Royals Vol. 1: Beyond Inhuman

Royals Vol. 1: Beyond Inhuman by Al Ewing
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

All the terrigen on Earth is gone, meaning the current generation of Inhumans will be the last. The Inhumans are resigned to this fact until Marvel Boy,

a Kree from another dimension, comes along promising he can help the Inhumans find out who they truly are by heading to the Kree home world of Hala.

Beyond Inhuman has terrible artwork, well maybe it isn't terrible but it's cartoony and not in a great way. Now that I got that out I find myself intrigued. The dual storyline of the present and the distant future with the last Inhuman has left me curious to find out more. The remaining aspects of the storyline seem to simply build up the tension for what will happen next. The story did a good enough job to make me want to know how the tale ends.








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KILLING COMMENDATORE BY HARUKI MURAKAMI

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”Our lives really do seem strange and mysterious when you look back on them. Filled with unbelievably bizarre coincidences and unpredictable, zigzagging developments. While they are unfolding, it’s hard to see anything weird about them, no matter how closely you pay attention to your surroundings. In the midst of the everyday, these things may strike you as simply ordinary things, a matter of course. They might not be logical, but time has to pass before you can see if something is logical.”

Our Narrator for this tale, unnamed, is a gifted portrait painter. He can capture the true inner nature of a subject and is astute enough to understand that people want to see what is best about them revealed. For most of us, who we are goes well beyond what we look like on the surface, and this artist is an expert at capturing those hidden layers in our surface reality.

This life is soon to be a part of his past. We meet the Narrator at the point that his wife Yuzu has just informed him that she wants a divorce. She doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t want to explain herself. She just wants him to accept what she wants. After six years of marriage, I think anyone who wants to dissolve the union probably owes the other person an explanation. “It’s not you; it’s me” kind of thing at the very least. Our Narrator is puzzled but accepts the situation, packs up his artist’s materials, and goes on a walkabout, or to be more precise a driveabout.

This is a theme in many Haruki Murakami books, the grand quest. The people he meets and the situations he encounters in this brief journey do have a lasting impact on his life, on his art, and the future plot of this novel.

He ends up in a mountain retreat, staying in the house of the respected artist Tomohiko Amada. He is alone up there but finds that he is perfectly suited to a life without people. He can focus on his art and feels inspired to be working in the studio of such a celebrated artist. He is done with portrait work and wants to finally explore art without restrictions. He has created a perfect storm of creativity, and he feels reinvigorated about painting. The question is, how long can the world be held at bay?

The house is like many houses of old people, filled with things from a certain era. Records instead of CDs, for example. Murakami mentions the pure pleasure there is in turning a record over, to listening to songs in order because records used to be carefully arranged to lead a listener in a direction to achieve greater understanding, as the songs built beautifully upon one another. Now, people buy the single they hear on the radio and never listen to the rest of the album. It is a real bastardization of the craft of music. It is consuming without finding the soul behind the music.

Murakami also takes the opportunity to talk about books as well.

”All the books on Mr. Amada’s bookshelf were old, among them a few unusual novels that would be hard to get hold of these days. Works that in the past had been pretty popular but had been forgotten, read by no one. I enjoyed reading this kind of out-of-date novel. Doing so let me share--with this old man I’d never met--the feeling of being left behind by time.”

Readers who have followed my reviews for a long time (I do appreciate your loyalty and your input into what I read) will know, without me saying this, the almost pathological curiosity I have about reading what we can term “lost books.” Books that may have even had a large audience at one time but now are not read at all, or even more enticing, those books that never did find an audience but are actually minor masterpieces. When I dive into these books, I feel like I’m an archaeologist discovering buried treasure that deserves to see the light of day again. How about those fat WW2 books from the 1950s? Many of them have merit and should continue to find new audiences. How about a book like Mortal Leap by MacDonald Harris? This book has been out of print for decades, but it is a seriously entertaining and deep novel that has been...lost.

So for me having an opportunity to explore a personal library that is suspended in time, filled with books from the 1930s, 1950s, or even 1980s, would be as conducive to raising my pulse rate as having Salma Hayek nibble on my neck.

The other part of this quote that really resonates with me is “being left behind by time.” Several of the characters in this novel, even the young girl Mariye Akikawa, who becomes so intricate to the plot, struggle with accepting the importance of gadgets, like cell phones. The pressure for each and every person on the planet to own and pay those alarming, high fees for service is frankly too overwhelming. To not own a cell phone these days is almost like not being a human being at all.

I will admit I’ve always been fascinating by new breakthroughs in technology. I owned a computer when they were really too expensive to own personally. I watched with fascination as the internet came into being, chunk...chunk...chunk a few loaded pixels at a time. I’ve always loved science, even when I haven’t fully understood it. However, now technology seems to be intent on not freeing me, but confining me. It owns me rather than being a tool for my own edification. I hear more and more people say to me, why do they have to know anything if they can just google it? There are so many things wrong with that statement that I could write a whole dissertation on what the true meaning of that statement means to the future, but I’m going to keep to one part of it. How will people know what to google if they don’t have enough reference points already in their mind to start with?

I’m starting to believe that I am a man on the verge of being left behind, and it doesn’t scare me one bit. I may move in with the artist in his time stamped house, and while he paints, I’ll read and write. We will have tea at three with crumpets.

The plot becomes more and more convoluted as the world does start to encroach upon the artist. When I say world, I may not mean this world. A ringing bell in the middle of the night from underground sets off a series of events that revolve around a painting called Killing Commendatore by Amada that is carefully wrapped up and stored in the attic. The subject of the painting is a scene from the opera Don Giovanni. The last time I was in Prague, they were showing Don Giovanni in the theater it debuted in for the first time since the original showing. Needless to say, I scored tickets, and the experience was as magical as I could hope for.

When you read and travel, it is amazing the cool associations a person can develop that adds enjoyment to future reading and traveling experiences.

His wealthy neighbor, Wataru Menshiki, offers him an outrageous amount of money to paint his portrait. He seems intent on becoming good friends, as well. Unfortunately, through trial and error, I have discovered that people expressing that much interest in me usually means they want something from me. I’d like to think that I’m infinitely fascinating, and that is enough reason for people to want to spend time with me, but I’ve been disabused of that idea. The artist is of the same mind as me and looks with suspicion upon this offer of friendship. What is Menshiki’s true motivation?

There are many philosophical concerns, psychological growth, supernatural occurrences, including astral projection sex, and some wonderful descriptions of the artistic process all within the confines of this novel. Most readers should find parts, or maybe even all of these elements, as aspects that they can identify with. This book reminds me somewhat of Murakami’s masterpiece Kafka on the Shore, but it lacks that something something that would have had me genuflecting to the deftness and creativity of his genius. Normally, I rate books against other books in their genre, but with Murakami, like say Charles Dickens, I can only rate him against his own body of work. A contemplative book that tries to slow the world down and remind us that fast is not always better and new is not always an improvement.

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Hot Bill On Bill Action

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really short, but really enjoyable!

It's not a surprise that this is short. First off, it belongs as part of a series of concise biographies. Secondly, there isn't much known about Shakespeare, so biographies of him should be short. Why go on and on about something if there's nothing to go on about?!

The larger of them tend to devote many pages to dissecting the plays. Bryson does not. That was a little bit disappointing...but only a little. I've spent enough time dissecting them. I'd rather just work on enjoying these days, not analyzing them.

I'm glad Bryson touched on the authorship question. "Did Shakespeare write all this stuff?" I entertained the notion when I encountered it back in school, but having looked at the evidence and given it a good think, I've come to the conclusion that it is a ludicrous question. Bryson agrees and lays out why.

Is this a scholarly work? No. But have you seen some of what passes for such? I'm okay with this. It seems like sound logic deduced from absorbing sound work on the topic. After all (and for example) one of the leading proponents of the anti-Shakespeare movement was a woman who wanted to claim all of the plays for her cousin Sir Francis Bacon. She was biased and, as it turns out, crazy. Her book on the subject was widely dismissed at the time of publication as ridiculous, but the idea lingered, took shape and went on to have a long second life in quarters that rely on scanty evidence or none at all. And yet they persist. It all seems absurd.

Anywhoodle. Looking for a basic bio on Shakespeare? Here it is!

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The Croning

The Croning by Laird Barron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Don Miller has been married to his wife Michelle for 60 years and has been in the dark as to what goes on on her mysterious trips most of the time, beginning with a trip of theirs to Mexico decades ago that saw him beaten, scared, and out of his mind. What has she really been up to all these years and will Don survive the knowledge if he ever uncovers it?

Benoit Lelièvre of Dead End Follies has been singing the praises of Laird Barron for the last couple years. When this popped up on the cheap, I couldn't say no.

While I heard Laird Barron wrote cosmic horror, I immediately thought he'd be mining the H.P. Lovecraft vein, Cthulhu, shoggoths, and such. I was wrong. The vein he's working is all his own.

I had no idea what to expect with The Croning. It started with a very dark retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. At first, I was scratching my head but the book does a great job of establishing the Children of Old Leech as something that's been on earth a while. It also does some foreshadowing of events yet to come in the main tale.

The main tale tells of an ill-fated jaunt to Mexico that was Don's first brush with the horrors that lurk in the shadows. From there, it bounces back and forth between Don in his middle age to Don as an octogenarian, with Don walking the line between normalcy and sanity-blasting cosmic horror the entire time. When Don figures out what his wife's anthropology trips are really all about, it's far, far, far too late.

The odd structure does a lot to let the reader experience a lot of the disorientation Don normally feels. He's forgetful in the extreme and kind of a doormat. Although, being a doormat is probably the best one can hope for after sanity-testing revelations in a cave in Mexico. For my money, Old Leech and his children are more horrifying than Cthulhu ever as been. Earth is already in their clutches and it's only a matter of time.

Laird Barron's writing has a poetic flourish to it. I highlighted quite a few quotable lines on my kindle. He definitely a pulp author with a poet's heart, like Raymond Chandler or Robert E. Howard at times.

What else is there to say? The writing was fantastic, the story was compelling, and the horrors were horrifying. I'm glad I have a few more Barron books on my kindle. Five out of five stars.




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Small Miracles

Ellen Holiday
Dreamspinner Press
Reviewed by Nancy
3 out of 5 stars

Summary

When runaway Cal Harrison steps into a bar to escape the freezing rain, he meets Matt Kirkland, who buys him a meal and eventually takes him home for the night. But Cal's been on hard times, and he doesn't believe something as good as Matt could possibly happen to him. Not without setting him up for disaster. So Cal leaves—only to discover Matt’s not just a rich kid but a well-known millionaire. Soon Cal begins to question whether he should have swallowed his pride and left his difficult life behind.

My Review

Even though this was a little too sweet and unrealistic for me, I couldn’t help being swept away by the plight of the main characters - Cal Harrison, who fled the home of an abusive stepfather and is now living on the streets, and Matt Kirkland, despite having everything he needs and more money than he knows what to do with, feels a void in his life.

The heart-wrenching first scene when Cal walks into a bar, dirty, dripping rain onto the floor and shivering, effectively conveys his desperation, his discomfort, and the harsh realities of homelessness. He doesn’t have the money to pay the $5.00 cover charge. Matt not only pays the cover, but buys him drink and food as well.

Matt wears down Cal’s resistance and takes him home. Their sex is warm, intense and magical. But once it’s over, their separate worlds come into conflict. Cal takes his damp clothes and flees Matt’s apartment.

For the first time in quite a while, Cal feels comfortable, safe and secure. Can he trust Matt not to disappoint him like others in his life have?

I liked the way this story explored situations that can lead to homelessness and the difficulties and indignities one must endure. Cal’s life is tough and Matt proves he’s not an unfeeling millionaire.

It’s all too good to be true, but surely there’s no harm in occasionally indulging in the fantasy that people are basically good and have your best interests at heart.

Thanos vol. 1 Thanos Returns

Thanos, Vol. 1: Thanos Returns by Jeff Lemire
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Thanos has returned to reclaim what was his. The only problem, Thanos is dying.

He searches for a cure while others like his son Thane, conspire against him.

Even weakened he is still Thanos.


Thanos's Return is pretty mediocre. There is nothing particularly special about it any way. Thanos is back, people either want to kill him or escape him. It was cool to see the Elder of the Universe The Champion though.

I'd also say the artwork is very solid.

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BITCHING BITS OF BONE A RETELLING OF THE CANTERBURY TALES

Bitching Bits of Bone by Norman Mounter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

***If you are of a delicate nature and offended by flatulence, bawdy sex, and creative cursing, then this is not the book or review for you. Drunk sailors, hellbound friars, unrepentant whores, adulterous wives, rat bastard husbands, sinners, fallen saints, and curious readers, please proceed, and do so quickly please, before the Archbishop declares this review the devil’s work and consigns this book to the bonfire.

Needless to say, my bags, errhhh really just my books, are packed, and at the first glimmer of torches and glinting pitchforks, I will scuttle away to a new local. Salman Rushdie is on my speed dial.

Ye have been warned.***

Let’s jump right in, shall we?

”Give me life, give me riches, give me power---and give me a ripe slut! Radix malorum est cupiditas---bah! Away with such lies and hypocrisy! Ad libitum suits me much better. Give me corn-ripe beer in the belly and a whore to sard in every town! For I am John Trent--Monk, Pardoner, Inquisitor...and Antichrist! Malevolent from the moment of my spawning, I have yet to meet my match when it comes to unadulterated evil and corruption!”



Ahh yes, The Pardoner, a fine specimen of the church. A man that no woman, girl, or boy would ever want to share a narrow bed with, or a dark alley, or really exchange the time of day with. His friend The Summoner is cut from the same dark, depraved cloth. A man beset by boils that I would describe to you, but then I’d be running the risk of hundreds, if not thousands, of my friends and followers upchucking all over their computers and phones. He, too, is a man from whom one does not want to turn away; for chances are, you will feel that firm push in your back by a pox ridden hand while lecherous fingers seek the sweet pleasures lurking beneath your breeches or skirts.

*Shudder* and *shudder* once again. My teeth chattered on the second one. BITCHING BITS OF BONE!!! How much did chastity belts cost in 14th century England? If you are fine featured or ugly but young or even haggard and old, you either must be fleet of foot or secure your tenders under lock and key.

Oh, and there be friars, as well. How about this pious man of the church?

”He has a magnificent instrument which he plays frequently, letting the tavern wenches touch and stroke its highly-polished wood. There is no limit to his lechery, for cuckold is Friar Pike’s middle name, and he can romp like any whelp this side of London Bridge. Many a wealthy merchant has he also capricornified during those most intimate of confessions with pretty little wives. His absolutions come fast, hot and strong. His pleasant penances are never harsh, but are the very cream of human kindness.”

Don’t you love that word capricornified? You don’t have to know what it means to know what it means. Goodness, as my Chaucer professor at the University of Arizona would say...there is a lot to unpack on nearly every page. Of course, he was reading The Canterbury Tales to us in Middle English, beautifully I might add, but little did I know he was reading us the redacted version, the heavily expunged version that left out the pure essence of the human spirit. Fortunately for us, Dr. Norman Mounter has brought to light the original version. The one that Chaucer wrote unfettered by the heavy, whip ladened hand of the church.


Now if you put Dr. Norman Mounter in 14th century period robes and boots, wouldn’t he look exactly like Geoffrey Chaucer?

It’s not like Chaucer wanted to write Canterbury Tales in the first place. He got into a bit of a kerfuffle with a friar by the name of Cuthbert. Who among us has not felt the impulse to grab a friar by the ears and bang his head off the table, or splatter his nose across his face, or quite possibly even snap his licentious arm? The church decided that, as penance, Chaucer must write the great book of pilgrimage that will be read far and wide with the hope, I’m sure, of increasing the traffic of gullible pilgrims whom the church can fleece the whole distance to Canterbury with trinkets, indulgences, or pig bones sold as saintly remains. All of this will be wrapped in a healthy dose of fire and brimstone. After all, if not for the threat of hell, churches would be grand homes for crickets.

What we all need to fear more than the afterlife is old age. The knight gives us a preview of what is in store for us.

”My Knight’s armour is corroded now. What little febrile flesh remains is melting into my privy water. My face is lupine and scrofulous. My spine has decayed and my bones crumble and collapse. My lungs have rotted inside me. With spittle thick and bloody, I am coughing up my very soul.”



After reading that grotesque description of your potential final days (don’t think you are immune), you must not waste your youth. You must act while the vine runs hot with passion, intrigue, and curiosity of the world beyond your cubicle/apartment/dreary life. You must seize not only the day, but the hour and the minute, as well. Whether that be the cute intern (don’t seize her, woo her) on level three or that handsome devil (don’t seize him, flirt with him) at the reception desk in the lobby, or booking that trip to London, Paris, or Rome and squeezing it all on a credit card, or going to work in a bookstore because you love books, or becoming a teacher because you want to make a difference, most definitely walk away from that soul killing job and chase your creative dreams.

Oh, and when you go to London, be sure to pack your copy of Bitching Bits of Bones. I can assure you it will give you proper perspective when you visit Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury.



The Clerk will tell you a tale that will have you fanning your rosy cheeks with both hands. His impression of other men’s wives, through personal experience, is that they all have a bawdy side just waiting to be let loose with the proper strumming and a reasonable chance of not being caught.

”I tell no lie when I say that you cannot trust a married woman: she is weak and prone to vice and japery---it’s her natural state! There is a common whore in every wife, so let’s not be too inquisitive---for if you poke and pry too deeply, you may very well smell another man’s mettle!”

Anybody else feeling as ”Stung as a Strumpet” ?

I must apologize for the Clerk to all the devoted married women who have read this far into my review. Thank you for hanging in there, and thank you for reserving that special glint in your eye for your husband. The Clerk would be confounded by your dutiful loyalty to your vows.

If anyone smells a horrendous, bitching bits of bone odor while reading this review, you have fallen too far into the world to which I have exposed you. The stench could be from the bowels of any of our pilgrims or possibly a combination of those among them who let loose the thunderous kind and those more inclined to let loose the insidious, deadly, silent ones. The resulting concoction burned my nostrils and watered my eyes numerous times while riding downwind from these flatulent characters. Tis one of the dangers of meeting the unsanitized version of Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic tale.

If I did not mention your favorite pilgrim from the Canterbury Tales, no worries. They are lurking about with Chaucer, gorging themselves on blackbird, plover, curlew, fried fig fitters, comfits, fantailed peacock, honeyed damsons, verjuice plums, and quenching their thirst with hearty, numerous mugs of mead. Is it any wonder that their flatulence rises birds from trees, stampedes cattle, and wilts the flowers along the pilgrimage trail? So be on guard in your travels from all those poxy whores, those lecherous men of the church, those sticky fingered tavern owners, those pretty tapsters, and lusty widows. They will all compromise your virtue as they lighten your purse.

Highly Recommended to the depraved and those seeking an honest view of humanity. As we know, lustful debauchery never lurks far from the hearts of men and women. You will chortle and snicker. You will laugh until you feel pinpricks of tears in your eyes. You will chastise yourself for enjoying the more salacious elements. Most importantly of all, if you must break wind, please let it fly; it will only add to the realism of the experience of reading this book.

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Block's Best?

A Ticket to the Boneyard by Lawrence Block
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This might be the most intense Matt Scudder book yet!

Block kept up the tension by putting his main character at risk. That's something you can't do in every book, not in a detective series, and still maintain realistic integrity. But slid it in now and then and wow does it heighten the suspense!

Creating a thoroughly despicable and tenacious villain is helpful, too. It's been a while since I've hated a character quite as much as James Leo Motley. (Is it mandatory that all serial killers have three names?)

An almost perfect balance is struck between Scudder's professional and personal life. When Block allows his main character to breathe it makes sense and paces the book quite well.

A Ticket to the Boneyard continues Block's Scudder series in great style!

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You Never Cared

Michele L. Montgomery
Self-Published
Reviewed by Nancy
3 out of 5 stars

Summary

Jordan is a golden child — wealthy, popular, the self-professed ruler of the senior class. Jordan is also a bully, a bully whose group of friends mercilessly tormented seventeen-year-old Casper for being different, for being poor, for suffering silently. Random acts of abuse from his classmates were par for the course in Casper’s life, until one night, the bullying evolved into a hate crime and he, unable to endure, longing for peace, finally took his own life.

You Never Cared is the heartbreaking tale, told in Jordan’s words, of a life stolen, of love lost, and of a soul compromised. But ultimately, it is a story of forgiveness and redemption. As Sammy, Casper’s friend and lover, attempts to cope with the anguish of his boyfriend’s loss, Jordan attempts to own his part in the crime, trying to make amends but knowing his only hope is to carry on Casper’s legacy, to work to build a better future for boys and girls who, like Casper, just need a strong voice to encourage and stand up for them.

My Review

Bullying is an epidemic that has troubled teachers and students for years. The psychological and degrading effect it has on its victims is far more lasting than any physical wounds.

I am glad there are realistic works of fiction, such as this story, that explore the negative effects of bullying on the victim, the victim’s classmates who witness the bullying, and the bullies themselves.

17-year-old Casper takes his own life as a result of bullying that has gone too far. This story is told from the perspective of Jordan, who allowed his friends to torment Casper, and who was once his friend until their lives went in separate directions.

Sadly, this story did not have the emotional impact on me that it should have. Maybe there were too many “I” sentences, too much introspection, too much telling and not showing. I just couldn’t feel Jordan’s pain, suffering, and remorse, while Sammy’s agony broke my heart. I wanted to understand why Jordan allowed a friend to suffer and I wanted to be convinced he was sorry, but I didn’t like him any better at the end than I did at the beginning.

The Riyria Sampler

The Riyria Sampler by Michael J. Sullivan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First and foremost I must mention that the Riyria Sampler is free on Amazon and Michael J. Sullivan's website. Michael J. Sullivan's site has various format options while Amazon only offers a Kindle edition.

The Thieves

This short story is one I'm familiar with as it's in the omnibus Theft of Swords. Hadrian and Royce find themselves about to be robbed until a choice word changes the conversation. I do enjoy reading about Royce being helpful.

3 out of 5 stars


The Viscount

A woman asks for help, Hadrian springs to her aid, and Royce scowls.

The Viscount perfectly explains Hadrian and Royce's personalities. Hadrian sees himself as a hero and is willing to do good for good's sake. Royce is brooding and jaded while exuding an air of danger. The two are opposites in seemingly every way yet they balance each other's shortcomings.

The Viscount while simple provides a good look into the members of Riyria.

3 out of 5 stars


The Jester

Riyria has been hired by a candle makers widow to help find a treasure. A dwarf Jester left pieces to a map and dangerous traps for any who would come looking.

The Jester is a solid short story that depicts the kind of mess Riyria usually finds itself in. Nothing ground breaking occurs. This is the type of short story that truly doesn't add much to the larger story although it reinforces the duo's effectiveness and relationship.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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