world.

I do have a couple gripes, though. This volume is super thin for what it costs. Also, I'd much rather have a couple more issues included instead of the Warpsmith material and the sketches, especially considering I still have a couple issues of Warrior and Miracleman lying in some dark corner of the Dan Cave. The story itself is a little dated, more by the writing style than the cultural references. For a comic, it was pretty wordy.

All things considered, Miracleman is still pretty damn good and a cool piece of 1980s comic book history. Four out of five stars.

View all my reviews

Fidelity

Lia Black
VineDark/BlackHouse Press
Reviewed by Nancy
3 out of 5 stars

Summary

How far would a man go in the name of faith?

Fydelis was once worshiped as the Angel of Fidelity, but his love for Gareth, a mortal knight, caused him to fall from the heavens. He has now become the demonic aspect of Regret, and the unwilling plaything of the Sunderer, the darkest of all dark gods. His only hope is for death, but first, he must find someone to take his place as the Sunderer’s favorite toy.

Father Gareth De'Aubyn is a man tormented by his past and ready to sell his future to save the souls of his flock. Questioning the wisdom of war, he’s traded his Crusader’s armor for a cassock, and now ministers to the very people his army sent fleeing for their lives. When his church is attacked by unknown assassins, Gareth is mortally wounded, and with his dying breath, he calls out to the Creator for help.

But his god does not answer.

Instead, the demon, Fydelis, heeds his call, cajoling him to promise his soul to the god of the underworld for a chance to tap into the powers of dark magic, and set everything right.

A stranger to Gareth, the man who once swore to him his honor and his love, Fydelis is forced to make the dying priest an offer he can’t refuse: in return for sparing the lives of those under his care, Gareth must collect several very stubborn souls.

Together, they’ll begin a journey that will test everything they thought they knew about faith, love, and fidelity.

My Review

Father Gareth De’Aubyn, former Crusader, is wracked with guilt for his part in the destruction of innocent lives. Now a priest, he has an opportunity to repair some of the damage he caused and atone for his sins. When Gareth is gravely wounded during an attack on his church, his pleas to his god are answered by the demon, Fydelis.

In return for Fydelis’ help in saving his life, protecting his followers, and seeking vengeance against his attackers, Gareth must sacrifice his soul to the Sunderer god, Malaketh, a nasty piece of work and Fydelis’ master. Fydelis isn’t just any ordinary demon, though. He was once Gareth’s guardian angel, and just because he now possesses cloven hooves and a forked tail doesn’t mean he stopped having feelings for Gareth.

I’m watching Supernatural now (yeah, I know I’m late to the party) and was keen to read a story about a regretful priest and the reluctant demon that turns his life upside down.

The story went down as smoothly as a mug of cheap lager, pleasant tasting and drinkable.

What I liked:

- The slow-burning romance between Gareth and Fydelis, two broken men who must overcome the difficult hurdles of loneliness, regret, and grief.
- The humorous banter between Gareth and Fydelis that offset the violence and despair.
- Gareth’s unshakable faith and kind heart.
- Gripping and well-paced story.

What didn’t work so well:

- One-dimensional villains. I would have liked some insight into the minds and motivations of Malaketh and General Karathis.
- Fydelis’ telepathic ability was interesting, but not fully explored or utilized. Similarly, his ability to enter Gareth and direct his actions.
- Interesting minor characters, like Yeol Havram and Paetrik, deserved far more page time.
- The graphic physical and sexual torture of Fydelis by Malaketh felt distracting more than disturbing. Because Malaketh lacked any depth and Fydelis did not appear to be permanently affected, these scenes failed to have any impact on me.
- Errors, plot holes, and incoherency in places made this a sometimes frustrating read.


For example:

Does Fydelis have a soul?

“He felt himself shatter; his heart, mind, soul, and spirit breaking into a million pieces. He collapsed on top of Gareth, kissing his throat as tears ran from his eyes and he sobbed like a child.”

Or doesn’t he?

“They ignored both Gareth and Fydelis, for neither of them had a soul for the taking, but something else seemed to draw their notice.”

By the time I finished reading, I was fast forgetting details in the story. It felt just like getting to the bottom of that mug of cheap lager and yearning for a richer, more full-bodied beer.

A Painted Goddess

A Painted Goddess by Victor Gischler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Rina Veraiin's friends are scattered searching for more ink magic tattoos to protect Helva. The threats Helva is facing are more dire than initially believed and ink magic may be Helva's only chance at survival.

A Painted Goddess was a strong story. The entire A Fire Beneath the Skin trilogy caught me by surprise. The story picks up directly after the cliffhangers in The Tattooed Duchess. The author Victor Gischler spent a lot of time setting the enormity of the events the protagonists faced. I had come to care about a lot of the characters and it was hard reading at times because not everyone survives their ordeals.

I'm still loving the idea of ink magic bestowed through tattoos. It presents one of my favorite story aspects of incredible powers in a way I've never witnessed before. Unlike The Tattooed Duchess, new tattoos emerge of incredible power. I'm floored by the creativity needed to envision such powers and how they'd be utilized.

My complaints, which in truth are minor, are that the booked wrapped up too quickly and chose not to explain what everything meant at the end. Perhaps it was simply left open for the potential of sequels and that's easier to swallow if that's the case. I hope there wasn't any other reason to leave the reader guessing.

A Painted Goddess and it's predecessors were truly a pleasant surprise. I hope the author Victor Gischler chooses to revisit the world in the form of prequels or sequels because I really enjoyed the A Fire Beneath the Skin series.

5 out of 5 stars

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

View all my reviews

In the Field Marshall's Shadow

In the Field Marshal's Shadow: Stories from the Powder Mage Universe by Brian McClellan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the Field Marshall's Shadow is a collection of short stories from the Powder Mage Universe.

The stories are from varying times in the past and have different protagonists in each one. The Girl of Hrusch Avenue and Return to Honor revolve around Vlora, The Face in the Window is Taniel's story, Hope's End is told from Captain Verundish's perspective, and Green-Eyed Vipers is from Lady Petara's point of view. I have already read and reviewed Hope's End, The Girl of Hrusch Avenue, The Face in the Window, and Return to Honor so this review will revolve around Green-Eyed Vipers.

Green-Eyed Vipers tells a predator's tale, but not in the way you'd imagine. Lady Petara is on the hunt with one prey in mind and that's Field Marshall Tamas. This takes place after Erika's death so it's easy to imagine that it's good for Tamas to get some intense interest from an aggressive woman, I certainly had that thought. Unfortunately Petara attraction goes well beyond what any sane person would deem appropriate. The hunt is on and what is done is done.

I liked Green-Eyed Vipers and it was good seeing Tamas again in a new story. The story left a small smile on my face when I finished it.

View all my reviews

The Man Who Was Thursday: Centennial Edition by G.K. Chesterton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”A man’s brain is a bomb,” he cried out, loosening suddenly his strange passion and striking his own skull with violence. “My brain feels like a bomb, night and day. It must expand! It must expand! A man’s brain must expand, if it breaks up the universe.”



Gabriel Syme attends a dinner party of his friend, the poet Lucian Gregory. He is there under a pretense of friendship, but his true intention is to find out if his friend can be his entry into joining a group of anarchists. You see, Gabriel Syme ”was not merely a detective who pretended to be a poet; he was really a poet who had become a detective.” There might be some assumptions that the best way to infiltrate an anarchy group is by hanging out in dive bars, brothels, and dens of inequity (my favorite) where the disgruntled, unwashed masses would gather, but Syme is much more suited to mingling with the intellectual set. These men of high ideals might see anarchy in a romantic light and prove to be as dangerous in their naivete as the man, scarred by life, looking to get even with a government for ill treatment or with a society who chose to ignore him.

”The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists.The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime.”

Syme, purposely, pushes his friend. Traps him really, into feeling a need to prove to Syme that he is a true anarchist and not just a man of radical thought incapable of deed. Syme tries to reassure Gregory’s pretty sister that all will be fine. She feels her brother may have said too much. ”Now, sometimes a man like your brother really finds a thing he does mean. It may be only a half-truth, quarter-truth, tenth-truth; but then he says more than he means---from sheer force of meaning it.”

I’d like to know how many times I’ve said something that sounds clever, but logically is full of holes. Someone pops off with some dismissive comment, and the next thing I know, I’m scrambling to defend a thought that was barely a concept to begin with. I’m bailing water out of the boat and trying to patch the bottom at the same time, but I’m too stubborn to just let it go because I know the seed of the idea was something worth defending. So we do wonder if Gregory has any real idea of what true anarchy is or is he just a bored poet who finds the whole idea of belonging to a bomb throwing organization... exciting.

In other words, is he a true believer or an annoying, bombastic, romantic moron?

For the purposes of our hero Syme, it may not matter. The young man turns out to have a legitimate connection to a group of anarchists who each go by a name of the week. Gregory is intent on becoming Thursday, but Syme convinces the group to add him to their network instead of his friend. He deftly gets what he wants and at the same time puts his friend out of harm's way.

Syme is a ”rebel against rebellion” which is really, if truth be known, what I am as well. I don’t want the general social order to be disrupted. Usually the people who die when a bomb is exploded are just normal, hardworking people who are picking up food for dinner, or dancing with some friends, or going to work. Their deaths are meaningless, except for the fact that their death provides a number that will have terrorists giving each other high fives and politicians wringing their hands. So I’m against anarchy because all it does is destabilize society in an attempt to replace a government with a new government that would quickly resemble the old government.

Besides bombs, gunfire, rape, murder, and all that screaming tends to disrupt my reading time.

G. K. Chesterton was a serious man passionately interested in the occult, theology, and philosophy. Usually when I see those three branches of study all attached to the same individual, I think to myself that this was a person questing to understand the mysteries of life. The interesting thing about this book is you can read it on a multitude of levels and still enjoy the book. You can see it as a metaphysical thriller or as sarcastic political intrigue or as commentary on a society searching for god in all the wrong places.

The power in the anarchist group rests with the man Sunday, who intimidates the rest of the members. He is a large man or does he just seem to expand when he needs to make a point. His eyes are blue, blue as the sky. His hair is snow white, like the peaks of the highest mountains. As the plot turns fantastical, he takes on a supernatural aspect that leaves this reader wondering if he was the god, or a god, or just a man touched by god.

Of course, it all becomes comical as one after the other, the members of this anarchist society, turn out to be someone other than what they pretended to be.

I mentioned philosophy; how about this for something to ponder?

“‘Listen to me,’ cried Syme with extraordinary emphasis.’Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front -.’”

There is also intrigue. Syme is finally relaxing in the belief that he has lost a man who has been tailing him all over the city.

”When he had been seated for about half a minute, he heard behind him a sort of heavy asthmatic breathing.

Turning sharply, he saw rising gradually higher and higher up the omnibus steps a top hat soiled and dripping with snow, and under the shadow of its brim the short-sighted face and shaking shoulders of Professor de Worms.”


Chesterton was a large man standing 6’4” and weighing 286 pounds.

There is no doubt in my mind that G. K. Chesterton was brilliant, quite possibly a renaissance man in his desire to understand everything. His prose is at times exquisitely glistening with honey dipped poetry. The book can be confusing with twists and turns made more difficult with an overlay of nightmarish fantasy. I wish I’d been able to read it in one sitting so I could keep the reins of the many divergent thoughts firmly held in my hands like a team of prancing Lipizzan horses.

This is a fascinating book that deserves to be read more than once, and without a doubt I’d be closer to understanding exactly what Chesterton was intending the more times I read it. My copy of the book will be slid back on the shelf very gently in case there are any bold ideas or a stray piece of dynamite that could roll out on the floor at my feet. Both are equally dangerous, and I’m simply not as fast on my feet as I used to be.

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

Outriders By: Jay Posey

Outriders by Jay Posey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ok, Mr. Posey...

I liked the Duskwalker series alot, but now..damnit...now you got me. You reached into the depths of my cobweb and comic book addled brain, took my love for scifi and military action and put it on paper.


Great action, cool characters, great setting and to quote the Joker, wonderful toys to play with! I offically add you to the increasingly large list of authors I buy on sight. (and I got a ARC from the lovely overlords at Angry Robot, and yes I did order it after)

buy this book, buy it now. 23 stars out of 5.

View all my reviews