The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When a student from the Ulthar Women's College goes missing with her dreaming lover, Vellitt Boe journeys across the dreamlands to find a way to the waking world to bring her back. With a cat in tow, will Vellitt be able to find Clarie Jurat?

Ghouls, ghasts, and gugs, oh my! The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is a new spin on HP Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, with less racism and more women! It was already on my wish-list when it popped up on Netgalley.

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is Vellitt Boe's quest across the dreamlands to bring home Clarie Jurat, a student at her college. Clarie fell in love with a man from the waking world and Vellitt must bring her back before things go pear-shaped. Her odyssey takes her from one end of the dreamlands to the other and eventually, to the waking world.

I have to say I like what Kij Johnson had done with HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands. While the setting is still what Lovecraft created, complete with Randolph Carter and assorted horrid creatures, she puts her own stamp on the tale by having a middle-aged woman take center stage.

The writing is way more accessible than HP Lovecraft's and reads more like Neil Gaiman's Stardust. She treats the mythos with respect while expanding upon it and telling her own story.

The only thing I can really complain about is that it wasn't longer and Kij wasn't able to work all of the Dreamlands staples into it. 3.5 out of 5 stars.


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Chicks With Guns

Lindsay McCrum
Vendome Press
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

In Chicks with Guns, Lindsay McCrum has created a cultural portrait of women gun owners in America through photographs that are both beautiful and in a sense unexpected. The book examines issues of self-image and gender through the visual conventions of portraiture and fashion, but the guns are presented here not as superimposed props but as the very personal lifestyle accessories of the subjects portrayed. And it defies stereotypes often associated with aspects of the popular culture of both guns and women. Like the 15-20 million women gun owners in this country, the women we meet in Chicks with Guns (their portraits are accompanied by their own words), reside in all regions of the country, come from all levels of society, and participate seriously in diverse shooting activities. The women here are sportswomen, hunters, and competition shooters. Some use guns on their jobs and some for self-defense. They may not all be classically beautiful, but in these photographs they all look beautiful, exuding honesty, confidence, poise, power and pride. They are real women with real guns that play a part in their lives. By focusing her camera respectfully on this particular aspect of the American scene, gun-wielding women and girls, Lindsay McCrum sheds new light on who we are in America today.

My Review

“I think all women should know how to drive a manual transmission and handle a gun.”
― Kate

I learned about this title while I was looking at Girl's Guide to Guns

So thrilled that my library had a copy!

The photos are gorgeous, the stories interesting and inspiring. Plus, I'm learning about firearms I hadn't heard of before. The only complaint is from my old eyes, wishing that the print used for the women's stories was just a little larger. I like the diversity of backgrounds featured, the variety of shooting activities and reasons for owning firearms, and the fact that not all the women are young. Many of the women come from hunting backgrounds, others are sport shooters, or just enjoy shooting targets, some are in law enforcement, and others merely want to protect their families.

When I get better at shooting, maybe I will be in a future edition posing with my Walther PPQ or the Ruger 1211 10/22 rifle my husband got me for Christmas, but I'm not nearly as photogenic as the women who grace these pages.

Avengers: The Children's Crusade

Avengers: The Children's Crusade by Allan Heinberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Two of the Young Avengers Wiccan and Speed look like twins, have the same name as Wanda Maximoff's children, and have the same powers as the Scarlet Witch and her brother Quicksilver. Wishing to know the truth the Young Avengers set out to find the Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff.

The Children's Crusade continues the storyline started in Avengers Disassembled and continued in House of M. Wanda's powers got out of control and she altered reality harming millions and depowering the majority of the mutant population. I was vaguely aware that this was a large scale continuation of that story line so I was interested to see how things went and I have to say things were a bit crazy. I really appreciated the mocking comments made about Civil War. It was hard not to mention heroes fighting each other because it seemed to be happening practically ever issue in the volume.



A lot of information was revealed about Wanda and the what led up to Avengers Disassembled. It was helpful because it seemed crazy to me that Wanda's abiltiies went so over the top.

There were a few parts that were too convenient. Clearly there was some sort of plan in place to continue stretching out the events of M-Day. It was rather annoying the way things were explained and interfered with at times. It felt like someone decided Wanda had to be a hero again so some twisting of the facts was needed.

All in all the Children's Crusade was one enjoyable story.

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THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD BY DOUGLAS PRESTON

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”I peered out the window, transfixed. I can scarcely find words to describe the opulence of the rainforest that unrolled below us. The tree crowns were packed together like puffballs, displaying every possible hue, tint, and shade of green. Chartreuse, emerald, lime, aquamarine, teal, bottle, glaucous, asparagus, olive, celadon, jade, malachite--mere words are inadequate to express the chromatic infinites.”



Douglas Preston was always interested in lost civilizations, so when he got the chance to join an expedition into the mosquitia jungle in Honduras to find the Lost City of the Monkey God, he was more than interested, he was all in. There had been many explorers before who had attempted to find this “mythical” place, but except for the Indiana Jones style journalist Theodore Morde who emerged from the jungle in 1940 with a horde of fascinating objects and a story of finding the fabled White City, there had been nothing to substantiate the legend. Morde committed suicide shortly after returning from his adventures, taking his secrets with him.

Had he been cursed by the Monkey God?

The team focused in on one valley that was isolated and difficult to access easily on foot. They were going to bring new technology to the search by borrowing what is called a lidar machine. It shoots thousands of lasers at the jungle floor from a plane. It records the reflections that bounce off the objects on the ground. The software eliminates leaves, trees, and any other objects that are not part of, hopefully, the man made structures hidden beneath the canopy.

All hell broke loose over the use of this technology. The academic world, outside of the normal petty jealousies, suspicion of success, and paranoias that afflict all centers of higher learning, seemed to be more offended by the use of this technology, as if the expedition were cheating by using it.

See, the problem was the lidar mapping found not one large site of manmade structures, but two. The irrational feeling that they didn’t deserve these finds because they didn’t outfit an overland mission that went blindly slashing through the jungle hoping to stumble upon something interesting, and the fact they didn’t lose about a third of their party to disease, snakebit, and jaguar attack in the process, is frankly ludicrous.

I do have to admit it does take some of the romance out of the whole swashbuckling archaeologist image that I grew up with. The cities were still there unmolested because no one had been able to penetrate the jungle effectively to find them.

Despite being able to drop into the site with a helicopter, and despite having better gear than what most explorers can haul into the jungle in the traditional overland expedition, the group still experienced difficulties with, to name a few, sand fleas, torrential rain, and snakes. Let me share a bit about one particular snake that kept turning up over and over again in the ruins of this civilization.

”The fer-de-lance, he said, is known in these parts as the barba amarilla (Yellow Beard). Herpetologists consider it the ultimate pit viper. It kills more people in the New World than any other snake. It comes out at night and is attracted to people and activity. It is aggressive, irritable, and fast. Its fangs have been observed to squirt venom for more than six feet, and they can penetrate even the thickest leather boot. Sometimes it will strike and then pursue and strike again. It often leaps upward as it strikes, hitting above the knee. The venom is deadly; if it doesn’t kill you outright through a brain hemorrhage, it may very well kill you later through sepsis. If you survive, the limb that was struck often has to be amputated, due to the necrotizing nature of the poison.”

*Shudder* #reason number one why I don’t go into the Honduran jungle.

So why did this civilization abruptly disappear at around 1500? Preston pulls together some pretty good theories regarding that event. Some are based on the greed of the rulers doing to their civilization the same thing that the rich and powerful are currently doing to the United States. Unmitigated greed makes even the most robust economies vulnerable to a similar collapse. The celebrated author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond, has some wonderful examples, and Preston shares that wisdom with us, as well. The one that I found most interesting points to a celebrated event that happened in 1492 when Christopher Columbus “discovered” America.

The foreigners came and ”withered the flowers.”

Preston includes a wonderful chart that show the catastrophic effect of native populations making contact with the disease ridden crews of the Columbus exploration mission. ”What would a 90 percent mortality rate mean to the survivors and their society? It does not just kill people; it annihilates societies; it destroys languages, religions, histories, and cultures. It chokes off the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next. The survivors are deprived of that vital human connection to their past; they are robbed of their stories, their music and dance, their spiritual practices and beliefs--they are stripped of their very identity.”

There is no proof that the diseases that killed so much of the indigenous population of the Americas was also the culprit that killed the civilization of the Monkey God, but the timing does make it a valid consideration. It was unavoidable that the Old World would meet the New World, so it was just more a matter of when.

The Monkey God expedition members returned to their regular life, relieved that they did not come down with any major diseases; the bites and rashes that they all suffered from disappeared, but then weeks later over half the group had a sore appear that would not heal. It became a miniature volcano. After much deliberation by doctors and contagious disease specialists, they determined that they had come down with leishmaniasis. Among the half that came down with this frankly disgusting and alarmingly difficult disease to contain was Douglas Preston. It is called white leprosy if that gives you any indication of what it does to the body once it gains enough control of your immune system.

The curse of the Monkey god?


My signed copy of the book also came with a signed postcard of the author in the mosquitia jungle. Ephemeria is always fun for a collector.

I just finished reading The Lost City of Z, set in the Amazon, a few days ago, and it seemed a perfect pairing to read a similar book about another lost city further north in Central America. Any thoughts of chucking my rather pedestrian job as circulation manager/owner of a farm publication and joining a jungle expedition have been firmly squashed like a blood bloated flea beneath the tread of a kevlar boot. Not to mention, even the thought of tangling with one of those damn Fer-De-Lance snakes makes me break out in hives. I am a firm believer in doing my jungle travelling from the safety of my favorite reading chair.

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

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The Boy on the Bridge By: M.R. Carey

The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't really like zombie apocolypse type tales, it is mostly my view, as there are many great stories in the genre. I really liked the companion book to this, The girl with all the gifts, as this is a prequel.

I loved the facts that both books focused and built alot on the characters, showing the humanity in a world that was fast losing its grip on it. That to me, is the main enjoyment...not your typical take on the zombie genre.

If you liked the first book, you will like this book, that underlying current of hope in the story makes it worthwhile.

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A Bad Man Doing Bad Stuff For Good Reasons

The Hunter by Richard Stark
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Parker is a BAAAD man! Actually, a better descriptive would be "dick". Parker is a dick. I don't remember the last time I met a main character this reprehensible...Perhaps Humbert Humbert from Lolita, but he was more of a perverted douche.

Now, that's not to say Parker doesn't have his reasons for committing various murders and beating his wife to the point of torture. He was double crossed, after all. Of course, this happened during a heist in which he planned to do the double crossing. See what I mean? Dick.

If you're looking for gritty crime set in a nasty underworld, The Hunter a good place to look. If you're looking for top-shelf writing, look elsewhere. If you want action and bad guys getting their comeuppance, look no further.


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After I'm Gone

After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When small time gangster Felix Brewer fled Baltimore in 1976 to escape jail time, he left his family and his mistress in the lurch. When his mistress went missing ten years later, everyone assumed she'd gone to live with him in hiding... until her body was discovered years later. Now Roberto "Sandy" Sanchez, a consulting detective, is on the cold case. Can he find what happened to Felix Brewer and who killed his mistress?

I've read a couple of Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan mysteries and decided to give this standalone a shot when it showed up in my BookGorilla email one day.

While there is a murder mystery, After I'm Gone is more about what happens to the people left behind. Felix Brewer left a wife, three daughters, and a mistress behind when he fled for parts unknown in 1976.

The story is told in several threads, chronicling Felix's days before he ran, Bambi Brewer and her girls as time went on, and Sandy Sanchez, trying to figure out what happened to Julie between her disappearance in 1986 to when her body was discovered years later. Sandy doesn't have much going for him besides his job, an aging detective who gets seduced by a photo of Julie from the 1970's.

Bambi and the girls are varying degrees of messed up after Felix ran out on them. Watching the train wrecks their lives become was grimly fascinating. I was actually surprised at how Michelle matured through the course of the book. I didn't guess Julie's killer until Bambi handed the answer to me. The whole Brewer family seemed like likely suspects.

While it was more straight up fiction than the murder mystery I expected, I still enjoyed After I'm Gone quite a bit, particularly the last 20%. The destination was well worth the journey. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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Her Majesty's Men

Marquesate
Camouflage Press
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

Her Majesty's Men is the story of two soldiers in the British Forces and of a friendship taking unexpected turns. In the eyes of the Army they are just two mates who are close. But from the revelation of personal secrets, ensuing hatred and aggression, through terror and danger, to loyalty, triumphant strength and courage, grows their own realisation of what they are: comrades first and foremost, but something else too, something more significant. The two Royal Engineers, Sgt Tom Warren and SSgt Alex Turner, learn to understand the real meaning of loyalty and strength. Their fight for survival cuts through all the discipline and rules, to tie them together in a unique bond of companionship and trust.

My Review

This is the story of two British solders, Alex Turner and Tom Warren, who are comrades, best friends, and eventually, lovers. Though Tom is discreet about his sexuality, he trusts his friend enough to come out to him. Unfortunately, Alex reacts harshly, putting a temporary strain on their friendship. Alex's behavior sucked, Tom’s crush on Alex bordered on obsessive, and the short sentences and terse dialogue didn't appeal. The Britishisms I expected were largely absent, so Alex and Tom could have been American solders as well. I nearly set the book aside for something else, but glad I continued.

The story improved significantly later on as aspects of Alex's past are revealed and the tension ramps up when Alex and Tom are on a mission and put in life-threatening situations. I'm not a huge fan of “gay for you,” but this was well done and very believable. Alex gradually explores his own sexuality and growing feelings for Tom and becomes a much more likable character. There are a number of explicit violent scenes, but these did not feel gratuitous. They added tension, excitement and gave the guys an opportunity to display their courage, bravery and sacrifice. Their lovemaking was brutal and passionate.

I liked how the story took place over a period of years, keeping it from feeling “insta-lovey” and allowing both characters to heal from their physical and emotional wounds. It was easy to feel the men’s strong connection and deep care and respect they had for each other, which can be hard to accomplish in a short story.

The brief glimpse of the women in the men’s lives (Tom’s sister and two daughters and Alex’s ex-wife) was not an unwelcome interlude and added a touch of sweetness, but felt a little tacked on and unnecessary.

Despite the minor flaws, this was a very solid and enjoyable military romance.

THE LOST CITY OF Z BY DAVID GRANN

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”How easily the Amazon can deceive.

It begins as barely a rivulet, this, the mightiest river in the world, mightier than the Nile and the Ganges, mightier than the Mississippi and all the rivers in China. Over eighteen thousand feet high in the Andes, amid snow and clouds, it emerges through a rocky seam--a trickle of crystal water.”

By the time it reaches the ocean, the estuary of the Amazon river at the mouth is 202 miles wide. A trickle becomes one of the mightiest forces on the planet.

Colonel Percy Fawcett, the legend that launched a thousand explorers.

Candice Millard, in her book about Theodore Roosevelt’s trip through the Amazon, summed it up nicely: ”The rainforest was not a garden of easy abundance, but precisely the opposite. Its quiet, shaded halls of leafy opulence were not a sanctuary, but rather the greatest natural battlefield on the planet, hosting an unremitting and remorseless fight for survival that occupied every single one of its inhabitants, every minute of every day.”

David Grann, the author, became fascinated with Colonel Percy Fawcett after he stumbled upon a treasure trove of his journals. He wasn’t alone. Thousands have also found his story fascinating; hundreds have been so inspired by him as to go into the Amazonian jungle in search of him, their heads dancing with visions of being the next Henry Morton Stanley to find a famous missing explorer.


There are as many visions of what El Dorado looks like as there are explorers to look for it.

On his final journey to the Amazon in 1925, Fawcett was determined to finally find El Dorado, or the City of Z as he liked to call it, but he…disappeared without a trace.

Not that it is difficult to disappear in a jungle as dangerous as the Amazon. Everything from the most microscopic insect to infections to pumas are trying to kill you, not to mention the local tribesmen who may think you are interesting enough to let live or even more interesting to roast on a spit. There was one description that made me shiver: ”Espundia, an illness with even more frightening symptoms. Caused by a parasite transmitted by sand flies, it destroys the flesh around the mouth, nose, and limbs, as if the person were slowly dissolving. ‘It develops into...a mass of leprous corruption.’”

So why do Amazonian explorers insist on trying to conquer such an inhospitable place?

Because it is there.

But also because there are people who feel an itch so intense that they have to go somewhere as far away from people as possible. ”Indeed, some might say that explorers become explorers precisely because they have a streak of unsociability and a need to remove themselves at regular intervals as far as possible from their fellow men.” I resemble that comment, but my solution is less glamorous. I’m more likely to descend into the bowels of my library and let my books take me to Istanbul, Manchu Picchu, Gettysburg, or even, yes, to places as inhospitable as the Amazon. I can navigate the river without coming down with some hideous infection or being drained dry by a vampire bat because my arm flopped outside the netting in the middle of the night or feel the sting of a poisonous arrow puncturing my neck. My martini stays dry and at the proper temperature, too.

Besides the desire for discovery, Fawcett was fortunate to have an iron constitution. While other members of his party were dropping like flies from a host of illnesses or injuries, he just marched on. He lost several key years to the trenches of WW1, and when he emerged from the war to start finding funding for his final trip, he discovered that his patron, the Royal Geological Society, was broke. He had to find financing elsewhere. America beckoned.

Fawcett believed in small parties rather than large, heavily armed parties for exploring the Amazon. He had a rule that I think said a lot about his character, but also about his depth of wisdom. ”Die if you must, but never kill.” Unlike other European and American explorers, he was not in love with his guns. He was there to explore and discover, not conquer.


Percy’s son Jack Fawcett looking very fit for his venture into the jungle.

Decades after his final dispatch from the jungle, Fawcett’s wife and remaining family (he took his teenage son Jack with him) continued to believe that one day he would emerge from the jungle with a tale so epic that only Homer could tell it properly. Grann, too, like so many others before him, became infatuated with what became of Fawcett. He is not made in the same mold as Fawcett, or really any explorer. He is short, pudgy, and not athletic, but he is helped by some modern conveniences that Fawcett would have snickered at the prospect of using. If you so dare, strap on your machete and hack your way through the Amazon with Fawcett, and see if the jungle will eat you or make you into a legend.

”Those whom the Gods intend to destroy they first make mad!”

The movie was released April 17th, 2017. I have not had a chance to watch it yet.

As a companion volume, I would recommend reading Candace Millard’s equally fascinating book The River of Doubt.

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Justice League of America's Vibe, Vol. 1: Breach

Justice League of America's Vibe, Vol. 1: Breach by Geoff Johns
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cisco Ramon also known as Vibe gained amazing abilities and this is his origin story.


I literally only read this because of Cisco's portrayal in The Flash.

If not for this portrayal, I imagine I would have never even known about Vibe. Cisco despite being different than his TV counterpart is still a really likeable character. Incredibly kind hearted, but not nearly as goofy. His origin story is the basic one for superheroes. An accident happened that gifted a teen with powers to help him protect the Earth. Unfortunately gaining his powers caused him to lose his oldest brother Armando.

The first two-thirds of this story was really enjoyable. Cisco was using his powers and gaining fame thanks to A.R.G.U.S. putting him on their Justice League team.

Cisco took his job seriously and did his best. Unfortunately the last third got into some weird mainly side story that derailed the great direction the story was traveling in. If not for the last third of the story I give this 4 stars without a doubt.

Vibe is an interesting title and I'd definitely read any other adventures of Cisco Ramon.

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