A Short Reacher

Not a Drill by Lee Child
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think Lee Child wanted to write about virginal Canadian woodlands, so he penned this quickie. More on that later.

You're probably familiar with Jack Reacher the character by now, if not via the books, then probably through Tom Cruise's movie version. My wife would watch an in-house tech-vid on widget production if it starred Cruise, so I've seen the 2012 Jack Reacher movie a few times by proxy. It just plays in the background as part of an all-disaster-and/or-zombie-flick marathon looped forever while she sits on the couch -her command center- getting the editing done and admin work caught up on her wedding photography business. Brain candy movies are the best background noise for the work environment! And, as far as I can tell, that's what this Reacher stuff is, brain candy. That ain't a bad thing!

Having heard all about these books and skimmed a few, I thought I'd test the waters by dipping my big toe in the shallow section. So far, not bad! I didn't expect much, after all, Not A Drill is essentially a long short story and there's not much time to get a time to get much done in a mere 50 pages.

As mentioned before, in this one Child spends much of his time describing a primeval Canadian forest. The descriptions are so lush you can almost smell the clean, verdant air. I love a good hike in the forest, so I was all right with the very little action that takes place in Not A Drill. Almost nothing happens. There's a mysterious lock-down on the woods as the military moves in and tries to move everyone else out. Reacher can't help himself. He just has to stick his nose in there and find out what's up.

This was a nice baby step into the series. I'll gladly take another.

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Spade Tells a More Than Almost Interesting Story

Almost Interesting by David Spade
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a sucker for a comedian's autobiography. I figure, even if their life turns out to be uninteresting, at least there's a good chance I'll get a laugh or two out of the book. David Spade hasn't lived the most exciting life and he may not be the funniest dude in the world, but that didn't stop him from making this a fairly enjoyable book.

I read this on the tails of Tobias Wolff's excellent This Boy's Life and they're both similar in that each memoir contains estranged fathers and strange stepfather's. But that's pretty much where the similarities end. David Spade is funny, imo, but he's no writer. He lacks Wolff's eloquence, but hey, so do most people!

With that being said, I listened to him read his own book and can tell you, the man can perform. He outshined Amy Schumer's disappointing autobio, which I listened to a few months back. It wasn't so much that the content was necessarily better, rather it was the delivery. He's able to sell his stories and enliven his bits with a punch of inflection and energy in just the right place. That's important, because otherwise his snarky attitude and slacker's voice could've sunk this book.

Almost Interesting breaks no new ground in the memoir genre. It starts at the beginning. however, Spade is smart to quickly rush through his early years, picking out only the most poignant episodes of his childhood. Then he dwells on his formative adolescence for a bit longer. But this is the thing that kills me...Almost immediately he starts in about "chicks" and "getting laid". While he is quite self-aware and not a total creeper, this becomes a recurring topic from the pages regarding childhood right up to the end of the book.

I'm not surprised by the above. I happen to have first-hand knowledge of Spade's attempts with "the ladies". Late one night at a Taco Bell in Beverly Hills round about '97 or '98, my buddy and I were getting our taco fix on when in walked David Spade. He had a baseball cap pulled way down over his eyes in an attempt not to be noticed...as celebrities do, and thus get noticed. The huge bodyguard shadowing him didn't help his covert operation. I noticed him right off, but didn't bother him. In fact, nobody did even though a few were pointing and nodding, so he probably would've got in and out with no fuss like he seemed to wish to, except that decided to make a play on this gorgeous, 6 foot, all dolled up woman over at the hot sauce island. She barely looked at him before taking off. The bodyguard's demeanor never changed through out, so either he was a true professional or he'd seen this scene played out a few times already. Ah, poor David...you sinner. (Yes, that's a light Tommy Boy reference.)

Speaking of Tommy Boy. It's one of my guilty-pleasure favorites. Joe Dirt, too! Yes, they're "stupid" brain candy, but man, there some genuinely funny moments in both. So, part of my desire to read this bio was to hear a little backstory on both movies, not to mention his time on SNL. Spade delivers with some solid anecdotes here. I thought he might dwell on Chris Farley's tragic death and its affect on him, but Spade proves to be above playing for sympathy on that account. The book makes clear the deep impact Farley's friendship had on him, but he draws the line at revealing too much emotionally personal info.

If you're not a fan of Spade's personae, this won't change your opinion and you might as well steer clear. For all other's, I can recommend Almost Interesting and suggest listening to this surprisingly fun audiobook.

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Ground Zero

Andrew Holleran
Plume
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

Angry, frightened, sorrowful, yet filled with caring and compassion, this collection of deeply personal and powerful essays ponders how the AIDS epidemic has changed life for gay men, especially those in New York City.

My Review

“Life’s a movie people leave at different times; the ones who remain get to see a little more of what happens next.”

I thought that 23 years after my friend Mark’s death from AIDS I would finally be able to read a book about the disease and those who perished without shedding a tear. It turns out I was wrong. As Anthony Rapp says in his brilliant memoir, Without You, “Grief does not expire like a candle or the beacon on a lighthouse. It simply changes temperature.” My tears didn’t flow like they did in those late days of Mark’s illness and subsequent stay in a hospice. The place was so homey and comforting, decorated with artwork and handcrafts, each room private, the staff and volunteers warm and caring, that for just a moment I was able to forget it was a place where men went to die. They just hung there in the corners of my eyelids, refusing to drop.

This is a collection 23 essays written during the height of the AIDS epidemic, also referred to as a plague.

“It is easy to be angry with God, or the virus, or the general arrangement of the universe in which a microbe takes man from the summit, the apex, of mammalian life to the nadir of bacterial existence, which changes him from a paragon a little lower than the angels to the doormat of every germ that comes through the door; nature’s punching bag.”

Holleran did a superb job portraying the fear and anxiety of the times and I enjoyed the vivid descriptions of New York and its colorful, gay inhabitants. He writes of the importance of friendships, the joy and freedom that comes with loving who you chose, the destruction of lives, the desperate search for cures, the grief of survivors, and the changes within the gay community.

“Nothing is so difficult for the human mind to accept as the fact that much suffering in life is random, meaningless, and in a sense completely trivial: the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Though Holleran is eminently quotable, I found his writing style lush and rambly at times. The long sentences and descriptive passages definitely suited these stories, however. They felt intimate, personal, poignant, and suffused with love for what was and hope for a brighter future.

“And because, most curious of all, most odd, most marvelous, the truth is none of them is really chilled by the assertion – each of them thinks he will escape, I suspect. As Freud also said, “No one really believes in his own death.”"

There were two essays about literary authors I have not read that felt out of place in this book (Henry James and Santayana), and were quite frankly, a little long and boring. The other essays are a treasure and grim reminder that we must carry on and enjoy what life has to offer.

“The fact that people die does not mean we stop talking to them. It may mean we start talking to them. Especially when the people who have been left behind feel guilty about the fact; baffled by the accident of their own survival.”

THE AIDS MEMORIAL

Ranger's Folly

Ranger's Folly by J.T. Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Northern Ranger Fadis is heading home from war. The war has ended, but the King's men haunt his steps insisting he is a deserter and a thief. Fadis just wants to live in peace, see his wife, and meet his son. Unfortunately the King will not allow any of it.

Ranger's Folly is aptly named. Fadis was sent to war before his wife gave birth and he hasn't met his son. She stopped writing while he was away and now he fears the worst. He was one of the few rangers to survive the war and he only has an elven bow to show for his trouble and years away. It wasn't explicitly stated, but it appears that the King is unnecessarily cruel as he has sent ravens placing a bounty on Fadis's head. It seems for the exception of being alive everything has gone wrong for Fadis.

Ranger's Folly was a good short story. While most people have never gone away for war many can relate to being treating unfairly for no particularly good reason and that's what has happened to Fadis. I'm interested in seeing what's next for Fadis.

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THE HYPNOTIST BY LARS KEPLER

The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”They’d thought he was dead when they found him among the other bodies in the terraced house. He’d lost a great deal of blood, gone into a state of shock, and hadn’t regained consciousness until seven hours later.

He was the only surviving witness.

Detective Joona Linna was certain that the boy would be able to provide valuable information, possibly even identify the killer

But if the other circumstances had not been so exceptional, it would never even have occurred to anyone to turn to a hypnotist.”



Erik Maria Bark has seen his career go up in flames. His relationship with his son is changing and not for the better. His relationship with his wife is on life support. To cope with all of this, he is taking too many “legally prescribed” drugs.

When Detective Joona Linna calls him and wants him to hypnotize the one remaining witness in the bloody carnage that happened at the Ek home, his first response is to say no, not just no, but an emphatic no. Josef is suffering from more cuts than can be counted and is floating in a coma. Linna needs to know two things: where is the older sister Evelyn, and who was the perpetrator? Bark made a promise that he would never hypnotise anyone ever again after one of his patients went berserk, blamed him for everything, and turned public opinion against him.

Hypnotists are seen in the same light as charlatans, clowns, illusionists,and parlor tricksters, so when something goes wrong, people are just confirmed in their natural suspicions of them in the first place.

The circumstances are dire, and as Joona Linna always says, he is a stubborn man. He convinces Erik to use his gifts to find out the truth.

But the truth is so insidious that even these hardened professionals are shaken.

”Josef had a particular smell about him, a smell of burning rage, of burning chemicals.”

What the hell is going on?

To add to the already freakish circumstances Benjamin, Erik and Simone’s son, is taken from their home. Simone enlists the aid of her retired police officer father, Kennet Strang, to help try and find him. Is this connected to the Josef Ek case or does this have something to do with a crazy patient from Erik’s past? ”The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.”---William Faulkner

I’m not going to tell you anymore because this is such a plot based book, but I will say, when I was down to the last 100 pages, I didn’t stop until I turned the last page moments before the grandfather clock chimed twelve times.

I think the biggest issue that readers have with this book is that it was so overhyped before it was released. There were all the comparisons to Stieg Larsson and how Lars Kepler was going to be the next biggest thing since the invention of Swedish meatballs. For certain readers, this backfires big time. By the time they read the book, they almost resent having to read it, and their reactions to the book are colored by those resentments. The worst thing you can do is tell someone, emphatically, that they must read a book. The blitz of ads was doing just that. It is the equivalent of assigning a book to be read in school.

The second thing is all the subterfuge over who Lars Kepler is. People were first pointing the finger at Henning Mankell, which in itself is quite the flattering comparison, but Mankell denied that it was he. Lars is in fact these people.



Aren’t they just adorable?

Lars Kepler is the pseudonym of Swedish husband and wife team Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril. The two Alex’s. Some readers start to get Milli Vanilli vibes. Ah yes, we remember those two front men who were faker than Facebook News. The Alex’s were both writers before they decided to team up to write mysteries, so I think we can safely set that speculation aside.

You might be curious about the origins of the pseudonym. Wikipedia kindly gave me that information. ”Lars is a homage to the Swedish crime fiction author Stieg Larsson as he inspired the duo to start writing crime fiction. The name Kepler comes from the German scientist Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), who solved one of his time’s greatest mysteries: it was his calculations of the planets’ orbits that paved the way for Newton’s theses about gravity.”

Oh no, not Stieg Larsson again! Being compared to Larsson is almost as big a curse as having your book compared to Harry Potter or the The Hunger Games.

*Sigh!* Don’t be manipulated by your own manipulating mind.

The staccato short chapters drove me bonkers until I adjusted, though other reviewers have said how much they like that writing style. It probably does pick up the pace of the reading, but I’m more of a Victorian reader who doesn’t mind nestling down into a chapter for twenty or forty pages or so. I do adore Nordic Noir, and this plot ticks all the boxes for hardboiled and grit. Detective Joona Linna kind of takes a backseat in this one, but I’m looking forward to seeing him move up to the front seat for the next book. He is annoyingly good at his job, which to me is also a nice nod to Kurt Wallander.

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A Gripping Tale of Escape

Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The story of a man escaping a prison camp would pique my interest at any time, but add the detail that it's a North Korean camp and I'm definitely interested. After all, North Korea's been in the news lately. Perhaps you've noticed.

Shin Dong-hyuk was born into a prison labor camp. It's totalitarian rules and draconian punishment was life to him. He barely knew his father and viewed his mother as competition for food. He was raised to snitch out his fellow prisoners to the guards. This included family. Spying and reporting on others was the only way to receive kind treatment at the prison. Working hard and never screwing up merely kept one from being beaten.

Thousands have fled the destitute country, but few have escaped from one of these prisons and successfully navigated their way into China and then South Korea, an especially difficult undertaking for a young man who knew next to nothing about the world beyond his prison walls. This is what made me hesitant to read Blaine Harden's Escape from Camp 14. How could this seemingly impossible tale be true? Then I heard that Shin had lied about certain details regarding his story and I thought, oh boy, here we go...

However, Harden did a good job in allaying my fears. It turns out Shin's lies did not change the details of his escape or the horror stories of his confinement. No, his lies were for self-preservation. He lied out of shame for the deaths he had caused as a boy who knew nothing of compassion.

This is a truly remarkable story and a nicely constructed book. It is compact and sticks mostly to the prison camp aspect of the situation in North Korea. Some pertinent recent history and political information is relayed in order to frame Shin's story, but this is not the book you are looking for if you seek out a well-rounded and deeply detailed account of...well...how the hell North Korea got so fucked up. I did come away with a better understanding, however, and it made me want to find out more.

One last thing before I finish up. This is a tough read. It's brutal. "Heart-wrenching" ain't the half of it. To put it into perspective, these camps are akin to the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet gulags, and they have been in operation since the 1950s. The prisoners within them are now mostly the children and grandchildren of those who fought for the South during the Korean War, because political prisoners of this nature are doomed to this life for three generations before the family is deemed to have paid the price of their transgressions. Only humans could create such a Hell.

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Zombie Boyz

T.J. Klune et al.
Wilde City Press
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

Board up the windows, push an old dresser against the door and load your shotgun. A zombie apocalypse is about to hit Wilde City, and if you want the best survival tips, six of Wilde City’s boys are here to help.

You’ll never want to exercise again as Eric Arvin and TJ Klune turn a gym full of hunks into a smorgasbord of terror in GHOUL’S GYM.

Gather your friends and fight for the man you love, as Ethan Stone and Daniel A Kaine turn Vegas into a zombie nightmare in SURVIVING SIN CITY.

And bring a date to dinner to celebrate Grumpy Grampy’s 90th birthday and introduce your family to your new zombie boyfriend in Geoffrey Knight and Ethan Day’s GUESS WHO’S COMING AT DINNER.

You’ll scream with terror and howl with laughter as Wilde City’s boys bring you our first undead anthology ZOMBIE BOYZ.

My Review

I was a huge fan of The Walking Dead. I’m not sure what happened in the last few seasons. While I am happy that Rick’s gang is no longer a passive victim of Negan’s menacing Saviors, I’ve become unhappy with the show’s direction. The episodes feel long and drawn out, with no surprises or forward momentum. There are far too many secondary characters that I’ve lost track of them, plot threads left dangling, and weak dialogues. Yet, I will continue to watch until the end. Despite their predictability, I enjoy zombie stories for their exploration of human behavior when society falls apart, the challenges of survival when vital supplies diminish and zombies multiply, and the violence and mindless action that allows one to escape from the world’s problems for a little while.

Zombie Boyz is a collection of three very different zombie tales:

Who’s Coming at Dinner ★★★★

Told from the perspective of geeky teenager, Chandler Cox, we get to meet his hunky jock boyfriend, Zane Addison, celebrate his grandma’s 90th birthday, and learn why eating hamburgers is bad for you. I love how this starts with a birthday party and ends with a birthday party. This is a lighthearted and very humorous zombie romance that focuses less on gore and more on family relationships, falling in love, coming out, and...coming. Chandler’s family was priceless.

Surviving Sin City ★★★

Though this was more of a classic zombie tale, strong characterization and blistering action scenes made it shine. Told in alternating perspectives by Kaleb and Cooper, we get to see how both their worlds gradually fall apart. They were so peevish and Cooper so fiercely independent that it took some time for them to grow on me. There was hot sex too. Fear not, dear readers, no zombies were involved.

Ghoul’s Gym ★★★★★

Uly and Jake are going through a little rough patch. Despite that, there is no question that after a year they are still deeply in love and have an agreement not to go to bed angry. While this is by far the most romantic story in this collection, there is plenty of gore, erotica and despair to go around. After meeting the Alphabet Twinks, you will never look at zombies the same way again. This exquisitely written story was a balm for my horror-loving and romantic soul and definitely a unique take on zombies!

Nighthawk

Nighthawk by David F. Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A serial killer is targeting Chicago's worst and most racist high profile citizens. Nighthawk contemplates if he should intervene.

Meanwhile Nighthawk protects Chicago from itself and those who intend to arm the people to murder one another.


First I want to say I'm absolutely amazed Marvel comics published this volume of Nighthawk at all and I'm not surprised it only lasted 6 issues. David F. Walker pulled no punches and stepped deeply into the problems facing Chicago. He covers police brutality,

illegal weapons,

gun violence,

gangs, and the possibility that perhaps it's simply best to let Chicago burn.

The undertaking of discussing these massive issues in a comic book is immense yet all sides are shown. The issue shows good and bad people in all walks of life along with those with questionable actions like Nighthawk himself.

This version of Nighthawk as always reminds me of a deadly version of Batman. In this comic I felt as though he was clearly a mixture of Batman and the Punisher. Nighthawk like Batman has a command center, someone to assist him from afar, and a slew of expensive high tech gadgets. He's like Punisher in that when he has the opportunity to end a problem he ends it instantly rather than providing it an opportunity to strike again.

It was interesting to see Nighthawk deliberate over how to handle the serial killer taking out Chicago's worst. Nighthawk seemed a wee bit hypocritical in that he went after the serial killer even though he himself killed similar people for similar reasons. I guess the difference is that Nighthawk never went out of his way to kill someone, he only killed those trying to kill him first.

Nighthawk is not for the faint of heart, but it's a good volume for those who enjoy real life political problems in a comic book world.

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GUNPOWDER MOON BY DAVID PEDREIRA

Gunpowder Moon by David Pedreira
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

”Life is so tenuous on Luna’s desiccated expanse that staying alive is an endeavor practiced with almost religious fervor. No one ever deserts another man on the Moon. Race, creed, religion, flag---none of that crap matters. Dechert would risk his life for any Chinese digger in distress, as long as they were within range. And he knew they would do the same for him.

At least until what happened to Cole.”


The Moon---”Earth’s naked shadow.”

When survival is paramount, we are drawn together in the interest of mutual survival. We forget all the things that divide us. It is only when we have the luxury of existing at a certain level of comfort that we start to figure out ways to separate ourselves. There are plenty of natural resources for everyone on the moon. There are several countries participating in mining the moon, but the two elephants are the Chinese and the Americans; all the nations of the world have a stake in extracting enough Helium-3 to keep the lights on back on Earth.

And the Earth is still in recovery from an apocalyptic event.

”Asteroid collisions you can prepare for, carbon emissions you can legislate against, but who expected a subsea methane eruption would plunge us back into the Dark Ages for more than a decade?”

As if I don’t have enough things to worry about, now I have to add methane eruption to the list?

Caden Dechert is the chief of the U.S. mining operation on the edge of the Sea of Serenity. He is a veteran of wars in the Middle East and is reminded of his tour of duty with every breath he takes. ”The gunpowder smell of moondust filled his nostrils.”

Dechert has a good relationship with his counterpart over on the Chinese side of the moon. They have similar military backgrounds and both have no illusions about the simmering politics on Earth that could spill out into the universe, even to the moon. They have enough to worry about keeping some catastrophic event from wiping out their stations, such as solar flares or something as seemingly mundane as moondust crippling their power supply.

They don’t have time for murder.

But murder is what they got.

When that hatch explodes and kills the first surfer dude on the moon, the ramifications go well beyond just the extinguishing of a life. Dechert has dealt with death his entire adult life, but never has he had a death mean so much. ”The dead settle in our mind like cooling embers. After a time they diminish, snuffed out by the immediate, and then a puff of memory rekindles them and for a moment they are hot and near once again.”


A boot print is one of the few clues.

That explosion that blew that hatch on the moon is the equivalent of the bullet that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. The tinder is so dry that it only takes a spark to light a conflagration that could burn up not only all the progress Earth has made recovering from the methane eruption, but could level us back to the Stone Age.

Dechert has experienced being in the middle of a war, but he has never been at the flashpoint of the beginning of a war.

Was it the Chinese?

Doesn’t make sense.

Then who was it?

Before everyone dies on the moon, maybe we should take a moment to look at the sky.”How to explain the Moon’s thunderous star field to the uninitiated? It would be like describing the yellows and reds of Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows to a blind man.” Maybe we all need to look at the sky more often and clear our minds of the deluge of testosterone driven patriotism. Dechert’s loyalties, never in question before, are wavering as he tries to sift through the evidence and find a solution before there is no turning back.

The American marines arrive. The Chinese equivalent of super troopers arrive. Weapons that have never been allowed on the moon are now bristling on every person’s body. Who killed Cold Benson is becoming irrelevant to everyone, except Dechert. How many times does a war start and, within a short amount of time, everyone forgets how it ever started? Why are we fighting? Ask the Hatfields and the McCoys why they hate each other. It is like we are all just waiting for a reason to give in to our most primordial instincts.

The smell of fear on the moon is mingling with the acrid stench of gunpowder, like lovers reunited over the expanse of history.


The Sea of Serenity is not so serene after murder comes to visit.

What I really enjoy about this book is how real it feels. This isn’t some science-fiction universe that exists in some future that is beyond our own scope. This future is tomorrow or next year or certainly within our life spans. President John F. Kennedy asked us to go to the moon; now all someone has to do is ask us to go to the moon and stay. I was very aware of the constant danger of eminent death. One mistake and not only will you kill yourself, but you might kill your whole team. It is a fragile and invigorating way to live. Where David Pedreira really shines is in his descriptions of pulse pounding, moon blasting action. I was so involved in what was happening that I needed my own space suit to monitor my vitals. ”Mayday, mayday, mayday”was a metronome that blasted through the comms in my dreams for several nights after finishing this book.

Buckle up, squeeze your cheeks together, pour a pitcher of Tang, and put your cell phone on silent. You won’t have time for Earthly concerns once you land on the moon.

I want to thank Harper Voyager for sending me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

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The Magos By: Dan Abnett

The Magos by Dan Abnett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Last Warhammer for a bit, I (kinda) promise.

Eisenhorn is a bad man, an inquistor (for those not familiar with the universe) basically a cop. This is a collection of short stories and a new one that shows the world that most of Warhammer books don't cover, the dirty underside of an already dirty world, (yup..that bad)

This is great stuff, if you are a scifi fan and crime noir type fan..this is a good read for you and it is spring break...you need something to read.



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