Jeff Sexton

So You're Investigating A Dead Body - That Moves. What Do You Do? And thus, the critical hook here. Shulkin combines his own military experience generally with his general medical knowledge as a working MD and spins a tale he openly admits (in the Author's Note) was designed to pay homage to some of the great comic book tales of old - and it absolutely works. The Nick Fury level spy story, the Purple Man horror of not being in complete control of your own body, in addition to the far more obvious Captain America and Hulk aspects here. Indeed, Shulkin takes nearly the entirety of the Marvel *comic* stories - where *oh so much* of the villains' actions revolved around some version of trying to recreate the Super Soldier program that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America - and manages to use that as inspiration for a plausible-enough real-world tale of how those things could actually play out.

Thus, for those looking for a fun action read with balls to the wall "total nonstop" action... this is going to be a ride you're going to love. For those needing a palate/ mind cleanse from the seriousness of whatever drama/ suspense/ thriller had your brain in a twist or from the latest bubblegum pop saccharine sweet romance (with perhaps some ghost pepper spice, if that is your thing)... this is going to give you exactly that. A fun few hours of engaging your brain just enough to follow along with all the twists here - and shutting it down enough to simply enjoy the ride. (At nearly 400 pages, this is on the longer side for many readers, though perhaps fantasy readers will enjoy the "speed read", since their books generally double that length. ;) )

Overall a fun read that does everything Shulkin set out to do and likely then some, this is absolutely one to check out almost no matter your normal preferences.

Very much recommended.

The New God Of Science Fiction Returns To Intergalactic War While Maintaining A Very Human Tale. This is one of those Robinson tales that will be great for anyone, no matter if you've never read a single other book by him or those of us (few) like myself who have known him since MySpace when he only had a couple of books available and have read everything he's written since. It is the start of a brand new trilogy - one we're apparently going to get the entire trilogy of in 2024 or at worst a calendar year of this book's release on US Memorial Day Weekend 2024 (last weekend of May, for non-US based readers). You know, for those who have seen Robinson promise a trilogy before and then either never (not yet?) complete it - UNITY, Viking Tomorrow, etc - or take quite some time (HUNGER). Still, he completes series faster than that dragon/ throne dude with the other TV series, so at least Robinson has *that* going. :D

The tale itself is one of those heartful yet irreverent and action packed tales that Robinson has become somewhat known for (Space Force, ExoHunter, Tribe) that also has a decent amount of not-really-hidden-at-all meta commentary about book reviews and people claiming to know an author's real-world political or religious positions, which was quite awesome to read - and worked perfectly into and with the story being told at the time of the commentary. Honestly, the story at times seems reminiscent of Richard Phillips' Second Ship series, also about an intergalactic war that Earth winds up involved in, except that Robinson's version is lighter, much more humorous, more action packed, and with less fantasy/ high scifi - ie, the aliens are much easier to envision in Robinson's tale. Oh, and if you love a certain talking raccoon in a certain cinematic universe... you're *really* going to love one of *these* aliens in particular. :)

Overall a truly fun, action packed tale that shows great promise for the upcoming sequels. Very much recommended.

For Some Reason I'm Having A Tough Time Writing This Review. I finished this book 5 days ago as I write this review. I've read three other books (that I also need to write reviews for) since then, and for some reason there's just nothing flowing for this book.

To be clear, there is nothing technically wrong with this book. It is solid, with perhaps a misstep or two.

I think what it comes down to, for me, is that the most interesting question in the description: "That is…if Julia truly is a person." doesn't really feel as explored as I think I wanted it to be. And I don't know if that is on me as the reader or Satterthwaite as the writer. I don't know if it was that I was wanting a harder probe or harder questions or more forceful thinking on the subject or some such, or if Satterthwaite really did do more telling than showing or perhaps not enough telling to make me really think deeply philosophically as maybe I was hoping to be forced to or what.

Ultimately, more time was absolutely spent of the murder mystery/ reality TV side of the tale than the synth side, even as the synth side plays key roles and is genuinely interwoven with the other components of the tale. So if you're looking for a more reality TV/ murder mystery tale than a scifi synth tale... yeah, this one may work better for you.

Perhaps most damning, particularly for a debut - although perhaps one that was never meant as a series starter - is that I'm also not sure whether I would want to come back to this world or not. I'm sure that I think Satterthwaite has done enough here that I'm willing to read the next book and see if she grows as a storyteller with more experience, I'm just not sure with what she leaves us with here if I necessarily want to come back *here*. Although if that is in fact where her sophomore effort brings us, I'm absolutely going to be back for the ride.

So read the book for yourself, reader of my review. And maybe tag me in your own review so I can see if my own questions are *me* or if others are having similar difficulties with this book?

Recommended.

Interesting Spin On Time Travel. Straight up, this book won't be for everyone. It is *highly* disjointed and takes a *lot* of mental effort to follow... and that is kind of the point, with this particular bent on time travel. We experience the tale in the same way that Alex experiences his life - as singular days completely out of order, beginning on the day that starts it all. The particular reset mechanism, of waking up to a different day every time Alex falls asleep, brings to mind how Ted Dekker used the same concept to have his hero switch between the "real" world and Dekker's very blatantly allegorical world in his Circle Series. While that tale was far more linear - er, circular - this one actually works well for how it chooses to use the concept - but again, this particular storytelling style won't be for everyone, and honestly I'm genuinely surprised the ratings for this book in the ARC realm just days before publication is as high as it is, *because* it is such a tough storytelling mechanic.

But for those that can hang with the way the story is told, the story told is actually quite good, in the more typical time travel bent ala Time Traveler's Wife, The Family Man, A Christmas Carol, Its A Wonderful Life, etc etc etc. It just takes so much effort to follow the storytelling mechanism to see the story that I fear that many readers will abandon the tale too early to see just how good it actually is.

Oh, and because it *can* be so problematic for so many, it *does* need to be mentioned that there is on screen male on male sexual abuse, as well as quite a bit of alcoholism.

Overall an interesting tale told using a unique mechanism I'd never seen before. Very much recommended.

Sinclair O'Malley Meets Her Match. I've said in reviews of earlier books in this series that Sinclair O'Malley is an even more bad ass Jack None Reacher, and this book is yet another example of this. And yet, an interesting wrinkle here is that when Sinclair has to keep her enemies close... it turns out one of them in particular is actually just as badass as she is, and is damn near O'Malley's equal in pretty well every way - a very yin/ yang situation going on here, which was pretty awesome for LeDuc to include. You'll never see Child doing that with Reacher, and indeed very few characters of this level of badassery ever get that camaraderie with a genuine yet darker equal. Thus, it introduced an interesting dynamic to the usual "beat the bad guys into submission" action trope. Also, with starting out featuring a different character altogether and having this particular character go through an entire development arc through this book, again LeDuc manages to craft more interesting wrinkles and make this series so much more than just "good guy is better than everyone".

Mostly centered in the Miami area, the trip to beautiful lush Thailand is well done - and an interesting pairing with reading Sara Och's The Resort, about suspicious deaths at a remote Thai resort, when read close together.

Overall yet another excellent entry in this series, though it does follow on almost immediately from its prior book and has several references to at least one other book earlier in the series (Painted Beauty, book 2 in the series), so for those who can never have any spoilers at all... go back and read those books if you haven't yet. You'll get awesome stories and be glad you have this one when you get done with them. :)

I, for one, am hoping we get Book 5 in this series with a much shorter gap between the books. :D Very much recommended.

Solid Mystery Lacks Real World Punch Of Other Similar Works. At this point, we've all read some variant of some mystery set in and around the world of reality television, right? This is truly a solid tale of its type, so far as it goes, so even if you haven't read one, this is a good one to start with there.

I'm not sure if a certain aspect of the tale was *meant* to be picked up on early or if I (and apparently a few other reviewers) just *did*, but to me if that particular aspect was supposed to be a "twist", it was about as curvy as say the bend in the US coastline from roughly Charleston to roughly Jacksonville - ie, easily seen from orbit without much effort at all.

The thing blatantly missing - or perhaps it was so subtle that even I simply missed it within this text, as other reviewers have said they loved its presence - was the lack of any actual social commentary baked in to the tale of "reality television", as most in this space tend to have to some degree or another. While I'm glad there was no heavy handed preaching on the subject - no matter the view the author was trying to convey - I do wish that there had been *some*, or perhaps, again, at least some that was more obvious and memorable.

Outside of those two aspects though, this really was a fun and solid mystery of its type, maybe not quite as hard hitting as some of Gudenkauf's previous works, but that is also ok - sometimes both the writer and the reader need a chance to simply enjoy a tale without having to think too hard or without having emotional strings pulled too heart or without too much strain on the heart re: pulse and blood pressure. Not to say that this tale is bland, it absolutely is not. It just isn't *as* intensive as Gudenkauf's prior books - akin to an "easy" 5K at half of your normal running pace while training for a half marathon. You're still getting a good workout, it simply isn't anywhere near the intensity that could hurt you. :D

Overall an enjoyable work and a solid one given its premise. Very much recommended.

Shotgun Beginning Focuses Into Laser Ending. This is one of those stories that opens up with a lot of moving parts, even as we only really get a single perspective of them, so it can be a bit difficult of a read to get into at first. Compelling, to be sure, particularly the accident during the blizzard, but through these intro sections the tale doesn't seem to know what it wants to be yet... and thus the reader may find it difficult to follow.

This noted, as the story progresses, things become ever more clear and pointed and the book finally decides what it wants to be... and oh, boy. Absolutely several interesting twists here, both within the story and in how the story itself subverts expectations of the reader.

Ultimately this is going to be one of those stories that seems like a bit of a challenge up front, even if compelling, but stick with it long enough for the tale to figure itself out. Because once it does, you're in for a fun time indeed.

Very much recommended.

Misleading Description Yet Excellent Tale. Just Not Anything Really Remotely Like Jurassic Park. Ok, the few things that *are* like Jurassic Park: human hubris leads to "de-extincting" long-extinct plants and creatures. Commentary on modern science baked into the story. Commentary on history baked into the story. Thus ends the things that are like Jurassic Park.

In other words... don't go into this book expecting "Jurassic Park... With Mammoths". This is *NOT* that story. Instead, it is more "murder mystery at a park similar to Jurassic Park". Go into this book with those at least somewhat lower expectations... and this is an awesome book with plenty of wonder, action, thrills, chills... and a few cheeky meta references. (Such as when a character is reading one of his and longtime writing partner Lincoln Child's Pendergast books - a trope many authors use to plug their own books or sometimes friends' books or even just random books the author has read and enjoyed.)

For the story we *do* get here, it is truly well done, a fast paced action thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat and keep you guessing about what will come next.

Very much recommended.

Atmospheric Southern Gothic Perfect For Fans Of Emily Carpenter Or Robert Gwaltney. This is one of those trippy atmospheric southern gothic tales where folklore plays a central role. Set in the 1980s in Appalachia, it is perhaps *too* reliant on folklore in reality, but the story works within itself. As someone who grew up in the 1980s in the foothills of the Appalachians in the borderlands between Appalachia and Atlanta, the tale perhaps makes my people seem a bit backward and mystical than most of us really were, though there were (and are) absolutely pockets of people who were in fact very similar to the characters portrayed here.

Still, for the story being told here, it absolutely works within itself and creates a compelling story of a young woman struggling to find herself and the man of her dreams. But you're going to get a *lot* of southern mysticism within that more general tale, and it is this very southern mysticism that gives the book its gravitas, atmosphere... and challenges for many readers, almost to the level of being more literary fiction than popular fiction. Not quite that far, but certainly not a too casual read either.

If you're looking for an easy, casual summer read... this aint that. If you enjoy more spooky reads with a dash of horror but still more of a typical mystery/ drama, you might like this one. Ultimately, I thought it was well done and the release date separates it a bit from the more typical fall/ Halloween window many readers might be looking for this type of tale during - which actually gives those who like this story that much longer to find it, and for those who do find it near release date, something to enjoy outside of the "spooky season".

Very much recommended.

Wildly Divergent Storytelling From First Book In Series, Still Great. The Bitter Past, the first book in this series, was a dual timeline almost historical fiction/ spy thriller, and it worked beautifully - to summarize my review of that book. This time, we get a lot of solid character work and even more solid action pieces (particularly towards the end, but also an intriguing prologue to bring us into the tale), with plenty of "what the hell is going on here" in the middle. Whereas the first book looked to the past to tell its tale, this one actually reads as though it is bringing the front lines of the Russia-Ukraine war into a tale set in rural Nevada. There's some innovative action sequences one would expect more in a Vin Diesel XXX movie or one of the GI Joe live action movies than in a tale of a small town Sheriff... even if this particular Sheriff *is* a highly trained former soldier. (And yes, this comes into play as well.) Borgos does well to show Beck's strengths *and* weaknesses, and it is the combination of both that make Beck feel like a fully "real" human rather than just another action hero.

Overall a solid tale more in the mystery/ action space than its predecessor, and yet it does its job of making the reader *need* the next book perfectly.

Very much recommended.

Strong Multi-Generational Tale. With this tale, Walker expands into something I've never seen from him (though I *am* a somewhat recent fan, only finding him within the 2020s or so) - a dual timeline, present day/ historical fiction tale. Both periods are executed well for their time and setting, though there are some mystical elements to the present day setting that will be harder for some to accept - and some elements of the more practical present day setup that may seem just as unrealistic to others.

Still, Walker manages to write a female lead as well as most female authors within the women's fiction space while *also* having a male lead that is also Walker's typical greatness with such characters. That he *also* manages to give both of them a compelling romance - and proving some of my points re: "romance novels" along the way! - is even more icing on the cake there.

But really, the story here is about the trauma and the seeming generational nature of it. In this respect, I didn't really see the present day issues as "trauma" so much as a lot of bad luck/ bad circumstances. Yes, any one of the things *suck*, but I didn't really see them as "trauma". (Though the one situation, part of the practical yet possibly unrealistic stuff noted above, ... well, I'll shut up now to avoid any possible spoilers.) This noted, the historical period was simply *full* of trauma, that part I absolutely got and it was 100% crystal clear - particularly as they relate to some other books I've read and raved about over the decades.

And yet, regardless of which part of which storyline's traumas hit you, the reader of this review, harder... Walker, as always, shows superb skill in bringing the characters *back from it* - which isn't really a spoiler, given this is very much Walker's style in every book I've read from him. Indeed, it is a particular strength of his that sets his tales apart from many in whichever genre you may place his books. Thus, no matter your own traumas in your "real" life and no matter how much you may identify with a particular trauma found in this tale... you're also going to find a degree of catharsis within these pages that is Walker's particular brand of real-world "magic" with his words.

Very much recommended.

Solid Series Starter. This has pretty much everything one would want in a family based PI / police procedural type drama series starter. Complicated family dynamics, a compelling case - where in this particular instance (series?) family members find themselves on different sides of the case -, an interesting mystery, and the storytelling to put it all together quite well indeed.

As is typical of such a series, this is clearly going to be a "freak of the week" type with an overall lore and mythos, and both look to be compelling going forward.

Fans of the genre generally will find a lot to like here, and those who haven't really dabbled in this kind of tale before will also find a lot to like that could potentially bring in new fans.

Ultimately, this is one of those series starter books that does everything it needs to do and does it all quite well.

Very much recommended.

Solid - And Solidly Dense - Examination Of The Topic. You know those jokes about the Christmas fruitcakes that are so dense you could use them as an anvil or even the cornerstone of a house? This... is damn near that dense. So be prepared for that up front, and it is a solid examination of political and even, to a lesser extent, religious polarization in the US over the last 60 years or so - with more emphasis on the last 40 years or so, when the authors claim that the "Diploma Divide" began explaining ever more of the results of elections.

Well documented at roughly 33% of the overall text, there isn't anything particularly "explosive" here, but there *is* a lot of detailed discussion of what has occurred and why the authors' research says it happened. One of the few books of its type where the authors are explicit in *not* making policy recommendations, instead taking an attitude of "this is the data we have, this is what we believe it shows, do with it as you will". Which is actually refreshing - the authors note that they are academics working in academia, and even if they have worked with campaigns off and on at times, they are not politicians or political operators, and thus their expertise isn't campaigns or campaign strategy - their expertise is in asking questions, gathering data, and analyzing that data.

Overall, while the outcomes are those we all know, Grossman and Hopkins add more data to the discussion - which is never a bad thing - and thus help aid in our overall understanding of what we have seen, giving us a more complete picture of the events as we know them.

Recommended.

(Mostly) Well Documented History Of the Entire History of 'Contemporary Christian Music' As The Term Was Known Through The Late 20th And Early 21st Centuries.

For those of us who grew up with 'CCM', this is actually a refreshing history that traces the roots of the music from its earliest days in 19th century songbooks through the early days of rock and roll through the heights of the late 80s- early 2000s boom and all the way to the seeming life support bed the genre currently finds itself on. Along the way, you're going to hear tales of names both familiar and not and how they shaped or played a role in the genre and how it has been presented.

One thing to note is that the author *does* have a particular "it was always racist" bent to much of her commentary, so your mileage may vary there. But at 18% documentation, it is close enough to expected to classify as (mostly) well documented. (20-30%+ has been more of the actual norm in my experience, but I've noted in other reviews over the last several months that perhaps I should be revising that down to perhaps around 15% or so given more recent experience.)

This noted, I've never encountered a book quite so comprehensive in all my years both within the CCM community and as a book blogger, including having even worked books from Jaci Velasquez and Mark Stuart (lead singer of Audio Adrenaline) as advanced reader copies over the course of the last few years + read Jennifer Knapp's memoir just before that. Thus, having never come across any book quite like this one, given my own experiences, means it truly is quite likely quite rare indeed. That it is (mostly, again, see the YMMV comment above) so well written is almost a bonus given its comprehensive analysis of the history involved.

Ultimately this is one that some may want to defenestrate at times, but still absolutely a worthy read for anyone remotely interested in the subject. Very much recommended.

Fascinating Examination Of Modern Egyptian Work And Culture. As an American who has only briefly left the US, and never left the Caribbean region when leaving the US, it was fascinating to read such a detailed account of modern Egyptian work and culture as seen through the eyes of an American who lived there for a few years and who actively examined what she saw while there. From a sheer cultural studies perspective, this work was interesting indeed. As an examination of women's place in society in Egypt, it was also fascinating in several different aspects - while there is *some* similarity to *some* minority groups in the US, this was largely a very different concept than how America operates, both in actuality and in vision. Even the work culture of the males shown within is so *vastly* different than American business and work culture, and Chang shows how this is largely the result of Socialist / Nationalist policies from generations ago that became so deeply embedded within the culture at large that no effort to reign them back in has been very successful.

The singular glaring weakness here is the absolute lack of any bibliography at all, at least in the Advance Review Copy edition I read. Indeed, it must be noted, that while I am accustomed to ARCs being "not in final form"... this was also one of the most incomplete ARCs I've ever been given access to. There were quite often threads that would end in "to investigate later" or some such, or "place chart here" or similar, among other issues of this type. Not enough to truly detract from the overall narrative, and certainly not anything to deduct a star over - I know the score with ARCs. But this being truly the most incomplete such book I've ever encountered needed to be noted, as it *did* impact my overall experience with the text.

Overall, this was truly a fascinating examination of a culture I've never experienced and likely *will* never experience, and I trust that the fully released version won't have the incompleteness of what I was given, negating the only criticism I had here. Very much recommended.

Excellent, If Not Overly Shocking, Memoir. This is one of those memoirs where if you've known of this person for much time at all, you're already going to know a lot of the public stuff about their career - much of which is in fact covered in this particular tale, including how Rebecca Quin first became Becky Lynch before later becoming "The Man", then, in one of the most famous moments of the COVID era of WWE, her famous line to colleague Kanako Urai (better known as Asuka) "You go and be a warrior. Because I'm going to go be a mother." Finally, the tale wraps up with at least a bit of what happened after, through the birth of her daughter Roux and getting back into the ring.

Like I said, anyone who has followed Quin even through her WWE days knows most of these details already, and let's face it, "engaged woman in her early 30s is pregnant" is about as shocking as "the sky is blue". Even Quin's earlier relationship with Fergal Devitt (better known to WWE fans as Finn Balor) and her being trained as a wrestler by him was already known.

But there is quite a bit here that *hadn't* been as openly discussed publicly, if ever discussed at all, including so much about her childhood and how much her parents and older brother meant and mean to her. Even her actual history of first getting into the ring, meeting Fergal, their relationship and eventual breakup, her early days in Japan before seeming to give up on the entire industry, her eventual comeback and why... these are all details that show who Rebecca Quin, the person, is and was well before Becky Lynch ever came to be.

And yes, we also get the story of how the name Becky Lynch came to be and her rise in WWE, including how she met a colleague named Colby (Lopez, better known to WWE fans as The Architect, The Revolutionary, The Visionary Seth "FREAKIN" Rollins, the current World Heavyweight Champion) on her first day on WWE's "main roster" (the Raw and Smackdown shows) and how she was actually in another relationship at the time and he simply became a good friend. She talks about meeting Big E, the various McMahons that have been so integral to WWE over the last decades - Vince, Stephanie, and Stephanie's husband Paul Levesque, better known to all as Triple H - and several others. She talks about how she met Charlotte and her actual friendship with her - and their falling out and Rebecca's hopes that that relationship can be repaired. She talks about Ronda Rousey's entrance to WWE and their eventual legendary Triple Threat with Charlotte at Wrestlemania. She talks about how quickly things started heating up with Colby once she allowed the possibility that there might be something there. She talks about the days leading up to the meeting with Asuka above, and she talks about the months after that and all that was going on in that period of her life. She even directly mentions getting the deal to write this very book.

Overall, this isn't one of those WWE memoirs that is meant to be a tell-all of all the famous people she has met and known or of all the various rivalries she has had, though all of that is done a fair amount as well. This is instead meant more as a way to humanize Becky Lynch back to Rebecca Quin, to reveal the actual woman behind the character, full of all of her own doubts and insecurities that the character largely (but not completely, as this is what in some eyes makes her so endearing) hides.

And in the build up to what WWE is currently billing as "the biggest Wrestlemania of all time" just 8 days out from when I write this review and just 11 days removed from the publication of this book, this is a particularly timely book with Quinn herself challenging for the Women's World Championship and "Colby" now being so heavily featured in the event - seemingly working both nights of the massive two night event.

I've read a lot of WWE memoirs over the years, including from HBK Sean Michaels, The Rock, Mick Foley, now AEW superstar Chris Jericho, and even Batista's memoir. In all honesty, even though many of those lean more into the "look at all the famous people I know" (and perhaps even *because* of this), this book, even in its brevity of discussing some of the finer details of her relationships, particularly with others in the public eye (and, admittedly, her current work colleagues) is one of the most "real" WWE memoirs I've ever come across. Quinn doesn't hold back from her own thoughts and her own problems, even as she shies away from discussing too much about others' issues around her.

Ultimately a compelling memoir, and, again, a very timely released one. Very much recommended.

Fascinating And *Southern* Tale Of Near-Death Of Road trip Staple. Stephanie Stuckey has led a life few Georgians have. She is a scion of a family that had become somewhat rich and somewhat powerful over the last century, whose grandfather once proclaimed (per Stuckey, here in the text) that he had made more money than his grandchildren could ever spend (but which they did, again, per Stuckey here), whose father had been a Congressman and who herself had been a State Representative for nearly 15 years. Both she and her father are UGA alumni, both from well before the era where the HOPE scholarship made such an achievement much more doable for many Georgians.

All of this is included here, but really, this is the tale of the ascent to those heights... and the downfall from them, as changes mostly made by others - as well as a few mistakes made within the company - led to near non-existence of the family company, fortune, and even legacy.

Herein lies a quintessential Southern tale of Southern family and business acumen, of a legacy built, nearly destroyed, and of one woman's fight to restore that legacy to all that it had once been... and maybe, just maybe... even increase it for her own children.

The story is told with all of the grace, grit, and wonder of a granddaughter who clearly grew up living at least some of the history involved, but only much later in life finding out all that she *didn't* know, including just how fundamental the black community was to her (white) grandfather's success in the era of Jim Crow, and how mutually beneficial and respectful the relationships there were. Up to and including Civil Rights activists actively encouraging their people to stop at Stuckey's, knowing that they would be treated with the respect they didn't always get in the South in that era.

As someone who has also uncovered lost family history later in life - and who has lived in some of the regions this tale centers around, as well as, yes, having sampled quite a few of the family's candies-, this was a story I could connect with on several levels, even as my own family was... let's go with "not quite so fortunate" over the years, to the point that when I graduated from Kennesaw State University near the turn of this Millennium, I was the first in my family to have graduated college at all.

Overall truly a triumphant and hopeful tale, well told with the respect, humor, and candor one doesn't always get in such deeply personal tales fraught with such sensitive topics as race relations in the South. Very much recommended.

Reads Almost Like Fiction - And Should Give Soraya M. Lane Inspiration For A Future Novel. First, this is one of the better researched books I've come across in all of my Advance Review Copy reading efforts - over 1100 books since 2018 - at 45% documentation. Kudos to Lance for being so thorough there.

And she needs it - because this is one of the more fantastical nonfiction books you're ever going to come across. A brother and sister experimenting on themselves - as their father, who also experimented on himself *even with chlorine gas*, had trained them to do - gathering a team of like minded scientists to push the limits of the human condition under extreme environments, later in a direct race to help save their country from annihilation.

Before Jacques Cousteau developed SCUBA, there were the scientists working to discover what, exactly, humans could survive under water. What, exactly, happened as the human body was compressed to ever higher pressures? What happened as that pressure was relaxed - either suddenly or gradually? How could we allow humans to survive at ever increasing pressures, and what, exactly, were the limits?

And then... Normandy.

It had already been tried once, and failed miserably - because the soldiers didn't have the data these very scientists were racing to obtain. Could they get it in time for the next invasion attempt?

They could... and they would change the face of warfare (and, to be honest, some entertainment and other scientific pursuits) forever when they did.

This is their story, told for seemingly the very first time.

Very much recommended. And please tag Soraya Lane and beg her to bring this story to actual fiction.

Solid And Seemingly Comprehensive Examination Of The Topic. This is a book that takes a look at the ever-evolving quest to build the world's tallest skyscrapers, from its origins in the 19th century (and the debate over who first created what) all the way through Summer 2023, when the book was being written. Along the way we learn of various periods of American skyscraper construction - yes, including Sears Tower, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center towers, and others. But we *also* get just as detailed a view of skyscraper construction in other areas of the world and how each builds on advances in the other locations as time progresses. We visit the Middle East and learn of its mega projects. We visit Hong Kong in both the Colonial and Chinese eras. We visit Taiwan and China and see how their standoff plays out in their construction efforts. Along the way, we get the histories and economics of how and why such structures are wanted and what makes them profitable - hint, it isn't always the rents they generate from tenants. We even get a solid examination of the arguments for and against such structures, along with the (seemingly requisite in this type of book) predictions for the future and a few suggestions for how to make those predictions become reality.

Overall truly an interesting book, well written for the average reader - yes, there is some jargon, but Barr does a solid job of using it sparingly and explaining it reasonably well when he does. Also reasonably well documented, clocking in at 20% of the text of the Advance Review Copy edition I read.

Very much recommended.

Fascinating And Humble Blend Of Personal Memoir, Cultural/ Personal History, and Activism. Serj Tankian burst into the public scene 25 years ago as the lead singer of System Of A Down - the band that had the number one album on 9/11, days before Tankian wrote a reflection on that day that nearly destroyed everything they had built.

This... is his story. We get to that day, but we get a long build up to it, explaining everything that had led him to that point in his life, including his grandparents' survival of the Arminian Genocide in the WWI era through his dad's legal troubles in Tankian's teens and early adulthood, through his initial work creating a software company, finding music, eventually forming System... and then his life with and after System.

Through it all, Tankian's activism to bring light to the horrors of the Arminian Genocide is never far from pretty well literally anything he is writing about in that moment. It is clear that it truly forms the backbone of his identity and everything he considers himself to be about - and truly, as the grandson of two survivors of WWII's Battle of the Bulge, I actually can appreciate the personal family history, even as the particulars of our families are so very different.

Indeed, even our reactions to 9/11 were distinctly different, as Tankian was an immigrant from the Middle East region in his 30s on that day and I was an 18yo American fresh out of high school rocking out to Toxicity that summer before that day. I don't remember my reaction to Tankian's post that day, if I ever even saw it or heard of the public outcry. My own reaction was better summed up first by Alan Jackson's Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning) (which I *finally* had a chance to hear him perform live in 2022) and the (sadly now late) great Toby Keith's "Courtesy Of The Red White And Blue". I was a college junior that day, even though I had just graduated high school at the beginning of that summer, but still an 18yo male with a US Selective Service card - the knowledge that if America went to war, I could be called to fight in it very, *very* real on my mind in the immediate aftermath.

But that day and the fallout are but a small part of this book, though it *is* discussed. The overarching tale being, again, that of Tankian's work bringing publicity to the Arminian Genocide and his efforts to get to get the world to force Turkey to so much as acknowledge their crimes of that era and all that it has led to, including a new war in Armenia this decade that Turkey had a hand in, according to Tankian.

Overall this was truly an interesting look at a remarkable life that many of us had heard of before, but I suspect few of us indeed knew of the depth of the passion involved here and everything Tankian has done.

Very much recommended.

How Jimmy Doolittle's Raid Connected Directly To The Atomic Bomb. On the weekend of the anniversary of the Doolittle Raid (as it has come to be known) and with conversations sparking again about whether the dropping of the bomb was necessary or not, I had an opportunity to read this book - which admittedly won't release until the day after Memorial Day here in the US. (For everyone else, this book's release date is the last Tuesday of May 2024.)

Here, Hampton adds a wrinkle to the discussion of the bomb by revealing what had previously been hidden about the Doolittle Raid - a *second* mission, known only to the pilot of the plane and to Doolittle's own boss, to gauge just how ready the Soviet Union was to actually engage in warfare against Japan. Here, Hampton argues that the plane that for 80 years had been believed to have gotten lost... knew *exactly* where it was going and largely *exactly* what it was doing. Or, at least the one driving it did - and he relayed those instructions to those whose help he absolutely needed, his copilot and his navigator, and *no one* else. As in, the bomber's bomber and gunners didn't know of this secret mission. According to Hampton here, at least.

That the crew of "Plane 8" landed in the Soviet Union and was there imprisoned for a time before being repatriated back to the US has been known effectively since the events happened over 80 years ago - at least by then current communication standards, particularly during a time of global war.

But just what they were *actually* doing is new here - and because of what they found on that mission, we now have better information about what the various Generals and civilian leadership knew or thought they knew in the closing months of the war, as J. Robert Oppenheimer and his teams on the Manhattan Project were finalizing their new weapon. We now know what Roosevelt, MacArthur, Stinson, and Arnold knew about Soviet capabilities in the Far East... because this secret secondary mission got them the data they needed, three years prior. We now know that even if they had heard - as at least some claim - as early as February 1945 that Japan may possibly consider surrendering so long as the Emperor was kept in control of at least the Shinto religion (as, ultimately, is exactly what happened on Sept 2, 1945 on the USS Missouri), that even if they had heard this that the Soviet Union was not yet able to put the kind of resources into the region that may have made even Japan's own war hawks reconsider their actual options.

This is a harrowing tale, very well told - in some respects, it reads as easily as fiction, yet gives a complete picture of all that was happening in and around the Doolittle Raid, specifically as it relates to this second, secret, mission.

The one problem I have, at least with this early edition I read, was that the bibliography is lacking, clocking in at just 10% of the available text. Even with original research as the basis of the claims of this book - and that is indeed the case here - one would still expect that number to be perhaps at least 50% higher to meet the bare minimums of being described as adequately documented given the explosive nature of the claims contained herein.

Overall a truly well written and apparently well researched tale that just needed a touch more documentation. Very much recommended.

No Matter Your Thinking About 'Christianity', This Will Challenge You. This is one of those excellent books that truly no matter what you think of Christianity or any given Christian-type theology, Bezner is going to find ways to challenge you - in the manner of the classic pastor joke as follows:

Man comes up to the Pastor after the service. "Preacher, you were stepping on my toes in there!"

Pastor replies: "I apologize. I was aiming about 3 feet higher." (For his heart, in case that is unclear.)

In other words, yes, Bezner is a pastor and yes, this is written in that general style - but it also isn't a book seeking to destroy everything you hold dear so much as gently goad you in areas where maybe you're wrong - or maybe Bezner is.

And I'm not joking when I say no matter your thoughts on Christianity here. Bezner goads the conservatives with his talk of their lily white - or coal black - churches and the need for churches to be more multicultural. Bezner goads the liberals with his insistence that sex is only for straight married couples - and goads everyone with his insistence that more needs to be done to support single adults, no matter their sexual choices. He even manages to goad the Anarchists by *actively citing 1 Samuel* - the very passage where YAHWEH decrees that obedience to an earthly king as a rejection of Himself! - and arguing that earthly kings are necessary, but that a "prophet" is needed to stand outside their court and hold them to account.

If you're looking for a book "taking down" "Christian Nationalism".... this isn't your book, and Bezner never intended it to be. If you're looking for a book that decries *all* politics in the American Church and instead calls for complete separation between the Church and politics... this isn't your book, and Bezner never intended it to be. It is quite clear that he sought to write exactly the kind of book he did - calling Americans of *all* political persuasions and telling them that according to his own beliefs, they're wrong. As with anything else, at that point your mileage absolutely varies. I do believe that we can all gain something from reading this book, but I do NOT believe that Bezner is as correct as he clearly thinks he is.

Ultimately two stars were deducted here. One for the prooftexting, even though it only *blatantly* happened as quotes to begin chapters - I don't really recall seeing it anywhere else. (For those unaware, "prooftexting" is the practice of citing Bible verses out of context in support of some claim or another.) So while not as bad as some others in this space, it is a practice that is an automatic star deduction from me *any* time I see it.

The other star deducted was for the near absolute dearth of any bibliography. While this book was indeed more pastoral in tone, it was still a nonfiction book and should have been cited much more thoroughly than it was - 20-30% bibliography is my general expectation based on my experiences overall, though I'm a bit more willing to come down to 15% as the lower number with more recent (2021 and forward or so) texts seeming to indicate this is a general shift in nonfiction books of this era.

Still, despite the two star deduction here largely on technical matters, this really is a solid book that every American needs to read - perhaps particularly during election seasons.

Very much recommended.

Comprehensive. Dense. Short. Slightly Lacking Bibliography. This is an utterly fascinating look at the history and current issues involving political (and thus legal) life after death, in all kinds of different ways. Some ways you have probably heard of (Wills, Advanced Directives, etc). Other ways may be new to you, including the idea of posthumous reproduction. Everything is covered in a sort of "primer" manner - we get a broad overview, a few specific examples, a decent discussion of the overall subfield... and then we're moving... and we're moving. Which is to be somewhat expected given the overall brevity of the book and just how many different posthumous topics Ginsberg manages to discuss at all.

Indeed, the only weakness here is simply that at 13% bibliography, I simply expect at least a *touch* more - even, perhaps, as low as 15% (on an already expanded window that was once 20-30%).

Beyond this particular quibble, read this book - you're going to learn a lot and have a lot to think about. I know I did and do.

Very much recommended.

Unoriginal Hyper-Leftist Wet Dream. In all honesty, had I known that Chemerinsky was the Dean of the Berkely School of Law, I probably would never have picked up this book to begin with. I would have already known most of what he was going to say... and now having actually read it, I can positively say that 95% of my assumptions would have been correct.

Basically, however you feel about the Citizens United ruling, recent SCOTUS decisions, packing the Court, the Electoral College, and the well-debunked "Russian Collusion" conspiracy theory from the 2016 Presidential Election is largely how you're going to feel about this book. It honestly reads as little more than hyper-leftist dreams about everything that has gone "wrong" with America for the last decade or two. Thus, some of you are going to sing this book's praises from the highest places you can as loudly as you can. And some of you are going to want to take a window to those places just so you can be assured that you will be able to defenestrate this book from those places.

Chemerinsky *does* get *close* to some genuinely good ideas, ideas that could *actually* solve a lot of the problems he names... and then quickly backs away from them, for the most part. His one consistent good idea is that the process of "Winner Take All" as it relates to Electoral College votes does in fact need to end - a stance I've had for much of my adult life, particularly my politically engaged adult life. The more interesting things that he addresses but then thinks *secession* is more viable are as they relate to the number of Congressmen. Chemerinsky correctly points out that the only thing limiting the size of the US House to 435 members is a US law passed less than a century ago - and laws can be overturned in a number of ways. Here again, one weakness of Chemerinsky is that in proclaiming the Constitution a threat - and even spending quite a bit of the text here decrying the SCOTUS as a threat - he openly advocates for SCOTUS to take action against this law. But even this idea is hardly original, as people across the political spectrum have been proposing it for many years already.

Another point Chemerinsky gets truly close to a near-original idea (it has been proposed by at least one writer) is when he proposes - briefly, before quickly retracting it and dismissing it as unworkable - that States be broken into "smaller States". But if "Democracy" is truly the end goal, and Chemerinsky wants everyone across the US to be as truly even as possible, why isn't he going full-bore here? As others have written, first, build the House up to its Constitutionally mandated maximum size - every Congressman represents exactly 35,000 people, the Constitutionally mandated minimum number of people per Representative. That gives us something like 11K US Representatives. Now, take Chemerinsky's own note here that "smaller States" would each get 2 US Senators... and make every single one of those US Rep Districts its own State. That would mean that every US Rep represents 35K people... and every Senator represents 35,000 / 2 == 17,500 people each. Meaning that for every 35,000 people, on average 1 Congressman of some level represents just under 12,000 people. Which in some urban areas is considerably less than an entire block, and in some rural areas could be several hundred square miles of territory. But Chemerinsky doesn't go here, instead he just continually reiterates hyper leftist talking points rather than seeking actual solutions to the problems he decries.

Ultimately, I deducted two stars from this book - the first is for the dearth of a bibliography, clocking in at just 12% of the text I read weeks before publication. Even being generous and lowering my 20-30% standard, as I've been trying to do of late, I just can't justify allowing such a small bibliography against such grand claims. Even here, the bibliography itself is quite cherry picked and doesn't show the full scope of what is going on through many of Chemerinsky's claims, but I've never really addressed that issue in other reviews and won't really address it here either.

The other star really was for the lack of objectivity and just how unoriginal very nearly everything about this book was. If you've seen nearly any left-leaning politician or activist speak in the last 20 years, they're all saying much of the same things Chemerinsky is saying here - including more and more of them openly talking of secession, which would be ruinous on us all.

Again, at the end of the day your feelings about this book are largely going to hinge on just how ideologically aligned with extreme leftist US politics you are, so know that when making your decision to read this book. Some of you are going to LOVE this book, and others are going to HATE it, and it will largely be for exactly the same reasons.

Recommended.

Well Documented History Of The Event. The massacre at Kent State happened when my parents were not quite 10 yrs old and still almost as long away from meeting. It wouldn't be until over a decade after this event when they wed, and I was born just a couple of years later. One uncle was already nearly 30 by the time of the massacre, and my youngest aunt was still in middle single digits at the time. The rest of my dozen or so aunts and uncles were somewhere in between, including at least a couple of them that were college age at the time, and one that fought in Vietnam in this era. (I'm not sure exactly when he was deployed there, but I *know* he went and did... something. He was a career Marine, beginning then.) All of this is a long way of saying that this is a history of events that preceded me, but which my direct family knew of at various ages of their own lives and saw how it affected each of them.

Thus, other than the barest of facts of "there was a protest, the National Guard got called in, and the Guard shot and killed a few students"... I never really knew about the details of this massacre before reading this book. I've never read any of the other histories, I've never really seen it covered much at all - and certainly not to this detail - in any other medium. So I can't really say if it has any "new" information about the event and its fallout.

What I *can* say about this book is that it is very well documented, with 23% of its text being official bibliography, and the extensive footnotes throughout the text probably adding another couple of percentage points, *maybe* up to an additional 5% or so. Bringing the total documentation here to somewhere in the 25-28% range, which is pretty solid in my extensive review work of the last several years - I've read books making far stronger claims than this that had far less documentation.

This book is also exceedingly detailed in its presentation of the events of those few days in May at this campus, giving brief biographical sketches of pretty well every single person named- be they victim, shooter, parent, lawyer, politician, commander, or anything else- and detailing with a fair degree of precision exactly where each person was in the periods before, during, and after the massacre. Up to and including which shooters had which guns pointing which directions. Indeed, one of the most tragic and explicit parts of this book is just how graphically the shots are described as they hit the 13 victims, and indeed there are some photographs of some of the bodies included in the text as well. So for those that get particularly squeamish about such details... you may want to skim over these bits. But also don't, because VanDeMark's presentation here, though excessively detailed, also does a tremendous job of showing just how tragic the event was.

To be clear, VanDeMark presents a remarkably *balanced* history as well, not really siding with either side in the debate as to who was at fault, simply presenting the available facts and showing how tragic it was that a group of young adults were all in this situation to begin with, from all of the varying sides. Indeed, perhaps this is the greatest overall strength of the text at hand - in its balance, we are allowed to get perhaps the truest picture available of what is known to have occurred and when, allowing the reader to decide for themselves, with their own biases, who was at fault and why.

After detailing the events of the day, VanDeMark closes the narrative with following the various efforts at criminal and civil trials of the shooters as well as various efforts to memorialize the events before moving on to how each of the survivors - family of the dead, the surviving victims, the shooters, and the various officials - handled the events of that weekend the rest of their lives, reaching right up into the 2020s.

Overall a truly detailed, graphic at times, and moving text, and one anyone with any interest at all in the subject should read.

Very much recommended.