Off Campus

Amy Jo Cousins
Samhain Publishing
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Nancy

Summary

Everyone’s got secrets. Some are just harder to hide.

With his father’s ponzi scheme assets frozen, Tom Worthington believes finishing college is impossible unless he can pay his own way. After months sleeping in his car and gypsy-cabbing for cash, he’s ready to do just that.

But his new, older-student housing comes with an unapologetically gay roommate. Tom doesn’t ask why Reese Anders has been separated from the rest of the student population. He’s just happy to be sleeping in a bed.

Reese isn’t about to share his brutal story with his gruff new roommate. You’ve seen one homophobic jock, you’ve seen ’em all. He plans to drag every twink on campus into his bed until Tom moves out. But soon it becomes clear Tom isn’t budging.

Tom isn’t going to let some late-night sex noise scare him off, especially when it’s turning him on. But he doesn’t want any drama either. He’ll keep his hands, if not his eyes, to himself. Boundaries have a way of blurring when you start sharing truths, though. And if Tom and Reese cross too many lines, they may need to find out just how far they can bend…before they break.

My Review

As an older college graduate, dorm life was one of those experiences I missed. I know people who enjoyed that time of their life, and others who hated it. To an introvert like me, living with a randomly selected roommate in a cramped room, communal bathrooms, noise, and lack of privacy sounds like hell on earth.

While I have no regrets about missing the dorm experience, I periodically enjoy reading about college life and the confusion, emotional turmoil and insecurity that plagues young adults.

Tom Worthington uses his car as a cab to help pay for his tuition costs. Unfortunately, he doesn't have much else in the way of money or possessions, as his dad’s fraudulent scheming left victims penniless, resulting in frozen assets and a jail sentence. Tom is deeply affected by his father’s actions and tries hard to keep a low profile around campus. He has difficulty trusting others, is unable to ask for help, and fears people are gossiping about him.

Tom didn't get the single room he was promised, so he is forced to bunk with Reese Anders, a 20-year-old gay man who has his own reasons for wanting to be alone.

In spite of the men’s unwillingness to share a room, Tom and Reese develop a tentative friendship that eventually gives way to mutual attraction. It’s not as easy as it sounds, though, because Tom and Reese are very private people with unresolved issues.

I nearly set the book aside, because I quickly tired of the random sex scenes and wasn’t warming up to either Reese or Tom. Thankfully, I was patient, for I was rewarded with a moving, powerful story that felt so real. Tom’s and Reese’s problems were dealt with very sensitively without resorting to clichés and pounding the reader over the head with “important life lessons.” I especially enjoyed that friendship, trust and love took time to develop. Reese and Tom know they each have difficult hurdles to overcome and need more than love to make their relationship work. Significant secondary characters like Tom’s best friend, Cash, Reese’s friend, Steph, and Reese’s dad kept Tom and Reese from being too isolated and helped infuse this story with lightness, humor and love.

This is my first book by Amy Cousins, but it certainly won’t be my last. I’m looking forward to spending more time with Reese and Tom’s friends and getting a glimpse of their future.

Amazing Spider-Man: Worldwide Vol. 1

Amazing Spider-Man: Worldwide Vol. 1 by Dan Slott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In a short time, and with some help from the body swapped Doctor Octopus, Peter Parker became a Doctor and started his own now international company.

Parker Industries has become an amazing ground breaking company

so much so that it has it's own enemies Zodiac.

It's not clear what they're after, but what is clear is Parker Industries success has caused Spider-Man to go global.


Worldwide Vol. 1 is somewhat odd for me because I hadn't kept up with Peter Parker's exploits. It's hard to believe that even with a headstart thanks to Dr. Octopus that Peter could be such a success. The man couldn't protect his neighborhood, see his Aunt May, have a job, and a girlfriend/wife successfully so it's hard to envision him being able to be a CEO of his own company or any company while being Spider-Man. Regardless Peter is doing his best impression of early Iron Man. He's his own super hero body guard and even has a black friend/employee the Prowler to dress up as Spidey when it's needed.

This vastly different Spider-Man and Peter Parker combo could become more interesting with some better adversaries. Zodiac isn't particularly concerning or interesting. They did wreak havoc, but in a bland fashion. I do appreciate that a bigger threat is being woven into the stories. It's ambiguous what the threat is exactly, but it's clear this new adversary has considerable abilities.

Worldwide Vol. 1 shows Peter Parker as a shining star on the world's stage, I just hope the villains get more interesting.

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THE WIZARD OF EARTHSEA BY URSULA LE GUIN

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate.”


The Folio Society edition is superbly illustrated by David Lupton.

The boy is born on the island of Gont in the archipelago of Earthsea. This is a world infused with magic. Not everyone can control this magic, but those who know the right words and have a wizard soul can learn to utilize the power of the Earth to manipulate objects and events. The boy’s name is Duny; I can tell you that name because the name has no power over him. His true name is something he can only reveal to those he trusts absolutely beyond question.

I know his true name, but fair reader, I’m not sure yet that I can share it with you.

His aunt knows a few things, a handful of words, that can be used to bind things or call animals to her. Duny is particularly adept at calling falcons and other birds of prey. His agile mind soon surpasses what his aunt can teach him. He burns to know more. He is assigned to a mage, Ogion, who tries to teach him about the balance of magic with the Earth. There is always a cost for using magic. Understanding the levy for sorcery is the difference between being just impulsively talented and being wise about what you know.

”You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard’s power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow….”

If the flap of a butterfly wing in the Amazon can cause a hurricane in Florida, imagine what a wizard can do with power over the weather.

It is kind of funny, but there is this one scene where wizards on different islands use spells to keep the clouds from raining on them. This storm bounces between them like a boiling stew pot. Now, a wizard like Ogion finds shelter under a tree and waits for the rain to stop. To Sparrowhawk, this type of restraint is ridiculous. If you have the power, why not use it?

Duny is Sparrowhawk, and you might think that is his real name, but just because you’ve read a few paragraphs of this review doesn’t mean you’ve endeared yourself to me enough to tell you his real name. Sparrowhawk will suffice for now.

Sparrowhawk becomes impatient with the restrained magic that Ogion teaches, so he is sent to magic school on the Island of Roke. There was a magic school in literature before Hogwarts?

Indeed there was.

The first time he goes to the dining hall to eat, there is only one table. The table, in a very Hogwarts’ fashion, expands to fit as many people who enter to eat. Sparrowhawk is soon recognized as one of the most gifted students. Spells and the names of things flow into his mind like lava, changing the landscape of his brain into something completely different.

He becomes powerful.

He becomes arrogant.

He becomes vengeful on those who don’t appreciate his power.

In a moment of hubris, he summons a dead woman from the distant past and, in the process, opens a rift that nearly kills him. It does kill the old mage who helps him close it.

Something came through.

Sparrowhawk is burned in mind, body, and spirit. He is guilty of a death. The shame and self-condemnation weigh heavily on him. He may become the great wizard he was intended to be, but the road will be much longer now.

The shadow from another world that pursues him becomes the devil on his heels for the rest of the novel. This chase from island to island reminded me of Frankenstein and his pursuit of his monster to the North Pole.

The interesting thing about this novel is that Ursula K. Le Guin’s publisher came to her and asked her to write a book for older kids. Young Adult wasn’t even a term yet in the late 1960s. She wasn’t sure she wanted to write such a book, but she was nagged by the idea of where do great wizards come from? We normally meet them when they are old sages in the vein of a Merlin or a Gandalf. She wanted G__ erhhh Sparrowhawk to be seen as more human, more fallible than how most wizards had been presented before. I liked the emphasis she puts on the importance of words in this novel and the power and magic that resides in knowing the names of things.

I had trepidations about reading this book. I was reassured that I was in the capable hands of a writer I’ve enjoyed before. I have a bit of a knee jerk reaction to the term Young Adult because I’m not a Young Adult. I’m an old fuddy duddy who has a hard time watching commercials on TV geared towards youth. I certainly wince at the idea of spending hours trapped in a book intended for a younger audience. I’m somewhat alarmed at the number of ADULTS who read nothing but Young Adult. The evolution of a reader is for that person to move from picture books, then ride the escalator to Young Adult, and eventually find the elevator that will take them onwards and upwards to adult literature.

I’m still pondering this. Is it an extended childhood? Why would someone always want to read about children or teenagers? Am I generationally challenged on this issue? I am happy that people are reading, and ultimately it is better that they read anything rather than nothing at all, but I do think that the more you read there should be some evolution in what you choose to read. I’m such an eclectic reader that it is difficult for me to understood people being so genre specific with their reading choices. Young Adult now dominates the publishing world. Writers are being encouraged to make changes to their novels so they can be marketed as YA. If I weren’t worried about this trend it would be fascinating.



There are dragon battles, alluring women who try to seduce G_d to their own uses. There are friendships made and lost; there are painful realizations, and there is growth and acceptance of our own limitations. Most importantly, there is a wizard as wise and as powerful as Gandolf or Merlin, who emerges like a Phoenix from the flames of his own childish conceit. His name is Ged, but you must only whisper it, or better yet refer to him as Sparrowhawk, and keep in the locked box at the center of your heart who he really is. ”He hunted, he followed, and fear ran before him.”

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Jeeves Gets Medieval

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another deeelightful romp in the Wodehouse world! Romp-tiddly-romp, I say, what?! What, what?!

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, aka What Ho, Jeeves, is a bit different from others in the Wooster/Jeeves line in that it reads like a play. In my case, it listens like a play, because I ingested this audiobook-style. So, in place of Wodehouse's wonderful narration via Bertie's inner monologue, we get awkward exposition and strange soliloquy. Instead of a witty description of Jeeves' discontent over Bertie's ghastly upper-lip appendage, we hear the actor groaning and moaning in a most peevish manner, in a word: whinging.

All the above sounds odd and irritating, and would be off-putting enough to make most listeners give it up. I'm not most readers when it comes to a Wooster and Jeeves novel, so I stuck it out, and boy am I glad I did! Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit turned out to be a cracking good read!

It's no different than any of the other 101 books (or however many there are) on the dynamic duo in this series. Bertie's having a typically rough morning after a raucous night out when hell breaks out and rings his doorbell. One of his torturous aunts is in need, a former fiancee may or may not wish to marry him again, the significant other of this former fiancee wishes to wring Bertie's neck (or in this case, break his spine in upwards of a half dozen different locations), a minor heist is required of Bertie by his aunt, and Jeeves will save the day 9 times out of 10.

It's a tried and true formula from which Wodehouse seldom varies. So why bother to keep coming back? One likes the well-known rerun and is grateful for the old trusty laugh when so needed. I often pick up a Wodehouse when I'm down or blue or in some other variation on the state of sadness. A dose from a reliable rib-tickler can get one out of a funk as well as an aspirin relieves a headache, and this book is an even more potent remedy for what ails you.


NOTE: I'd like to make a further note, a sidebar if you will, regarding the audiobook. The performances were mostly top-notch. I attribute this to the use of about three actors who've voiced the Bertie character in other Wodehouse books. One played the main role, while the others supported. Fantastic casting!

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Captains Outrageous

Captains Outrageous by Joe R. Lansdale
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When Hap comes into some money, he and Leonard go on a vacation and wind up stranded in Mexico. True to form, they end up helping a fisherman and his daughter with a problem they're having...

This is my third read of Captains Outrageous but the first time in over a decade so it was like a completely new book.

Captains Outrageous sees Hap and Leonard going up against a Mexican loanshark and his goons. It also brings the crew back together with Jim Bob Luke, Marvin Hanson, Charlie Blank, and Veil. Unlike a lot of series mysteries, Lansdale isn't afraid to upset the apple cart in a big way.

Hap and Leonard go through quite a bit in this one and we all needed a break after it, even Lansdale, for this was the last Hap and Leonard book for something like eight years. While hilarious, crude, and full of violence, it's also really bleak.

There's a lot of interesting stuff going on but it's easily my least favorite of the Hap and Leonard books up to this point. It felt unfocused at times and might have worked better as two linked novellas.

All things considered, though, it was a pretty good read. Hap and Leonard had some good character moments and things ended with the pair in a good place for once, a place they'd stay in until Lansdale brought our boys back in Vanilla Ride. Three out of five stars.


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Junk Mage

Elliot Cooper
NineStar Press
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

When technomancer Quillian Defote crash-lands on remote planet Marutuk, he has limited time to repair his ship and get off world. If he fails, he’ll forfeit his position as professor of mechanical transmutation at the prestigious Ivy Arcanarium and ruin his employment prospects in yet another sector.

Hunter, a cyborg guarding a junkyard that holds what Quill needs, is charmed by the wayward mage and wants to help him. But Hunter is bound by honor to dutifully guard his mistress and her possessions, no matter how cruelly she treats him.

Together Quill and Hunter stand a chance of starting a new life together if carnivorous wildlife, a violent necromancer, and stubborn pride don’t keep them apart.

My Review

I will start out by saying that I love short stories. Whereas a novel can take its time fleshing out characters and developing a compelling plot, a short story leaves the writer with little wiggle room for going off on tangents. A good short story should feel complete, and not like an outline of a novel.

The author did a superb job setting up the world and creating an interesting cast of characters. I liked that it was told from the quirky technomancer Quill’s perspective. He is funny, thoughtful, and easygoing and I was comfortable spending time in his head. Hunter, the cyborg guarding the parts that Quill needs to repair his broken ship, was a bit more introverted. It was fun watching Quill’s and Hunter’s friendship develop into something deeper.

Even though Quill’s attitude kept me smiling much of the time, there was a touch of sadness involving Hunter’s past that I would have loved to see explored further.

This was a well-written, cleanly edited, and fast-paced story. Its format was too short to adequately contain everything explored here, so it felt slight at times.

While this was not the perfect short story, it was still a heck of a lot of fun.

Uncanny Avengers, Vol. 1: Unity: Lost Future

Uncanny Avengers, Vol. 1: Unity: Lost Future by Gerry Duggan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Steve Rogers continues to promote unity between humans and mutants. Thanks to the terrigen cloud he now has to promote unity with the Inhumans as well. Steve was fortunate enough to convince a new Inhuman to join the cause. Unfortunately the terrigen cloud doesn't simply bestow powers on the good.

A new Inhuman has unleashed a biological attack on the planet that's so devastating that Cable returned to the past to help save everything.

Meanwhile the Avengers Unity Squad is searching for the Red Skull to retrieve Professor X's brain.

Lost Future wasn't great. The combination for the team is an odd mashup of lost toys so to speak. The team has elderly Captain America from the Avengers, Rogue from the X-Men, and Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four. It also features Quicksilver, Doctor Voodoo, Deadpool, Cable, and new Inhuman Synapse. It's hard to come up with a less interesting and more mismatched bunch. It almost feels like someone is trying to convince Steve Rogers to retire by giving him the dregs of heroes.

As many may know I've taken to the Inhumans movement and have read as many titles as I'm aware of/can get my hands on. Sometimes I enjoy actual new things in comics over new scenarios for characters twice my age. Anyway I enjoyed the initiative of adding Inhumans as new antagonists and protagonists in stories. Unfortunately the Inhuman adversary the Shredded Man wasn't all that interesting. Perhaps the build up was too quick, but I imagine it was mainly his need to eliminate people so plants could survive. That's not a message that I'm interested in hearing.

Uncanny Avengers proves that Marvel comics loves to use the title Uncanny even though there are many other options they haven't made use of yet. Lost Future was an OK volume that would be more appreciated by anyone who liked more than one of the Avengers Unity Squad members.

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THE DROWNED DETECTIVE BY NEIL JORDAN

The Drowned Detective by Neil Jordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

”’What is it about this place?’ I asked him. ‘They do things the old-fashioned way. They fall in love, they kiss in metros, they hire detectives to follow errant spouses and psychics to find lost children.’

‘You could call it retro,’ he said.”



The city was built in an era of stone. The passage of centuries and the climatic weather are slowly crumbling the edges, eroding the foundations. There are cell phones and computers, but they don’t dominate people’s lives. Music is a bigger part of their lives, either listening and/or playing, not mindless notes, but the ethereal tones of Bach and other masters. We know it is a European city, but it remains nameless. It is a place suspended in time, as if the city is caught in a 1940s black and white noir film with cracks in the celluloid which allow color from the present to bleed into the edges of the frames.

Jonathan owns a small private investigation firm. Most of their cases involve following adulterous spouses, but when a couple brings him a picture of their missing daughter, who was the same age as his daughter is now when she disappeared, he decides to do what he can to find out what happened to her. The case is stone cold, so when the mother suggests using a psychic, Jonathan is leary but at the same time wants any help he can get to find a string that he can start tugging on.

Jonathan’s first impression of the psychic is of grandness in the waning days of her elegance.

”She looked like an ageing Marlene Dietrich and she knew it. All she was missing was the eye-patch, the one Dietrich wore as she gazed through a wisp of curling smoke at the sagging hulk that was Orson Welles. They were both old then, and almost past it, and they knew it, too.”

In the moonlight, she is still glamorous, but in the harsh truth of daylight, there are breaches in her beauty revealing more of what she has lost than what she has retained.

To add flavor to the plot, Jonathan finds a man’s cufflinks in his wife’s purse. He doesn’t have to be a good detective to figure out who they belong to. Enhancing his own problems, the city is in chaos with people in Balaclavas racing around the streets and metros clashing with the police and leaving shattered glass in their wake.

Jonathan meets a woman on a bridge adorned with eyeless gargoyles. It bothers him, these protectors without sight. He chats with her and, sensing the pain,

Asks

Her

Not

To

Jump.

She jumps.

He jumps in after her.

If you save a life, you are responsible for him/her for the rest of your life. Or so the proverb says, but for Jonathan, this act is going to have bigger ramifications than he can ever comprehend.

We always try to understand what motivates people to do rash things, or maybe their actions just look rash to us. Maybe they are acting on thoughts they have rolled around their minds until the rough edges are worn off, and now those brooding notions move smoothly from side to side, and the only way to get it to stop is to….

What do investigators do? They investigate, and sometimes they discover things that are baffling and nonsensical, but sometimes they discover things that allow all the pieces to fall into place. Jonathan meets a predator who is very candid about what he does.

”She had the extraordinary need, you see, for contact, that only comes from the damaged ones. And they can be exquisite, the damaged ones.”



These sparsely written, elegant prose are a perfect example of how less can create more. This city might be crumbling, but the dignified, atmospheric beauty of the streets and buildings make me love this place as if it is a fantasyland built for my pleasure. Neil Jordan is best known as a director, but lucky for us, he also writes books. He shocked the world with his film The Crying Game, but he has also proven to me that his cinematic vision or his gift of expression is not narrowed to just a lense in a camera. If you like enthralling, moody, ethereal noir with a dash of supernatural, then this is the perfect book for you.

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A City Dreaming By: Daniel Polansky

A City Dreaming by Daniel Polansky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful, strange jumble of a story, I loved every page. It seems to me that almost everytime someone creates a character, such as a somewhat antihero/rogue magician ..you get a certain image in your head.

That being said, Mr. Polansky has spun an amazing weird world full of interesting things, the story is kind of like a collection of short tales loosely spun together. This a great read, if you dig Gaiman, Mieville, or have read Mr. Polansky's other works, (and you should have) get this book!



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The Life of Brahms

Brahms (Life and Works by Jeremy Siepmann
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a great way to get to know a composer! Jeremy Siepmann's Brahms was exactly what I was looking for!

Jumping right into things, this audiobook takes you directly into the life, times and music of Johannes Brahms, the famous German composer from the mid-to-late 19th century.

Brahms has been a quiet favorite of mine. "Quiet" in that the music of his which I've heard so far has been on the softer, more relaxed side. And also "quiet" in that I have been a passive fan of his, not actively seeking out his work, but always enjoying it when I catch it on the radio. Occasionally I've intentionally tuned in to an internet station that only plays his stuff and I'll put that on in the background while I'm writing. Instrumental music is key when writing, because you don't want extraneous words drilling into your thoughts. Another positive is that Brahms' music doesn't tend towards the extremes, at least not the loud or excitable extremes, not from what I've heard. You don't get the agitated aggression you get from Beethoven now and then. With Brahms you can be sure you'll hear ear-satisfyingly good melodies.

The above might make one think Brahms was, well, boring, dependable and dull. I held that opinion before listening to this book, but Siepmann opened my eyes and ears to Brahms' subtle genius.

In Brahms sections of text are smartly interspersed with chunky passages from symphonies and smaller pieces. Siepmann explains the wheres, hows, and whys of Brahms' music and then we get to immediately hear examples. Brilliant! I'll certainly be seeking out other audiobooks he's done in this series!

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