hc.newton

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Up on the Woof Top About?

Bernie accompanies his elderly neighbors to a book signing for Dame Ariadne Carlisle, the author of a series of Christmas-themed mysteries. This, as one has to assume, is interrupted by some canine-induced chaos. However, it wasn’t Chet that got out of hand this time. Nevertheless, Chet and his human partner do grab the attention of Carlisle.

She ends up offering the duo a job they can’t turn down. She owns quite the little compound up in the mountains. It’s called Kringle Ranch and has buildings with names like Cratchit House. Carlisle knows her brand and has fully embraced it. As part of this brand, she owns a group of nine reindeer—her favorite, Rudy, has gone missing. For a sizeable payday, successful or not, she wants Bernie (or probably his friend with the superior sense of smell) to find Rudy and bring him back home.

Once they get to the Ranch, Bernie learns that Carlisle is suffering a career-risking case of writer’s block—which is ascribed to Rudy’s absence, but it could be the pressure that book 100 is too much for her. Or a combination of things. But it’s this block that Bernie really focuses on.

Or he tries to, anyway. Shortly after they arrive, the duo finds Carlisle’s personal assistant at the bottom of a gorge, barely alive. It turns out that Carlisle’s one, true love was also found at the bottom of that gorge, murdered, before she started writing. Bernie assumes that there’s a link between the two and plunges into the unsolved murder case as a way of finding the attempted murderer.

A Holiday Sampler

Along the way, we get the occasional excerpt from Carlisle’s Trudi Termaine series—which is interesting enough and does help you understand the character. But…I’ve gotta say, I hope Quinn doesn’t go the Seanan McGuire/A. Deborah Baker route and put out books under her name, I don’t know that I could deal with an entire novel’s worth of it.

(of course I would inevitably try it)

The Holiday Content

Unlike the previous holiday-themed installment, It’s a Wonderful Woof, where I said that it “would be very easy to forget that this is a Christmas/Holiday Themed novel,” it is impossible to forget that about this book. I mean, for crying out loud, Bernie is hired to search for a reindeer named Rudolph.

Christmas just flat-out permeates Up on the Woof Top. Thankfully, not in a cheesy way, or one that should offend anyone, or put off Scrooges. It’s part of the setting, it’s part of every plotline*, and the holiday is discussed frequently.

* I should probably qualify that with a “nearly,” but I can’t think of an exception off the top of my head.

None of this makes this one of those novels/stories that you can only read during the holiday season—like The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol. Whenever you get to it during the year, it’ll be fine—but you won’t forget for a second what time of year it takes place in. (which makes it different from almost every single other book in the series, which could take place anytime)

Continuing Arcs

Sure, it wasn’t the biggest series-changing moment, but Chet getting out to…ahem…become a father was so subtle that you could be forgiven for missing it. And many of the series’ bigger moments (both for individual novels or overall) are underplayed—thanks in part to Chet not understanding them at the time or his unreliable narration.

That is not the case in this book. Not even close. Bernie does some things here that are going to change the books, his work, Chet’s life, and more in ways that readers can only guess at for now. (Quinn might only be guessing at for now, too)—and they make up the B-story, frequently distracting Bernie and the reader from murders, attempted murders, sleigh-pulling mammals, aging friends (new and old), and so on.

Here’s a fairly non-spoilery way to talk about how big and unusual Bernie’s actions in this novel are—he goes to his regular pawn shop not to hock or buy-back the watch. He goes there to just buy something. It threw me almost as much as it did the owners of the pawn shop.

So, what did I think about Up on the Woof Top?

“You did us proud. You’re the brains of the outfit, no doubt about it.”

Me the brains? That had to be one of Bernie’s jokes. He can be very funny at times. If I were the brains how could the Little Detective Agency be so successful, except for the finances part? Still, it was nice to hear. If only I knew exactly what I’d done I could do it again, and then hear Bernie say “You did us proud,” once more. Or even more than once! But you can’t have everything, which kind of makes sense, because who could possibly carry everything? You could have it, but you couldn’t go anywhere. What would be the point of that?”

I had a blast with this—there’s a subplot or scene or two that I wondered about. But they were either eventually justified or were fun enough that I didn’t care. The rest was just a ball of holiday-flavored Chet-goodness.

I never understood Bernie’s approach to the search for Rudy, I will admit. It really felt like he was just taking a vacation and occasionally remembered he had a chore to do. But that job was just an excuse to put him in this setting so he could look into this murder/attempted murder and associated shenanigans—that was clear from the jump (well, not what he was really going to be doing there, but that a case other-than the Rudy-hunt was in the wings)—so I didn’t worry about it too much. Also, the payoff to that particular gig was dealt with well enough by Quinn, that any quibbles just didn’t matter.

The novel is largely Bernie and Chet getting to play in the snow while doing what they do best while encountering a few characters that the reader will want to get to know better (a former Sheriff and a current deputy for starters). There’s a child that will steal your heart as he does Chet’s. And then there’s the setup for the series change that I mentioned above. Up on the Woof Top delivers plenty of fun from page 1 to 307.

Naturally, we get some healthy doses of what a friend calls Chet the Jet wisdom and other real heartwarming moments (see above quotation) that will flip in a moment to welcome silliness. There’s also a conversation about the lifespan of dogs that hit me right in “all the feels” after my dog’s recent death (it would’ve done it anyway, but the hit landed a bit harder). To be clear: I absolutely loved that moment and would’ve given the book 3 stars just because of it had I been annoyed by the rest of it.

Fans of this series will be very happy to unwrap this gift—and it should win a new reader over as well. If either of those two labels applies to you, I heartily recommend this novel to you.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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…the bowl shifted.

Slowly the crimson crockery began to rise. Twig like fingers curled around the edge. A pair of furry arms followed and then came two frightened golden eyes that blinked rapidly at them. A triangular face with a soft puppylike nose was next. It twitched as a strand of pasta slid off it to the floor. Oversized tufted ears slowly unfolded as the creature spoke…

“Please, we are needing your help.” It repeated, its eyes large and pleading like a puppy begging for a treat.

Jasper rubbed his own eyes in disbelief. “W-w-w…” he stuttered. He licked his lips he tried again. “What are you?”

“We are being the Fuzzwiggs,” the creature replied.

“Whose [sic] ‘we’ and what are, uh, those?” Milo asked, brushing the lettuce from his hair.

The animal made a gesture with his long fingers and several other big-eyed furry creatures shuffled forward, filling the room. They came from behind doors and under furniture. One was even inside a kitchen cabinet. Their rabbit like feet stepped carefully around the food-splattered floor…

What’s Fuzzwiggs: The Switcheroo About?

I’ll try to keep this brief…but no promises.

When we meet them, Jasper (12) and his brother, Milo (10), are moving to a new home. Their father died in a plane crash, and their mother can’t support the family as things are. So they, their mother (Emily) and baby brother (Wyatt) are going to live in tiny little town in Idaho to live with their grandfather and aunt. The brothers really don’t know their family well, but the house their father grew up in is large enough for them and the change will be good for the family (or so Emily hopes).

When they arrive, no one is home. They didn’t expect their grandfather to be there—he travels a lot and doesn’t do a great job of keeping the family updated on his location. But their Aunt Delilah should’ve been there. In her place is a note welcoming them to the house, telling them to choose their own rooms, make themselves comfortable, and to do a few specific things—follow some rules and do some chores. Some of the chores and rules are odd, but whatever.

The house is large and wonderful—the boys really want to go exploring some of the strangeness, but their mother makes them focus on unpacking and whatnot. Perhaps the strangest thing about the house is that there is a large, old tree in the center of it—words like “mega” and “ancient” are used by the boys to describe it. Their dad used to joke about being raised in a tree house. Now they get it. Sort of.

What the family is going to learn, is that the Great Tree is a vitally important object beyond their comprehension. It’s guarded (in part) by some strange and magical creatures called the Fuzzwigs. The odd thing about these creatures (well, one of the odd things) is that their magic comes from their flatulence.

But before they learn that, as is expected in stories where people are given oddly specific instructions and warnings—Emily and the kids don’t really heed them as they should. The consequences of that are going to bring a lot of trouble—and the Fuzzwigs—into their lives.

Fuzzwiggs

This is going to be the crux of the book for (at least) most readers—what do you think of these creatures? Even the Middle-Grade readers of this book are going to be familiar with a lot of the things in the novel—the bickering brothers, the family tragedy that makes them move, the mysterious extended family members they have to rely on, the strange thing in the new house that comes with a lot of rules, etc. And sure, silly intelligent (or at least sentient and capable of communication) creatures will be familiar, too—but the Fuzzwiggs are what’s going to draw the attention and keep it or lose it.

For this reader, they kept it. It helps once you get to the point you can see beyond the obvious comedy and get to something deeper (not much deeper, it’s not that kind of book)—I don’t know how much the target audience will respond to that, probably more than I reflexively give them credit for. Also, this will be easier to talk about when we get to Book 2 in the series and I can talk about some of these deeper ideas without spoiling things.

I think the easiest comparison I can make to help one of my readers to understand the Fuzzwiggs is the lemurs from Madagascar movies and the spin-off movies/show. They have a similar kind of manic energy and attitudes. As I make that comparison, I realize that the humor that comes from them reminds me of DreamWorks Animation movies in general.

We might as well segue to:

The Humor

Yes, it’s largely juvenile. So what? The book is directed at people who are juveniles. Can adults appreciate it? Yes, but only if they are willing to find humor in bodily functions and whatnot.

I think of it similarly to that line of C.S. Lewis’ about Fairy Tales, about one day being old enough to start reading them again. Or, “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” Human bodies are silly things that can make gross noises—at a certain age, we pretend it’s not amusing, and at a more advanced age we can chuckle at it again. Sure, I might not find the sounds and this book as amusing as a ten-year-old will…but I’m okay with that. Actually, I’m a little jealous.

So, to get back to the DreamWorks Animation idea—if Shrek and its counterparts are too juvenile for you—skip this book. And give it to someone who will enjoy the humor.

There is one character in particular I’d love to talk about on the comedy front, but it would spoil too much. Let’s just say that there’s a Hollywood hopeful in these pages that deserves a spin-off novella.

So, what did I think about Fuzzwiggs: The Switcheroo?

I really enjoyed the way that the whole family got involved—at least in some way—with the story. It’d have been very easy for Rice to focus on Jasper and Milo—or the boys and their aunt. But Rice got their baby brother rather involved in the story to great effect—Wyatt’s antics elicit some good chuckles and also brought some sweetness into things. I also appreciated the way their Mom was handled—we get a little from Emily’s perspective, we understand how everything we see here is difficult for her and yet she knows it’s best, and so on. And then she’s largely sidelined because this is a MG book and it’s a rule. Or, to put it less cynically, otherwise, the boys couldn’t get into adventures. But it’s a comical sidelining that Rice used well.

The adventure story itself is exactly what you want in this kind of story—there’s a great trek through the wilderness, hazards from within and without, some villains that really don’t realize what they’ve gotten themselves into (they’re both rotten and comical, a great combination for this kind of book), and some great battles (or scenes that are battle-ish and I don’t know how else to characterize them) and some nice story resolutions with hidden life lessons in them. It’s a good balance between comedy and adventure that I’d imagine would appeal to a broad range of middle-grade readers.

I had a few quibbles with the book and feel like I should mention them. There’s a museum in town that was established before Lewis and Clark stumbled through the area. I assume that was an editorial slip, or there’s going to be a great explanation eventually given for that. I do wonder if some of the descriptions of the magic/abilities of some of the creatures could’ve been explained a little better. Some (all?) of the scenes that cut away to things not directly involving the main events of this book were really hard to follow, yes, they’re establishing the world for this series and setting up future books. But I think a little more finesse would’ve helped a lot here. Neither of these are fatal flaws, and I anticipate that Rice will do this kind of thing better as she writes more. But they dampen my enthusiasm a bit.

Just a bit, though. I had a ball with this book and I think my readers would enjoy it—and the kids in their lives would enjoy it even more. I’m eager to see where Rice takes this series and I really want to see the scenes that follow the Epilogue. I imagine most readers will be with me there.

Pick this up—I think you’ll be happy you did.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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We sat there in silence for a few moments, as if each of us were waiting for the other to make the next move. It often went this way with potential clients, like an awkward first date, and just how much they wanted to drop their guard.

“So how can I help you, Mrs. Crain?”

“Please. Laura.”

“So how can I help you, Laura.”

Her blue eyes were so pale as to be as clear as glass.

“That’s the thing,” she said. “You probably can’t.”

What’s Broken Trust About?

From that promising start, Laura Crain—the wife of the US’s 6th richest man—asks Spenser to help. Her husband has been acting strangely, and neither Laura nor his business partner can understand why. Their company is on the verge of completing a merger that will make them richer yet and will secure the company’s place in the electric car market.

The richer part isn’t that important—outside of the increasing opportunities for the very philanthropic couple to give even more money to causes. But strengthening the company to keep doing what it’s been doing is important to the Crains—they’re committed to this kind of environmentally friendly industry.

Spenser has a hard time starting his investigation because it’s such a vague target—maybe he can’t help her after all, but something about Laura Crain makes him want to try. He’s (reportedly, although some downplay this) almost paranoid, having outbursts—one nearly violent one is witnessed by Spenser—and his volatility puts many things at risk.

Then someone tied to the company is murdered. Spenser is threatened. Not long after that, someone else dies, too (probably another murder, even if it’s initially unclear). And now Spenser has a bigger mess to look into, assuming he can keep everyone else connected to the case safe and the target off his back.

The Obligatory Street-Cred Establishment

Each time a new author takes the reins of a Parker series, their first book is full of them establishing their bona fides when it comes to the series. They have to show that they understand the protagonist, the supporting characters, and the history of the series through references to past cases, quick/extended appearances of various supporting characters, etc. And Lupica goes above and beyond with these—almost all of them feeling like they were apropos in the moment, thankfully. I started to keep a mental list of his efforts, then I switched to writing them down when the list got long enough—then I abandoned it because I had better things to pay attention to and it was getting too long to print here.

The punchline? The dude knows his stuff and can show it off.

He even brings in a connection to Gino Fish. Given how long Gino’s been dead, that was nice. And, as difficult as it might be to justify returning to that connection, I’d enjoy Lupica finding a way to do it. I really enjoyed that particular character.

Now, I didn’t think that Sunny Randall’s quick appearance was necessary—nor do I think Richie Burke added much. But I liked how the latter was used (which may contradict what I just said about him), and it was a clever thing to do.

Martin Quirk

Martin Quirk gets a couple of good scenes here and his presence is felt outside of them, too—Belson brings him up a few times, which helps—but Quirk casts enough of a shadow it wasn’t that necessary. Part of that is due to the whole cred establishment, but not all of it, I don’t think. It also fits pretty well with this book—and you’d expect someone with his rank to be getting involved given the prominence of the people involved in these murders.

Beyond that, however, if Lupica wasn’t planting seeds for something major on the Quirk-front in the next book or two, then he faked me out pretty well. I hope he didn’t because I’m pretty curious about it—we haven’t gotten a lot of good Quirk material in a long time (since he got Spenser out of that southern jail cell back in the 90s, maybe?).

Mike Lupica

And what’s going on with Quirk is just one of the moves Lupica is making to put his own stamp on this series. And that’s one of the things I really appreciate about both the Publisher/the Estate’s handling of these authors taking over—they allow them to make changes to the characters. I’d absolutely understand if they had to keep the characters in some sort of stasis from how Parker had left them, like an ’80s TV drama or something.

I’m holding off forming an impression about what Lupica is doing with some of the characters at this point, I need to see it worked out a little more. But I do appreciate him taking ownership and making the moves.

I’ll be frank—I thought he did okay with the Sunny Randall books (the series I have the least attachment to, so I didn’t care too much how he did), and while I thought he was a step down from Coleman, he’s doing okay with the Jesse Stone books. But giving him the keys to the Ferrari of Parker’s series? That seemed like a dangerous move.

However, I think of all his Parker-verse work, this was the strongest. He rose to the occasion, and I’m greatly relieved. I hope he can continue it.

So, what did I think about Broken Trust?

He looked around. “We looking fo anything in particular?” Hawk said.

“What we’re always looking for,” I said. “Something that will make us feel smart when we find it.”

“Could be here awhile,” he said.

One of my favorite parts about almost every Spenser novel is the initial conversation between Spenser and the client. Lupica nailed it, I thought. After that strong start, things kept rolling at or near that level for just about the rest of the book.

It wasn’t perfect, by any means, but it was quite good. For example, some of the Hawk-Spenser banter is a little jokier than usual—Hawk, in particular, seems a little looser as he teases Spenser over a handful of things. It’s subtle, but it’s there. I enjoyed it—maybe too much—but I think Lupica could dial back Hawk a notch or two.

To be a little more pointed: the last page (or so) of Chapter Eighty-Three, all of Chapter Eighty-Four, and the last half of Chapter Eighty-Five (which, sadly is the last half chapter of the book) were let-downs. If you took the first half of Eighty-Five and put it earlier and made Eighty-Tree/the novel end with the conversation in Spenser’s office, I’d have been more satisfied. I can’t remember when I’ve been so specific about this kind of thing (not a habit I’m inclined to get into, either)—but that probably says how much it rankled me. I probably would’ve given the book another half-star (at least) without these pages.

Lupica did a good job with Susan—a character that can frequently be divisive, but he dealt with her well (and the conversations with her about the case didn’t drag the book down). Other than Hawk’s teasing, I thought he did a great job with Hawk and the other returning characters*.

* He did brush off one of the more tantalizing things that Atkins left for him regarding Hawk in less than a sentence, however. I think that was a mistake, but I get it, too.

As for Spenser himself? I give Lupica high marks—both for keeping Spenser vulnerable, fallible, and human while seemingly superhuman at times. There’s a point where Spenser wonders if he’s invented a red herring for himself on one line of inquiry, which was a nice touch. Spenser takes probably the least likely punch he’s received in the series to date—and I believed it (and quite enjoyed the fallout). Basically, he treated the character with the respect due, and I suspect that comes from a fellow fan’s heart.

I really liked the case—and the turns it took. I do wonder if Lupica wrote himself into a little corner and had to use a deus ex machina to get him out of it in the latter chapters. It worked well enough that I’m not complaining—nor am I wholly convinced that’s what happened. It just seems like one (which is bad enough). But the layers to the case, the motives of the potential suspects, how everything played out in the end, and the secrets that came to light (and how they came to light) were really well handled and worthy of Parker at his best.

Color me satisfied with this one, and my trust in Lupica strengthened. I think this would be a decent jumping-on point for someone curious about the character—or the idea of an aging PI still plugging away at things. Check this one out.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s A Good Rush of Blood About?

Creely Nash is almost forty, single, a waitress in downtown Portland, and a drug runner. That last item may be eye-catching, and it’s really the only thing in Nash’s life that could be described that way.

She’s been driving for Animal for long enough for him to trust her implicitly—she gets the job done with no muss, no fuss, and no questions. Pick up from some place in the Western US and deliver it somewhere else. Period. She gets a nice flat fee and goes back to work. She’s started a savings account so that one day she can move south of the border and forget everything else.

And then Animal has her do a job in Palm Springs, California. When she was 16, Creely ran away from her mother there and never looked back. She’d never been back, either. She should’ve told Animal no—it might not have been good for their working relationship if she had, but it’d be better than it ended up being.

One thing leads to another, and she runs into a face from her past who tells her that Creely’s mother is doing life in Chino for murder. The wheels come off at that point—there’s no love lost between Creely and Blossom, but you don’t shake off news like that. Creely delays returning to Portland (angering Animal) to stop in Chino. Blossom tells Creely she’s innocent, but not much else.

Creely decides to stay in Palm Springs and get some answers—at least for herself, but maybe for her mother, too. Animal is beyond angry at this point and promises Creely that if she’s not home soon, she’ll be killed.

She’s about as unlikely an amateur detective as you’re going to find—and this is no cozy where gumption and banter are going to get her anywhere. But luck, making a good friend or two, and a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time just might put her on the right trail.

So, what did I think about A Good Rush of Blood?

I didn’t think of Know Me from Smoke once while reading this book. But I’ve had a hard time not thinking about it every time I’ve thought about the book since then. Briefly—this is a better novel in just about every way that I can think of. But I didn’t care about what was happening or the people it was happening to nearly as much as I did with Know Me from Smoke. This probably says more about me than either book (I’m not sure what it says, however).

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, hopefully, my subconscious will allow me to focus on this book by itself.

The characters are so well-drawn that it’s hard to think of them as characters. It’s common to talk about a well-depicted as “flawed.” These characters are beyond flawed—some of them seem to be nothing but flaws. This is not a criticism in any way—these characters are real. The kind of people that we pass by every day—some of us even are these people.

Throughout the book, Creely accumulates people to help her in one form or another. And she does very little to obtain these helpers—in fact, she sometimes tries to shake them off. But it’s only through the addition of her allies that she comes closer and closer to getting the answers that she’s looking for. It’s not that she’s been friendless before—or ally-less even. But I didn’t get the impression that she’s had this many at once before.

I don’t understand the motivation for two of her allies—the two who end up personally most important to her. The more I consider the novel—and what these two characters say about themselves and their reasons for helping Creely—the less I understand them. It’s not that I find them unbelievable as characters (see what I said above), nor that I think we have to understand the motivations of everyone in life or fiction. But I really want to sit them down and ask, “Why are you putting yourself through this for this stranger? I know what you said, but really, why?” Maybe it’s because they’re easily the most likable characters in the book that their involvement in this mess (to put it succinctly)—and the ones who will benefit the least from it—that I’ve spent so much time thinking about them.

But those are secondary matters—the focus of this book is Creely. The murder mystery and what she (and others) must accomplish and endure to get answers is secondary, too. This is ultimately a matter of Creely understanding herself and getting a better understanding of the world. That is not to say the reader will necessarily agree with the latter—but it’s important. Creely would, I believe, sneer at the notion of “self-discovery” (I’m not sure that Phillips would be crazy about it either), so I won’t say she’s on a voyage of self-discovery here—although that’s the cliché one would appropriately use for any other protagonist in similar circumstances.

Creely’s life has been characterized by survival—I imagine her aspirations have been low, characterized primarily by “different than now” and “less bad.” Even her vague plans for getting out of drug running (eventually) could be seen as “getting by in better weather.” But this news about her mother and how it impacted Creely give her the opportunity to do something that counts. Something that could have a lasting impact for someone (in a positive way). It’s not about making a mark on the world in a way that draws attention to herself, garners fame, or any of the usual things we see in fiction. Creely finds an opportunity to accomplish something that will affect people. She’s not had that ever—and is unlikely to have it again (especially if Animal finds her.

That’s what drives Creely, what drives the novel—and she discovers, like so many of us, that she really didn’t understand much about her childhood, her parents, and what set her on her path. Sure, there’s more tragedy and drama in her past than some experience—and few have as hazardous a path to learn this as she does. But most readers will be able to relate to what she goes through in some way. By the end of this experience, Creely might be able to do more than simply exist, there might be more for her than getting to the next day. I doubt self-reflection has been a big part of her life prior to these events—and it might not be a huge component after. But she does do some now—and that’s no small thing.

I’ve gone on a lot about character, self-discovery, and whatnot—and you may be saying to yourself that this is a far cry from the “sweaty, fast-paced neo-noir” “[p]eopled with bent cops, grizzled reporters, hardened drug dealers, eccentric sidekicks, and sexy librarians” that the back of the book promises. You’re absolutely right to do that. I can only blather on like that because I’m late with this post—if I’d written this immediately (as intended), I’d have focused on that kind of thing and maybe devoted a paragraph to the things I’ve started to explore above. But I’ve had time to ponder.

“Sweaty” is an incredibly apt word. I kept thinking greasy and grimy for some reason while reading—just a present and real sense of wanting to wipe your hands off on something throughout. It’s like that hole-in-the-wall restaurant where you know why the lights are dim and you don’t care what kind of dodgy things happen in the kitchen because the food is great. “Fast-paced: might be an exaggeration, but it is propulsive—once the “murder” comes into play, there’s a momentum that carries you forward and you can’t get off. Like the moment the roller coaster starts to move and you get the sense that nothing can stop it now.

There’s both a rawness and a cleanness to the prose that makes you know that Phillips sweated over every line—possibly every syllable. It was absolutely worth it—it’s been five years since I first read Phillips, and he’s put them to good use (and the memory of the quality of that writing has remained with me longer than other books I read that year). The power of what he’s given the readers is going to linger in your subconscious.

This is one of the noir-est books I’ve read in 2023—a statement that would hold up in almost any year you read it—solidifying my impression of Runamok Crime as an imprint to stalk. Fans of Jordan Harper, Eli Cranor, or Vern Smith would do well to pick this up.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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A Vocabulary Lesson and The Title

Let’s start with the word “Ostler”—what is that? It’s apparently a variant of hostler (which doesn’t help me at all), someone who tends to horses at an inn. Words like “archaic” show up when you look and various dictionaries.

Now, I have to wonder—why entitle your novel with an archaic term that many people aren’t going to be familiar with? There’s a certain charm to using a term like that with a historical mystery. Also, maybe the term is a bit more familiar to readers in the U.K. Still, it seems risky to me. Who’s going to be drawn to that?

Sure, Grossey knows her audience—so it’s probably a smart move. Also, for Grossey fans, they’re going to be drawn to her name rather than the book’s.

Let’s move along to the more important things:

What’s Ostler About?

Our titular Ostler is Gregory Hardiman, a veteran of the war against Napoleon and other things—he has some sort of obvious facial injury, and more than a few memories he’d rather not have. He didn’t return home when his time was up, but took up residence in Cambridge and started working as an Ostler. He has a way with horses that garners him (and the inn he works for) a great reputation.

He’s also a reader—a big one. He’s constantly trying to educate himself—he carries a notebook of words he’s trying to learn with him and is frequently updating it. This, as much as his injury, seems to mark him as an oddity, and endears him to some characters as much as it will the reader.

Anyway, a coworker is found killed and his widow wants answers. Too many people (particularly the officials) write his death off, but neither his widow or Hardiman are convinced. Haridman finds himself assuring her that he’ll get to the bottom of it. On the one hand, she’s desperate for answers, so she’ll take the help of anyone who takes her seriously. But I’m not sure why either of them think he’s the right man for the job.

Naturally, as this is the first of a series, he clearly is, but Hardiman doesn’t strike me as the best candidate at the beginning. He starts by looking into the brother of the dead man—he’s familiar with the outskirts of the law, and just seems shifty.

This leads Hardiman to some dealings with Clement College and officials there—he uncovers some shady dealings and earns the trust of the faculty. While continuing to look into the murder, he ends up taking on another investigation for the College.

Hardiman—and an interesting hodgepodge of allies—uncovers a lot more than he expected to. Including some dangerous men who aren’t intimidated by an ex-soldier.

As Historical Fiction

So, what I know about this time period in England—particularly about the way colleges functioned, life in Cambridge and its environs, and so on would fit on the back of a postage stamp. With room for a florid signature left over. So Grossey could’ve made everything up out of whole cloth and I’d buy it—worldbuilding worthy of Rothfuss, Martin, or Jemisin.

But I’m certain* that’s not what happened here. Grossey paints a detailed picture of life in the time, a robust set of characters from a variety of socio-economic classes and professions. It reeks of authenticity. I want to read whatever books come next in the series just so I learn more. I jokingly told Grossey that I felt like I should ask her for a reading list to understand the time/setting—and she volunteered to provide such a list, but I think I’m just going to let her spoon-feed me things as I spend more time with Hardiman.

*98.7% certain, anyway. I feel like I should leave a little room for cynicism.

So, what did I think about Ostler?

This succeeds on multiple fronts—as a mystery, as a piece of historical fiction, as a showcase for a unique (and potentially fascinating, time will tell) protagonist, and as a series start. I don’t know that this book has it all (few do), but it certainly has enough to heartily recommend.

The story is compelling, the pacing isn’t quite what you’d want in a contemporary Crime Novel, but it fits for the time—which isn’t to suggest it lags at all. You really do want to spend more time with most of these characters again (including most of them on the wrong side of the law)—few more so than Hardiman. The circumstances in his life undergo a significant change by the end of this book, and I’m eager to see how he adapts to them (his life seems to be a series of adaptations already, he’ll do fine).

As a slice of early 19th-century life, I found it most intriguing, and I wager most who at least dabble in historical fiction will as well. As with her Sam Plank series, Grossey is able to bring things to life in a way that gets even the uninformed 21st-century reader to see things and to immerse yourself in the period.

Give this one a shot—at least one thing in this book will appeal to you, probably several.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s The Mysteries About?

Here’s the Publisher’s Description, if I try, I’m going to end up telling the whole, brief story:

In a fable for grown-ups by cartoonist Bill Watterson, a long-ago kingdom is afflicted with unexplainable calamities. Hoping to end the torment, the king dispatches his knights to discover the source of the mysterious events. Years later, a single battered knight returns.

I’m not going to say more, even though I think we could use a teensy-weensy expansion to really sell the story. But the story isn’t the important part because…

WOW. The Art!

This is why you pick up this book. Period. You’re curious about what Watterson’s been up to for the last umpteen years, how his art has changed and developed. What’s got his attention? And we won’t really know much given how short this book is and how atypical it is, but still, that curiosity is there.

Maybe you know John Kascht’s work and want to see what he’s been dabbling in.

Either way, this is why you come to this book—and you will be well rewarded for it.

I’m not going to try to explain how these black-and-white images capture so much—and yet, leave so much to the imagination. But I’ve already gone through this book a few times just to see the art without caring about the words (which, yeah, I’ve read twice—but not as often). There are a couple of samples here.

So, what did I think about The Mysteries?

Honestly, the story doesn’t do much for me. It’s fine—good enough to justify your time, but that’s it. It feels like the first 50-70% of a Neil Gaiman story (but told in far fewer words). Honestly, anyone who described something like that to me would be enough to get me to pick it up—but I wanted a little more from Watterson.

But the more I think about it, I’m always going to want more from Watterson than he seems willing to give. So I should shut up and be happy about it.

I cannot say enough good things about these images, though—the visual look of the book as a whole, either. I’m so glad I got this just for that experience. And it’s an experience I can repeat frequently.

I’m not going to give this a rating, because…I don’t know. I can’t assign a number to this. I’m just happy to see that Watterson is still out there doing creative things and hope he decides to share some more in the years to come.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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“You make them sound like monsters.” [Grimsby said]

He scoffed. “If only. Monsters are much simpler to deal with than people.” His face grew grim. “Much simpler.”

What’s Long Past Dues About?

Tired of the grunt-work and make-work befitting a rookie and relatively-untested Auditor (despite the heroics that got him his job), Grimsby acts on impulse and hijacks a case assignment from the closest thing he has to a friend in the Department of Unorthodox Affairs. It’s an investigation into the remains of an unidentified ritual. His job is to figure out what the ritual was supposed to do and who was behind it—particularly if the ritual was intended to produce something hazardous to humans. Rayne can’t—or won’t—tell anyone why she was so curious about this particular ritual, but the fact that Grimsby stole the assignment from her is enough to put their already tenuous relationship at risk.

Jumping into something out of his depth and under orders to make sure he’s not working alone, Grimsby tries to shake Mayflower off of his new/renewed attempts at putting the bottle to his head and pulling the trigger. Mayflower eventually emerges to help—not because of anything Grimsby said, or out of a sense of duty. But Grimsby dropped a photo that reminded Mayflower of one of his biggest successes, one of the rare times he shot someone and wasn’t haunted by it. How is anything about it back to rear its head?

Grimbsy and Rayne fluctuate between working together, racing each other, and trying to save each other while on this case.

While Grimsby was waiting for the Huntsman to come around, he spent a little time trying to help Wudge with something. It didn’t go wholly according to plan. Or much according to plan at all, really. Along the way, Grimsby picked up something that twists his magic in a way he’s having trouble adjusting to. And picked up an enemy—or at least adversary—or three. All of which is going to complicate things for him in the immediate future.

Digging Deeper into Mayflower

The first book explored both partners, but we learned more about Grimsby for sure. The accent fell more to Mayflower in this book—at least when it came to backstory and filling out the character—Grimsby was the focus of the plot again, to be sure.

That said, I think most readers would’ve guessed correctly to 95+% of what we learned about Mayflower here. But it’s good to have it spelled out for us—not in a spoon-feeding way, but the kind of confirmation that’s welcome. We also get a better understanding of what Mayflower sees in Grimsby, why he stuck up for him, and did what he had to to get Grimsby recruited by the Department.

Again, we probably could’ve guessed it, too. But I liked actually getting to see it.

I enjoy the way the two partners see themselves and each other—the way those perspectives conflict with each other and the way they roughly match up.

Wudge

It’d be super-easy to consider Wudge as comic relief primarily—with a hint of pathetic. Sure, he’s good for another perspective on the supernatural world and to help Grimsby out in a pinch—but he’s first and foremost someone to laugh at. Like Dobby. (I’m saying that because I’ve slipped into it, and that makes me feel better)

But it’s a mistake to think that—he’s more like Gurgi early on—funny, pitiful, with a hint of malice. Like Hearne’s hobgoblin Buck, but less trustworthy (and less easily amused). He’s dangerous, he’s looking out for himself more than anything—and is perfectly willing to take advantage of Grimsby. You, like Grimsby, can’t help but like him when he’s around. You feel bad for the guy and hope that Grimsby can give him the assistance he needs.

But something tells me that he’s more like the scorpion that stings the frog as they’re crossing the water together—his nature isn’t to pal around with a human. And we’re going to regret chuckling at him in the near future.

Or, I’m way off base and I’m going to have to come along and issue a retraction.

The Anti-Nick Fury?

Without getting into particulars, this book ends in a very similar way to the way its predecessor did. Someone out there is scheming, picking up the pieces from whatever Grimsby, Mayflower, and the rest of the Department left behind (and one has to assume they’re doing this with non-Grimsby cases, too). Exactly what they’re doing with the people and artifacts left behind we’re not told. It’s clearly ominous, but that’s about it.

It’s like the opposite of the post/mid-credit scenes in the early MCU movies where Fury is recruiting people for the Avengers Initiative. It’s more like those scenes in the Garfield Spider-Man movies (although, it’s been a few years so my memory is pretty fuzzy)—everyone, including Spidey, has thought he saved the day, righted the wrongs, and sent the bad guys packing, someone is out there coming along behind him with something clearly nefarious in mind.

Now, if James J. Butcher has really learned much from Jim Butcher, I expect that we’ll see/start to see what this has all been leading up to in Book 5. But I figure he knows that readers might expect that—so maybe it’ll be Book 4 or 6 instead. Whenever he reveals what’s cooking in these last looks, it’s going to be big. And it’s going to be bad news for Grimsby and Mayflower. It’ll be good for the reader, no mistake, but bad for our heroes.

Grimsby climbed out of the jeep and glanced around at the lot of black, mirrorless cars. Mayflower’s rusted-out vehicle stuck out like a mountain crag in the middle of a rolling black sea.

“Didn’t they offer you a car when you came back?” he asked as they entered the building’s concrete facade.

“They tried,” Mayflower said, then scoffed. “Even insisted.”

“And you said no?”

“That jeep has been with me since the start. I’ve rebuilt her from little more than scrap more than once. I know every sound she makes, every grind of every gear. You think I’d trade that for anything?”

“Okay, but have you ever thought about the ship of Theseus?”

“Yes.” The Huntsman scowled. “But Theseus never had a jeep.”

So, what did I think about Long Past Dues?

So, yeah, I picked up on the big twist pretty early on. And then the twist to that twist, too—although I’m not sure I got that earlier than Butcher wanted us to. Being ahead (?) of where we were supposed to be didn’t diminish things at all for me—if anything it amped up the suspense for me because I wondered how long it was going to take for Grimsby and Mayflower to suss it out, and how bad things were going to have to get for them to see it.

I’m rarely that into a twist surprising me—I’m far more interested in how the reveal is executed and Butcher did it just right here—I wouldn’t have minded the heroes putting the pieces together a bit quicker, but I’m not going to complain about how it came about. What I didn’t expect was just how it was going to play out after the reveal—and what the long-term ramifications were going to look at. And…whoa.

So much of what I thought was going to happen to/hoped would happen for Grimsby over the next few books went away in a paragraph or two. I feel so bad for him—and am so filled with anticipation to see what Butcher replaces my expectations with.

I really appreciate the way the partnership between the Huntsman and the rookie Auditor is developing. Whatever their bond in Dead Man’s Hand may have been, they’re not BFF’s by any means at this point. There are growing pains ahead, stops and starts to their partnership, and some pretty big obstacles they need to work through. But at the core—that relationship, respect for, need (?) for each other is a great starting point to see both grow as people and agents. I don’t know that Mayflower will ever get all his issues resolved, all his personal demons exorcised, etc. But he can get closer, he can maybe become really functional again—and that’s enough.

We got a couple of new and potentially recurring characters here that I really enjoyed. The magic—and the magical worlds—are enough to satisfy an Urban Fantasy fan. The monsters—and how they manifest in the real world—are great. The societies—Usual and Unorthodox—are intriguing in all the right ways. The banter is just what a buddy-cop reader wants to read. The moral choices aren’t easy or too clear-cut (which is great). The principal characters are engaging and believable. Basically, this series is really working for me. I can’t list all the things it’s doing right, actually.

I don’t have any major criticisms or complaints—I just want more of this series. Next year and for at least a handful of years to come. Long Past Dues didn’t disappoint and lived up to the promise of Dead Man’s Hand. Can’t ask for much more.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Chaos Terminal About?

A contingent of humans is about to arrive on Eternity—a mix of scholars wanting to interact with all the alien races on board, a couple of tourists, a couple of spies, the detective who had Mallory in his sights for years, and the new ambassador to Eternity. Sadly, they arrive at a bad time—Mrs. Brown, the new host for the sentient space station has left for some training on how to be a better host, leaving Eternity functional, but not optimally so. Mallory has been left as the primary contact for Eternity (which only Mrs. Brown and Eternity seem to think was the right choice)—but she’s not quite herself once these humans arrive.

Now, as is wont to happen around Mallory, one of this group is murdered. Something is going on with the Sundry that no one can quite understand. The Gneiss outside of Eternity aren’t happy with what Tina and Stephanie did in the concluding chapters of the last book—and just might attack the station to express their displeasure. Oh, and among the newly-arrived humans are two people Mallory has had zero contact with for years—her High School BFF, Amy, and Amy’s brother, Parker. Parker is Mallory’s long-lost unrequited love, and it’s pretty clear that he’s never really put the torch he carries for her down anywhere.

Adrian

After what happened to him in Station Eternity (and what he did before that), I really thought we were done with the former ambassador, Adrian. Alas, I was wrong—he’s still around. For a guy who’s not a villain or a real antagonist, he’s really unpleasant as a character. I really wish he was something other than “the annoying human on the station.”

He’s toned down a little bit after his recent experiences, but at his heart, he’s still an arrogant twit who doesn’t contribute much of worth to anyone. At least that I can tell. I really hope that now that his replacement is on board he decides to head back to earth.

(or, fine, Lafferty does something really interesting with him in the next book would be preferable to losing him—she really didn’t this time out—but it’d have to be quite interesting not to get on my nerves)

The Killer

I want to start out by saying that I really don’t have sympathy for the killer and think things wrapped up justly for them (that’s a fairly spoiler-free way to put it, I think).

But once it was revealed what led up to the murder—and how things spiraled out of control afterward—I kind of felt bad for them. They were unknowingly wrapped up in things and fell victim to bad assumptions because of that. Yes, their reactions were utterly wrong—but I can understand how they got to the point where murder seemed like a solution. That understanding lasted until they started taking the next steps to cover up the crime and everything that ensued.

I do appreciate that Lafferty set things up that way for the killer—the alien cultures, the intrigue around the killer and the trip to Eternity, and the least-sympathetic murder victim I remember reading this year—help the reader to be ambivalent about the killer’s actions (at least initially). Not enough writers do that.

So, what did I think about Chaos Terminal?

The one thing I wish Lafferty had done differently was the humor in this book. Not that Station Eternity was a yuk-fest by any means, but there was a fairly steady stream of humor throughout—either in character moments, misunderstandings between the aliens and humans, or just the preposterous nature of Mallory’s abilities and what she did with them. The humor in Chaos Eternity was almost entirely centered on Tina. She was a walking, talking (and/or yelling) embodiment of chaos and slapstick. So much so that it started to be too much a few times (but Tina and Lafferty won me over each time I was tempted to give up).

I do wish Xan had a little more to do, too. But he was integral to so much of the plot, but not in an overt way—I remember him playing a bigger role in Station Eternity than he did here. He was almost as important as Mallory before, and he was demoted to the fourth-most integral character. Here’s hoping that’s not a permanent thing.

While I was engaged, very curious, and entertained throughout—I wasn’t having as much fun as I did with Station Eternity and I will admit I wondered if I misjudged the other book. Then two things happened—1. Mallory and Parker had a good conversation where they both communicated* and 2. The killer was revealed. After that (or in the midst of that) everything clicked into place and almost everything that had me on the fence about this book went away.

* There was nothing wrong with the scenes earlier where they failed to actually communicate, both were distracted, unsure if they could trust the other, getting over baggage, and thinking they could delay the conversation.

I did say “almost everything” there. I’m not wholly on-board with everything Lafferty was doing. I really haven’t had as much time to think about this book as I wanted to between the time I finished and the time I wrote this post—I assume that if I had, a lot of what I’m uncertain about would make sense to me. I really don’t understand some of the relationships in this book, why some of the interpersonal conflicts existed, and just why Lafferty decided to take up so much space with all that. However, most of that provided a couple of red herrings—or at least things that distracted Mallory from what she needed to focus on—which was likely a large part of the point. It could be as simple as Lafferty was using everything possible to add to the titular chaos.

None of this detracts from everything that (eventually) worked about the novel, but it keeps me from raving about it. It’s not really what I expected from this sequel—and that’s such a good thing. What happens in the last few chapters ensures that Book 3 won’t be anything like this or Station Eternity. I’m not sure what’s going to happen—nor am I going to bother trying to guess (although it’s probably safe to assume that a new group of humans will visit Eternity and one of them will be murdered). I will trust Lafferty to come through with a satisfying conclusion however.

And, boy howdy, did this conclusion satisfy. Everything was wrapped up fairly nicely—those things that weren’t really only served to set things in motion for Book 3.

As the dust settled with the book’s events—and as the dust settles in my mind about those events and Lafferty’s plotting—I’m left satisfied and impressed with the way it all went down. I had my doubts, but they were quelled and assuaged, leaving me able to say that those who enjoyed Station Eternity would do well to pick this up—more importantly, those who like a good mystery in an even better SF setting, in the years soon following First Contact should grab both books in this series and prepare for something great next year (or so).

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Cunk on Everything About?

Funny story (well, a story anyway), last week I was in my doctor’s office briefly and the nurse was being nice while she prepared to stab me with a knife (or maybe it was a tiny needle, the witness accounts vary) and she asked me what I was reading. I responded with, “Have you seen that show on Netflix called Cunk on Earth?” She hadn’t. Which made the whole small-talk pitch so much harder.

Because if you have seen the show (even just a clip or two), this is easy—it’s Philomena Cunk’s take on just about everything. History, culture, science, art, philosophy, religion, sports, food, and some of the important individuals in those areas. Presented in her idiosyncratic way, of course.

Now, if you haven’t watched the show—because you’re a reader, or something rare like that—this is trickier. Cunk’s approach to the documentary specials on TV or the encyclopedia entries in this book are a combination of naïveté, misunderstandings (especially in mispronunciation/misspellings), and cynicism.

Miscellaneous Observations

I don’t know how to talk about this book—especially as it’s essentially 1-5 page entries on a wide variety of topics (and that page count is just a guess, I couldn’t tell you from my eARC). The topics range from Alexander the Great, the Alphabet, The Alt Right, The Dark Ages, Democracy, Fake News, “Fullosophy,” Hair, the iPhone, The Mystery of Life, Sausages, “Weeing in Public,” and so on. So, right—forget trying to cover this all intelligibly.

• In lieu of that, here are some miscellaneous observations:
• The pacing is a bit odd—the “H” entries are around the fifty percent mark—I’ve come up with a dozen half-baked ideas/theories/jokes to explain it. It really doesn’t matter, but I thought it was odd. I don’t care—but it was something I noticed.
• The entry on Jazz is just fantastic.
• There are a couple of running jokes—derogatory comments about the idea of books throughout, repeated use of “Frankingstein” (to describe a certain Mary Shelley character), and that the moon landing was faked. This book doesn’t really feel like a vehicle for running jokes, but they work so well.
• The first paragraph about The Oedipus Complex is one of the best things I’ve read in 2023—the last sentence of that paragraph made me almost laugh out loud (but I was in the waiting room of that doctor’s office, so I had to swallow it to prevent strange looks)
• I really didn’t think that you could make many jokes about triangles. The authors of this book proved me wrong—and most of them were really funny, too.
• You are going to hear Diane Morgan’s deadpan delivery in your head whether you read this or get the audiobook. Just know that going in. (you likely assumed it that already, so know that you’re right).
• Mozart and Shakespeare are frequently the targets of jokes—it’s not surprising to see them both as topics here. Some of the funniest things I’ve seen written about both of them are here, too.
• The entry on Xylophones is fantastic—it covers the instrument, the usage of it in alphabet books, the silliness of using it in them (given the pronunciation), and more.

So, what did I think about Cunk on Everything?

I didn’t see (but maybe overlooked) the writers behind this book listed anywhere—but whoever they were, they deserve a round of applause. Or two.

I chuckled and laughed out loud a lot while reading this. There’s really not much more to say—that’s what they were going for.

My daughter and I have spent months sending various Cunk videos back and forth to each other. But now I’ve transitioned to reading her bits and pieces of this as I worked through it. I’m not nearly as good as Morgan at delivering the material, I realize. She’s probably glad I’m finished. But, man is this a quotable read—it’s virtually impossible to resist the urge to share this material.

Whether you go from cover to cover, or dip into it here and there (probably for longer than you intend to)—these brief entries are almost certainly going to be a burst of entertainment for you. Not all of them are going to work for every reader—but never fear, just turn the page and you’re probably going to come across one that will.

I had a blast with this—putting this post together took longer than you’d think based on the brevity of it because I kept getting distracted by the book and re-read large chunks of it. I think you will, too.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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The First Chapter

Don’t worry, I’m not about to go through this book chapter-by-chapter talking about each one—there are thirty chapters, and while I know I can go on and on about books that I like…

No, I’m going to focus on the first chapter for a moment for one reason—your reaction to the first chapter is going to tell you everything you need to know about this book. If you read that chapter (and everyone who’s stumbled onto this post should do at least that) and you think “Yeah, I can see myself enjoying this book.” You almost certainly will. If you read it and think, “Oh yeah! Give me more of that!!” You definitely need to read on. If you read this chapter and aren’t that interested in going on—trust that instinct and move on with your life. Also, I feel bad for you. (but I say that without judgment, even if it doesn’t sound like it).

This chapter isn’t quite the novel in microcosm, but it comes close—it has the spirit, the humor, the action, the supernaturally-charged martial arts, and the panache that will characterize the rest of the book. Anddddd, best of all, it features a very good dog. The book will bring in more characters than just Akina Azure and her dog (frustratingly named Dog*), which is the biggest reason I can’t say this chapter is a microcosm.

* It’s not just this that Akina has in common with Walt Longmire—I actually could write a post comparing the two—but this is my biggest complaint with both of them. You two have great canine companions, they deserve a great name.

So, What’s Partial Function About, Anyway?

I don’t know that I can do better than the description I was given for the cover reveal a couple of weeks ago—I’ve tried, and I keep unintentionally borrowing elements from it, so let’s just use it:

If Taken starred Michelle Yeoh and was set on a Jurassic Park-inspired Cradle.

Monster hunter Akina Azure inherited the most powerful weapon in the martial world before retiring to a peaceful life raising her twin girls.

The Reaver has them kidnapped, thinking Akina will trade that weapon for their safe return.

Will she? Or will she use it to wreak a terrible retribution on the men who took her girls?

You get one guess.

I’ll expand a bit on that, though.

Akina was part of a legendary band of adventurers, The Five Fangs, and then she and her husband Petrick (also one of the band) retired to go live far away and start a family. None of their friends have seen—or heard—from them or of them in years. Long enough for them to raise twins into their teens before Petrick died of blood plague (I don’t know what that is, but the name alone…).

Now, Akina tracks down one of the Fangs, Remy, to help her. She needs his connections to put her in touch with the people she needs to put her rescue plan into action. It wouldn’t hurt to have one of the few people alive that she trusts to have her back, either.

Remy isn’t crazy about the idea, but he can’t say no to Akina. These two past-their-prime warriors are soon joined by a much younger fighter (who is not quite in her prime and has a lot to learn first) that they can’t entirely trust, but can certainly use. Three people and a dog against the most powerful, feared, and twisted warrior (and his army) living. That’s if they can dodge the kaiju-esque monsters along the way.

It’s really not a fair fight.

Fantasy’s Answer to Sam Axe

I predict that most people talking about this book are going to focus on Akina—as they should. And I’m tempted to spend a lot of time talking about Dog, because he’s such a good boy.

But I want to hone in on Remy for a bit. He’s so essential to the way this book works, and I think he’s so easy to overlook. Sure, Akina and Zhu have some good, snappy, dialogue, and Dog being dog is amusing. Remy’s easily the funniest character in the novel and can be seen as only comic relief. That’s an error.

A couple of days ago, in an earlier draft of this post, I made a joke about him essentially being Sam Axe from Burn Notice. I haven’t been able to get that comparison out of my mind. It’s so on the nose. Remy serves as Akina’s Devil’s Advocate, voice of reason, conscience, and confessor. He’s the only one she fully trusts anymore. He knows someone (or knows someone who knows someone) everywhere they go and can get them whatever resources they need. In a fight, he’s almost as good as Akina and saves her on more than one occasion.

He covers all this with a commitment to doing nothing but drinking, womanizing, and lazing about all day—which is pretty much what he’s been doing since Petrick took Akina off to who-knows-where. When called upon, he steps into action, griping the entire time about how it’s cutting into his drinking. Again—Sam Axe.

If you’ve ever wondered what a wuxia-adjacent Bruce Campbell would be like, this is the book for you.

Okay, setting that all aside—at the end of the day, you’re going to like Remy and trust him to do the right thing more than pretty much anyone else in the book (see the next section for a hint of that). His agenda is pretty clear—do the right thing by his friend, do the right thing in general, and then leave everyone to their business so he can get back to pickling his liver. He may not understand the nuances of everything going on—but he’s honest, he’s clever, and he’s tough. Just the kind of guy you want to have around.

The Central Question of the Book

Most—possibly all—of the “bad guys” in this novel wouldn’t describe themselves that way. They think they’re doing the right thing to save the world, or at least civilization. Not just the right thing—the only thing that will save humanity.

But they’re so focused on the ends that they cross all sorts of lines when it comes to means. They do things to increase their power that are repugnant to the reader and just about every character in the novel. Honestly, kidnapping Akina’s twins in order to compel her to surrender her weapon is pretty much the mildest thing the “villains” like the Reaver do to secure the ability they think will help them.

It’d be easy to write them off here—ends don’t justify the means and all that, right?

But when you stop and think about the steps that Akina takes to enable her to rescue the twins? It’s hard to think of her as a hero (and she doesn’t pretend to be one, in fact, she outright denies it).

The novel focuses on Akina; she’s nice (generally) to Remy, Zhu, and her dog as they travel; she’s funny; she defends young women from creeps and slavers…and so on. So you reflexively think of her as a “good guy” a “hero.”

As we read Partial Function, we’re thinking about things like Taken. So let’s start there—are the actions that Bryan Mills takes to rescue Kim, the right thing to do? Sure some of them—but all of them? How about John Wick—think of the death and destruction that comes from him getting his vengeance? We’re inclined to think of Mills* and Wick as the heroes—but are they? I’d ask the same thing about Akina.

* Who am I kidding? None of us think of him as Mills, we think “Liam Neeson”—or “Liam Neesons,” maybe. No one thinks of him as Bryan Mills.

Now, that isn’t a criticism of her as a character. I loved Akina. I wanted to see her win, her whole plan was brilliant, I enjoyed watching her fight, banter, be corrected, and wreak vengeance. Maybe even more than I enjoyed Neeson or Wick doing the same.

I’m just not sure I should.

So, what did I think about Partial Function?

I have a couple of pages of notes that I can’t get to. There are so many quotable moments—because of heart or laughs. Berne’s got a way with words that I’m tempted to call Butcher-esque, and I just want more of it. But I need to get moving, so let’s just say that I had so, so, so much fun with this. Between this, Chu’s The War Arts Saga, and talking a little to Tao Wong this summer, I’ve decided I need to make more room in my reading for wuxia-inspired works.

The world-building deserves a paragraph or five to celebrate it (but it’s taken me 2 weeks to get this much written, I’m not risking putting this off any longer). For example, I should talk about the kaiju-ish creatures, but beyond saying they’re dinosaurish animals with powers that love snacking on humans (when they’re not stomping on them), I don’t know what to say. The political/clan system serves the whole thing well and I’d enjoy seeing more of it in a future installment.

Partial Function is a fast, enjoyable, action-packed read with a lot of heart and just enough humor to help you deal with the stakes and destruction. And these characters? I loved getting to know them and spending time with them. There’s a lot to chew on in these pages if you’re in a thoughtful mood, and if you’re not? You don’t need to, you can just enjoy the ride.

This was intended as a stand-alone, but the door is open for another adventure or so for the survivors. If we get a sequel, I’ll be first in line for it. If we don’t? This is going down as one of my favorite fantasy stand-alones. Either way—I’m encouraging you to read the first chapter and apply what I opened with. I’m sure there will be those who don’t get into this, but I can’t understand why.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Healed About?

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but after deciding to read a book, I basically forget whatever it was that I read it was about. That’s certainly the case here, in the month and a half between being sent it and opening it up, I’d forgotten everything—I dimly remembered it was about a nurse. That was it.

I was right, Cuppy Valentine is a nurse—she has been working for some time now for a urologist, who isn’t the best guy in the world, but he pays pretty well. Cuppy supplements this wage by picking up shifts here and there when she can and where there’s a need. Because this is 21st Century America, there’s always a need—she works in a Pediatric ICU, covers shifts for patients in hospice, and so on. She doesn’t have much of a social life—and will frequently work instead of dating. There’s one pretty cute doctor in the Pediatric ICU, however…

But the most important thing to know about Cuppy is that she works hard to care for her patients—no matter age, class, gender, etc.—or her fellow nurses. This will frequently involve flaunting/bending/fracturing rules/protocols/laws on their behalf. Think Nurse Jackie without the affairs or drug addiction.

That’s what we see for the first 40% or so of the book—Cuppy bouncing between the urology office and various assignments. We meet some patients, we see their distress, we occasionally laugh at situations the jerks find themselves in, we feel bad for the sympathetic ones, and our hearts break over the children kept alive by machines in the ICU.

Then (and this is what I’d forgotten, but it’s in the description so I can say it), Cuppy is given a gift (or a curse). She can heal people by her touch alone. She can hardly believe it—but she can. She begins going around and helping favorite patients, people she’s watched suffer for months and years—and then she broadens her horizons.

Cuppy’s aunt/surrogate-mother, a friend, the aforementioned cute doctor, a local Roman Catholic parish priest, a medical researcher, and more try to direct how she uses this ability. A would-be radio personality/medical specimen driver and a washed-up medical reporter have their own ideas for Cuppy. Legions want her help. All Cuppy wants to do is to help some people—but what’s the best way?

The Tone of the Book

It’s tricky to do medical-based humor—as anyone who’s watched a movie or TV show about it can tell you (the writers, cast, and directors can probably tell you more about it)—particularly if you want to get the medicine right. Alani frequently hits it right—basing things in a urology office probably helps. We all tend to laugh a little easier at things involving that set of plumbing—if only as a defense mechanism.

But she gets the serious stuff right, too. Those dealing with cancer, loneliness, and other heart-breaking conditions—especially the elderly and the very, very young—aren’t treated as avenues for comedy, we get to see them in their honestly tragic settings.

So, what did I think about Healed?

I wasn’t crazy about the way the book started—but I’d gotten into the groove of the episodic nature. It was enjoyable enough, but a series of set pieces like we were given is almost never going to be something I celebrate.

But when she gained her abilities, the book really took off. I’m not 100% sure I liked how Cuppy was treated by the author for the last half of the book—she really lost a lot of her maverick nature and agency. Alani largely justified it through circumstance—and eventually Cuppy started being herself again, but I think it went on too long without it.

I didn’t buy—or care one whit about—the love story. I think there’s a better way for Alani to get the doctor and his point of view into Cuppy’s story. But it wouldn’t surprise me to find I’m in the minority there.

Her fellow nurse and the receptionist in the Urology office (along with a couple of patients) made this book for me, though. They ground Cuppy, tell us more about her than the narration does, and get you to like her.

Occasionally—and Cuppy’s not around when this happens—Alani’s humor gets mean and insulting, usually in a condescending manner. That turned me off big time. Frequently, that has something to do with someone in the media (but not always). Perhaps she was trying to say something bigger about reporters, the press, TV/Radio personalities—but it fell flat. Maybe Alani had to cut some bigger pieces of that somewhere along the way that would’ve made these sections work, and inadvertently left these brief bits in where they stood out a little more. I don’t know—but it would’ve helped to cut all of those things.

The first chapter in the pediatric ICU was heartwrenching. Cuppy’s take on what we do to keep a little one alive—at the costs for the children and families (on all levels)—is likely to make you uncomfortable. And that’s the point. Even if you ultimately disagree with her (as I do), it’s something we should all think more about.

I do recommend this to those who read medical comedies/dramas and can appreciate a little supernatural element to them. Healed is an occasionally bumpy ride, but it’s an enjoyable one.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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This is Hard

I want to limit my comparisons between this new series and Jacka’s previous series to just one section—but that’s not going to happen. It makes sense, I suppose. It’s Jacka’s first non-Alex Verus book (other than the two hard-to-find children’s novels), so comparisons are inevitable, but I don’t want to turn this into an X vs. Y situation.

I will say at the outset, that if it wasn’t for the name on the cover, I don’t know that I’d have known they had the same author—so that tells you something about the comparisons. (except in quality—this is definitely up to the standards Jacka has established)

What’s An Inheritance of Magic About?

This is tricky. The Author’s Note at the beginning of the book tells us that this book is an introduction to the series. We are introduced to the world, the characters, the magic, and so on. Yes, there is a plot—a handful, actually—but the main point is for us to get oriented.

Basically, we meet Stephen—he’s roughly 20 and is fairly aimless. He doesn’t have the money (or, really, ambition) to go to University. He bounces from temp job to temp job, hangs out at his local with his friends regularly, takes care of his cat, and works on his magic in his spare time. It’s his real passion, but he doesn’t do much with it.

Then one day, some distant relatives that he’s never heard of come into his life (it’d be too complicated to list the reasons they give, and I think they’re half-truths at best, anyway). Suddenly, Stephen is thrown into a dangerous, high-stakes world of money and power—and he’s just a pawn to be used in the games of his “family” (and by family, I mean people that 23andMe would identify as relatives, but he’s never been in contact with or aware of for his entire existence). He’s a relatively unimportant pawn at that. He’s sort of grateful for that as he realizes it—but he’d have been happier if they never bothered him in the first place. Happier and with significantly fewer bruises.

However, through their machinations, he’s introduced to new levels of magic society and ways that the magic in this world works. Best of all he finds ways that he can be employed and use his magic—the best of both worlds. Sure, his friends don’t get it (not that he tells many of them, because he prefers that they think he’s sane), but he’s bringing in enough money to live and he’s getting stronger and more capable.

The World and Its Magic System

So, where the Alex Verus series was about one man and his friends/allies trying to navigate (and survive) the politics and power of the magical society in England (largely), at this point the Stephen Oakwood series appears to be about one man making his way (and hopefully surviving) the money and power of a different sort magical society—and it’s intersection with the non-magical world. We’re not just talking Econ 101 kind of stuff here—Stephen’s family appears to be some of the 1% of the 1% and there are huge multi-national corporations involved here with defense contracts to governments all over the world.

Basically, Alex had an easier place to navigate.

Most of the magic that’s used in this world comes from sigils—physical objects created from various kinds of energy wells (earth magic, life magic, light magic, and so on) to do particular tasks (shine a light, augment strength, heal minor wounds, etc.). There are likely bigger and better things along those lines (hence defense contracts), but that should give you an idea. The overwhelming number of these sigils are pumped out by some sort of industrial companies and are only good for a limited amount of time.

Stephen was taught (by his father, and by himself) to make sigils on his own—his are individualized, artisanal kinds of things. Think of a sweater you get from some hobbyist off of Etsy vs. the kind of thing you can get for much less at Walmart or on Wish—quality that lasts vs. cheap and disposable. He also reverse engineers almost all of his sigils—he sees something in a catalog (no, really, this is how people get their sigils for personal use) or in use and tries to figure out how such a thing will work and then sets out to create one.

I don’t know where Jacka is going to go with all of this, obviously. But I love this setup.

Alex and Stephen

It wasn’t until I was just about done with the book that I finally figured out what Alex and Stephen had in common—which is odd, it was staring me in the face for most of the novel. But before that, I really wouldn’t have said they had much in common at all.

Stephen is our entry point to this world, and he only knows a little bit about it so as he learns, so does the reader. Alex pretty much knew everything that was going on in his world, so he had to catch the reader up—or he could help Luna understand something (and make it easier for the reader to learn that way). Stephen has to learn almost everything by getting someone to teach him, or through trial and error—either way, the reader is along for the ride and learns with him.

Similarly, Stephen’s really just starting to get the knack of his abilities where Alex was already a pro—sure he had more to learn (and his power increased), but Stephen’s not even a rookie, really when things get going.

Stephen had a loving and supportive father growing up, a strong group of friends, and experience outside the area of magic users—something we never got a strong idea that Alex ever had. Alex had trauma and hardships behind him—Stephen doesn’t. So their personalities, outlooks, etc. are very different from the outset.

It’s not really that shocking that the protagonists of two different series wouldn’t be that similar. And yet…we’ve all read a second or third series from an author with a protagonist that’s just a variation of their initial breakout character. So it’s good to see that Jacka’s able to make that transition between his two series—it gives you hope for what he’s going to do in the future.

Oh, what did I finally realize the two characters shared? They watch and learn. Alex does it because that’s essentially what his abilities were—he could sift through the various futures and decide what to do based on that. Stephen just doesn’t know enough about anything so he has to sit and observe—and from there he can decide how to act. But where others will try to think first and act second, Stephen and Alex watch first—and for a long time—before they think and then act. It’s something not enough characters (especially in Urban Fantasy) seem to spend much time doing. So I’m glad to see it.

So, what did I think about An Inheritance of Magic?

I am just so excited about this series. I didn’t know how Jacka could successfully follow up the Verus series. I trusted he would, because he’s earned that over the last decade—but, I didn’t expect We need to start with Stephen’s spunky attitude—with a little bit of a chip on his shoulder due to his circumstances in life (that grows to a degree as he learns how much he and his father missed out on and starts to guess why)—is a real winner. He’s got a gritty (in an Angela Duckworth sense, not Raymond Chandler or William Gibson sense) outlook, is generally optimistic—and can even be funny—all the attributes you want in an underdog.

Then there’s the world-building that I tried to sketch out above—and did a not-wholly-inadequate job of. I want to know more about it—and figure increased familiarity is just going to make me more curious.

I have so many questions about the family members who’ve inserted themselves in Stephen’s life related to their motivations, trustworthiness (I suspect at least one will turn out to be an ally, however temporary), goals, and abilities. I have those questions about Stephen’s guides and allies—and think at least one of them is going to turn on him in a devastating way (thankfully, he doesn’t trust most of them completely). There’s also this priest who keeps assigning him theological work to study. Some good theology, too. I don’t fully know where this is going—but I’m dying to find out.

Are we going to get a Big Bad—or several—for Stephen to face off against? Or is this simply going to be about a series of obstacles Stephen has to overcome until he can carve out an okay existence for himself? Is this about Stephen becoming one of those 1% and the corruption of his character that will necessitate?

I’m not giving this a full 5 stars mostly because of the introductory nature of the book—also because I want to be able to say that book 2 or 3 is an improvement over this (which I fully expect). But that says more about me and my fussy standards than it does about this book. I loved it, and am filled with nothing but anticipation for the sequel/rest of the series. It’s entirely likely that as this series wraps up that we’re going to talk about the Alex Verus series as Jacka with his training wheels on.

I’m now in danger of over-hyping. Also, I’m going to just start repeating laudatory ideas. Urban Fantasy readers need to get on this now.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s ‘Twas the Bite Before Christmas About?

On the night of the Tara Foundation’s holiday party, Andy’s friend Pete Stanton, of the homicide department, calls him to ask Andy to bring one of his volunteers outside, so the police don’t have to cause a scene. Andy does so and immediately steps into the role of the volunteer’s attorney. He doesn’t know Derek Moore very well, but he likes Derek—and Derek’s dogs (more importantly), and wants to protect him at least until they both know what’s going on.

Andy quickly learns something about Derek—as he’s arrested, it’s revealed that his real name is Robert Klaster. Up until a couple of years ago, Bobby was in a gang in South Jersey. It was growing more and more violent, up to the point that Bobby was the wheelman for a murder. He went to the cops and turned in the men he drove—after their conviction, the state witness protection program moved him to Patterson with a new name.

Bobby’s made the most of this second chance and has become an upstanding citizen and moderately successful business owner—in addition to a great dog shelter volunteer. But now one of the leaders of his old gang has been killed in Patterson, and a tip led Stanton’s men straight to Bobby—with just enough evidence for them to make an arrest. The case is strong, but not air-tight. The question in front of Andy is can he take advantage of the weaknesses while finding the real killer?

And just why would someone bother setting Bobby up now?

The Recurring Cast

Almost the whole (and continually expanding) cast of regulars is around. Edna’s traveling, but we still get a couple of jokes about her work habits. Eddie shows up, but barely gets any dialogue—and not one sports cliché!—I really enjoyed those (see also: Sam’s song-talking), but the rest are about in their typical form.

Which is important—as much as these books are about the mystery/mysteries surrounding Andy’s case, it’s Andy and the crew we come back to spend time with. Including Tara, Sebastian, and Hunter—Sebastian particularly has some good moments in this book.

I do wonder if the supporting cast is getting too large, which is why Edna and Eddie get barely more than mentions. This makes sense, and it’d be good for Rosenfelt to rotate some of these in and out from book to book. It’d be better than cutting any of these for whatever reason—and better than just a token mention.

That said, Rosenfelt gave us some more than typical reflection on members of the cast. It was good to see Andy explain the specialization of work in his firm and for Andy to bring up the ethics of what he gets Sam to do in his narration. Cory’s been good about that in the companion series, but it’s not that frequent in this series.

I’m not sure if I had a point when I started this section, it’s basically turned into “assorted thoughts on the use of the supporting characters.” So let’s see if I can summarize my take on them for this novel—I enjoyed seeing them all, and am glad we got to spend time with them. I do wonder, however, if more judicious use of some of them per book rather than all of them each time, would be a better experience for the reader.

The Holiday-ness of It

So, this is the holiday-themed release for the series this year, as the title and cover image tell you. Very little in the book tells you that, however.

We don’t even get the typical (and always enjoyable) rant about Laurie’s months-long commemoration of Christmas. He gives a compressed version, but it’s not the same. In its place, we get Andy’s extended (and not favorable) review of egg nog. There are a few references to Christmas and a couple of the following holidays—but it’s not focused on too much. Honestly, we spend more time on Ricky’s soccer-fandom* than on any Federal or religious holiday.

* That was great to read about. Poor Andy. I get the same feeling when my kids prefer other SF franchises to Star Trek.

Do I care? Nope. I’ll take any excuse to hang with Andy and the gang. But I figure since it’s part of the theme of the book I should nod in it’s direction.

So, what did I think about ‘Twas the Bite Before Christmas?

This has nothing to do with anything, but Andy references the case in Flop Dead Gorgeous at one point in the book. It’s been a long time since he’s mentioned a previous case (outside of Willie Miller’s, which gets mentioned from time to time). It’s a nice touch to keep the series building on itself.

There were a couple of other things that stood out to me about this book compared to the rest of the series: Bobby’s about as close to an unsympathetic client as Rosenfelt gives us anymore (maybe ever—this is the twenty-eighth book in the series, I don’t remember the client in every one). And it’s good that Rosenfelt gives us some characters that are hard to root for—although a reformed criminal is pretty easy to root for, come to think of it.

Secondly, Andy slips up (at least in his mind, although Laurie disagrees) and it leads to some tragic consequences. Now, no one’s out there thinking that Andy’s infallible by any means, but it’s rare that a move on his part has such an obvious negative consequence. I’m not suggesting that we need to see major mistakes from our hero in every novel—but it’s good to see that just because Andy Carpenter gets involved, not everything is going to be sunshine and roses.

That said, he’s definitely at the point where I have to wonder why the DA keeps taking Andy’s clients to trial—when will they learn? Also, Pete sounds far too convinced that Andy’s client is guilty, you’d think he, in particular, would have more faith in his friend. This is a question countless readers have asked about Hamilton Burger and Lt. Tragg, as well, and the answer is simply: we wouldn’t get to see Andy or Perry Mason do their thing otherwise.

‘Twas the Bite Before Christmas delivered just what I expected—a good time with characters I enjoy, a clever whodunit, some fun moments with fictional dogs, and a satisfying resolution. Rosenfelt delivers that and more—there’s a sweet bonus moment to the resolution that adds a little holiday glow to the book (that works equally well in mid-September as it will closer to the holiday, or at any point in the calendar year that you happen to read this in). You’d do well to pick it up, whether you’re new to the series or a die-hard fan.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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The Background of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again

The movie producer, Tomoyuki Tanaka, brought some ideas (largely adopted from a Ray Bradbury story) to the novelist, Shigeru Kayama, and asked him to turn them into a story for a film. This story, in turn, was developed into a screenplay by Ishirō Honda and Takeo Murata (the director and assistant director) and became the movie Godzilla.

Godzilla was such a success that Tanaka had Kayama come up with a follow-up story, that became Godzilla Raids Again (although Godzilla Counterattacks is a better translation, that’s not what the movie’s title was originally titled in English).

About that time, Kayama was done with the movies and what they were doing to his idea about the monster—but he was helping to launch a series of books for young adult readers and adapted his original ideas for the movies into novellas for that series. These novellas came out around the time of the second movie’s release. Now, they’re being translated into English for the first time.

What’s Godzilla About?

The testing of some nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean has disturbed a long-dormant dinosaur/monster. Not only is it now awake, it may have mutated by the bomb(s). Angry and confused, it stumbles onto the Japanese islands and wreaks havoc on the people and cities it encounters.

The beast kills and destroys multitudes and seems invincible to every weapon that the nation has access to. But one scientist has been developing a new kind of weapon, that he doesn’t trust any government to have access to—but he might be forced to unveil it to stop Godzilla.

What’s Godzilla Raids Again About?

It was theorized when Godzilla showed up in the first novella that he might not be the sole monster/dinosaur/kaiju to have been awakened by the tests. A pair of pilots* working for a fishing company stumble upon another Godzilla on an island near Japan—while they’re trying to escape from that Godzilla, it’s attacked by another monster/dinosaur/kaiju, later identified as an Anguirus. The two pilots manage to escape following the fight between the two monsters.

* One of those pilots is named Kobayashi, and any good Star Trek fan knows bad things are about to happen as soon as that name is seen.

They rush back to warn the Anti-Godzilla Task Force who begin to strategize a defense against the monster—they cannot access the same weapon used last time, so they’re going to have to come up with something better, and quickly.

The Supplementary Materials

In addition to the novellas, the book has some additional material—the first (and most useful) is an Afterword, “Translating an Icon,” by the translator (obviously). These 30± pages contained answers to almost every question I had while reading—including a few things that I think would’ve been helpful knowing going into the book (the relation of the novellas to the films, the extent of Kayama’s involvement with the creation of Godzilla, why he published the novellas, etc.).

But there’s a lot of information that I’m glad I didn’t know going in—the critique of the U.S. nuclear testing, why it had to be so subtle, why the films didn’t include it as much as the novellas did, where (and why, sometimes) the films and novellas diverge, and the meaning of some of the more emotional moments. There were points where it was clear that something important or meaningful had happened, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it was—Angles helped a lot.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that in a perfect world (at least perfect for me), we’d have gotten a foreword as well the afterword—but like just about every writer out there, Angles wasn’t writing to satisfy my whims. And as an Afterword, he could really get into spoilers and things it’s best to have explained after the text.

The whole thing was so interesting I could’ve easily read something twice the length (and something tells me that Angles could’ve done that without much effort, it was probably harder for him to leave out ideas and details). The part I enjoyed the most was his discussion of a few translation issues, for example, the excessive (for a contemporary English reader, anyway) use of onomatopoeias throughout the book—but particularly in the battle scenes, or scenes when Godzilla is angry and taking it out on human structures and devices. Those pages read like the Batman TV series from 1966—full of Bams, Pows, and the like. And Angles describes how he cut many of them by translating them somewhat differently. He also discussed how he chose to spell the roars of Godzilla and Anguirus, and I really enjoyed that.

There were some things that he wanted to do a more accurate job of translating, but given the history fans have with the films, etc. he chose to stay consistent with the films, so he wouldn’t have to fend off accusations of bad work from those fans. I absolutely get why he’d make that choice, and feel so bad for him that he had to make it.

I’d noticed that there was a Glossary of Names, Places, and Ideas at the end of the book, but completely forgot to use it while reading the novellas. I don’t know that using it would’ve helped me too much during the reading—almost always the context was clear enough to get the meaning across. But reading it afterward helped clarify a thing or two, but by and large, those were minor details that not knowing them didn’t detract much from the text. The things I really needed (and some I could’ve guessed at) were in the handful of footnotes throughout the novellas. The Glossary was pretty interesting to read, I should note.

So, what did I think about Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again?

Before I get into this, I want to take a moment to say how cool it was to get to read a book about Godzilla. From the time I can remember this monster has been something I’ve been aware of in some way. The old movies, cartoons about him (and his goofy nephew, Godzooky), the toys, the newer movies, and everything in between. He’s just been one of the coolest creatures in my pop culture awareness—there’ve been few times that I’ve clicked on “Request” so hard on NetGalley. Now, I do have to admit, it’s been decades since I watched the original films—I’m much more familiar with the Gamera movies than Godzilla. So I had to wait until the Afterword to know what was different between what I was reading and what audiences saw in the 50s (it was certainly different enough from the Emmerich movie from 1998, that I remember more of than I want to).

I did think some of the dialogue was pretty stilted, and some of the character reactions seemed overwrought (and some underwrought). It actually reminded me a lot of the Gamera films and other English-dubbed live-action shows/movies I’ve watched—and while reading the book, I frequently thought that I owed those who wrote the scripts for the dubbing an apology—their work felt a lot like Angles’ translation. I don’t think that the dialogue or characterizations damaged my appreciation of the work, it just underlined for me that this is the work of another culture (and another time). So they’d better not sound like native English speakers, and should probably act/react in ways that don’t seem particularly American. What might be slightly off-putting at first quickly becomes part of the charm of the novellas.

The intended audience for these novellas were young adults, and throughout Kayama would insert asides “You may not understand…” or “You’ve probably seen something like…” to help his reader understand what’s going on, or perhaps the feeling behind it. The first time it happened, it was entirely unexpected, but I enjoyed the idea. I liked each successive one more than the last and was disappointed that we didn’t get nearly as many as I’d hoped. I don’t know if this was characteristic of his writing (I suspect it wasn’t), but for these novellas, it really worked.

We don’t see Godzilla right away, and Kayama did a great job of building the tension until we do—he’s there, doing damage and terrifying people, but the reader doesn’t get an idea of what they’re seeing until we’re about one-third of the way through the first novella. As impatient as I was to see the monster myself, I wish he’d been able to hold out a little longer. Now in the second book, we know what Godzilla looks like, so we can skip the build-up and throw him in right away—and then add Anguirus just a couple of pages later.

I found everything about Godzilla more satisfying than Godzilla Raids Again, but the latter was more fun and action-packed. I can see where some might be put off by the not-at-all-subtle messaging of Godzilla, but I thought it fit the story and the need at the time.

The Afterword and Glossary added a lot to my understanding and appreciation of what Kayama was seeking to accomplish and say, lifting the impact of the book as a whole. The novellas on their own would’ve been entertaining and satisfying, mostly as an artifact of another era (see what I said about the dialogue and characterizations)—but the supplementary material added the necessary context and definition to the novellas so that I walked away with a better understanding and appreciation for the book. Don’t skip those bits.

I’ve said a lot more than I expected to—and have only scratched the surface of what I’d hoped to say. So let me cut to the chase—I really enjoyed this experience—fun novellas, a deeper understanding of the creature and the themes the original movie was trying to explore, and a glimpse into Japan of the 1950s. And, once again, it’s a book about Godzilla, do you really need me to say more? I heartily encourage you to check this book up. Now, I’ve got to go track down some black-and-white films.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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A Quick Vocabulary Lesson

Leave it to our Teutonic friends to have a word for every occasion—in this case, we’re talking about “Fernweh.” Briefly, it’s the opposite of homesickness. It’s a longing for a far-off place, a farsickness. Not necessarily a particular place, but frequently it is one. The desire to travel would be another way to put it.

What’s Farsickness About?

Hal—he doesn’t really remember much about himself beyond his name—is hearing a voice inside his head. A voice telling him to go home. To go to Scotland (a place Hal doesn’t think he’s ever been, so how is it home?), to a particular castle there. Hal decides to call this voice “Fern” (from Fernweh, in case it wasn’t clear why I started talking about it) and does what Fern tells him to. Hal asks a lot of questions, only some of which get answers.

Then like Dante with Virgil, Christian with Evangelist (and others), Hal is taken on a journey once he gets off the plane in Scotland that is so strange, so fraught with peril and symbolism, and the difficult to explain, that I’m not going to bother trying. But in the end, Hal is taken on the journey to the places he’s really longing for.

So, what did I think about Farsickness?

The writing here—regardless what you think of what and who Mohr’s writing about—is worth your time. He’s got some of the nicest, most evocative phrases and sentences I’ve come across this year. They can make you grin until you remember he’s describing something horrible (or just plain weird). I think some passages would be great to read aloud—or listen to—just because of the sounds. There’s a scene of a submarine sinking, for example, it was a pure pleasure to read, the imagery was fantastic, it was a little funny, the vocabulary was vivid—and yet, it was about a manned vehicle going down. I tell you what, Tom Clancy, couldn’t have done it better (and he’d have taken multiple pages rather than the very tight paragraph or two Mohr used)—or as well.

I only have an ARC, so I’m not going to quote from it, just in case something changed—so you don’t get samples, but I’m telling you, it’s great. Think Lance Olsen, Mark Richard, or (because those names are likely too obscure) a decaffeinated Mark Leyner, and you’re on the right track. Kind of.

I’m clearly having trouble talking about that, so let’s move on to the who and what.

The more I think about it (and I’ve spent longer on it than I anticipated), I don’t know that Hal actually had fernweh. I think it’s something else—or we’re talking a metaphorical other place he wants to go. Or he thought he had fernweh, but was mistaken/confused/deceived. And…ugh. it’s hard to talk about what I’m trying to say without a lot of citations and deep-diving. It’s just something to think about as you read, I guess—”is ‘fernweh’ an appropriate term?” I actually think it adds another layer or three to things if Hal wasn’t feeling that after all. Not that it’s a bad or misleading title. I’m just wondering if we need to ponder it a while.

I’m also tempted to say that I’m overthinking things. But I’m reasonably sure that Mohr wouldn’t agree that I was.

(this would be so much easier to talk about if you had all read the book already. Why don’t you all agree to go read it right now and come back in 140 pages or so to read the rest of my post about why you should read it? Yeah…there’s something about that proposal that doesn’t work.)

Farsickness is one of those books that will tempt you almost immediately to try and figure out “what’s really going on,” to dive into the symbolism and other figurative representations to get to the bottom of things. I’d encourage you not to, just let Mohr and Hal take you along this surreal exploration of parts unknown (or are they?). Just let it unfold—relatively quickly you’ll start to think, “Oh, this is about ____.” Not long after that, you’ll know, “this is about ____.” Then you’ll start to see why it’s about ____, and why it matters. And everything you wondered about at the beginning will make utter sense. Then you’ll get some resolution to the story. Yeah, you could suss it out early on if you set your mind to it—but I think it’s a more satisfying experience (at least with this novel), if you let Mohr do the work.

Also, that approach lets you soak in and enjoy the very peculiar characters and imagery. Both of those deserve discussions of 500-1000 words a piece, but I’m not the writer to provide that.

There’s a pretty simple—and heart-tugging and sweet—story at the center of all this. But the 3+ licks to get to that Tootsie Roll center are enjoyable in their own way—and might do a little heart-tugging of their own. Yes, that candy shell is about trauma, healing, violence, forgiveness, and horror. But it’s not presented in a way that will make it too difficult to read. Like Hal, I didn’t know where I’d end up when I started the journey through Farsickness and I ended up far away from where I started—but it was absolutely worth the time (actually, it’d have been worth longer than it took, too).

This is no straightforward narrative, but the prose isn’t terribly dense and is fairly effortless to get through. After a few pages, you won’t notice it at all, Mohr will have sucked you into his absurd little reality and you’ll be turning pages like this is a thriller. I don’t know that I’d have gone out of my way for this (particularly with the cover), but I’m very glad Farsickness came across my path, and I wager you will be, too, if you give it a chance.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s How to Stay Productive When the World Is Ending About?

People being compelled to choose between having money to buy food/shelter/necessities and health (all while maintaining a social media presence) in the midst of worrying about the immanent death of the earth from climate change and various and sundry pandemics—this is the book for you.

a collection of essays, how-tos, and “inspirational” phrases to help you laugh when staying both sane and productive in a commodified world feels impossible. From “‘Doing What You Love’ and Why That’s Bad,” to “Why I’m Prioritizing My Career Over Finding a Better Career,” this collection perfectly skewers the indignities, big and small, of living through late-stage capitalism.

The Narrators

Mara Wilson and Jay Aaseng did a great job—a very dry delivery (unless something else was called for) and earnestness really sold the satire. I can’t help but imagine that they had to do many takes of parts of this because it was difficult to get through with a straight face. Even for professionals like they are.

I think Aeseng got to show a little more range in his performance, but that’s just because some of the things he was asked to do demanded it—when Wilson got to do more than the straight, dry reading, she stepped up as well. Maybe if I wasn’t multitasking, I could’ve taken more notes and kept better track, and I’d see that the ratio was different.

Essentially, they did a great job—I’d listen to more audiobooks by them—and they thoroughly entertained me.

So, what did I think about How to Stay Productive When the World Is Ending?

The website for Reductress states that it’s

The first and only satirical women’s magazine, Reductress was founded in 2013 by Beth Newell and Sarah Pappalardo. The mission of Reductress is to take on the outdated perspectives and condescending tone of popular women’s media.

and that tone and direction are clear throughout this book. Thankfully, even when it’s not targeted toward me, I can still (frequently) enjoy humor and satire done well. And this book, reader, is done well.

Very little of the satire and humor was mean-spirited toward an individual, political persuasion, or most lifestyles (I honestly can’t think of an example at the moment that was, but I’m going to say this to be safe). It does skewer the lifestyles/thinking of those who promote/require people to have to hold down a side-hustle or three to make ends meet, for example. But even then, not in a mean way.

I don’t think people should grab this audiobook, however. (no offense to the narrators, see above) Or if you do, don’t listen from beginning to end in a sitting or two. Listen for 15± minutes at a time and then switch to a podcast or other audiobook. It’s just too much at once, and all the jokes blur together. Also, I’ve looked at some of the samples of the book online—between the graphics and layout, and the ease of picking it up, reading a bit and then putting it down; print is the way to go with this book.

That said—I thought it was frequently hilarious, funny at almost every point—each piece had something that made me grin or chuckle. Most had several lines that did that—and a good portion made me laugh out loud. I even played a couple of pieces to my wife and daughter (my chronically ill daughter really enjoyed the piece, “How to #Grind when your #SideHustle is #ChronicIllness”). It feels like cheating to mention this one in particular, but I have lived (and know others who have, too) “Why I’m Prioritizing My Career Over Finding a Better Career.” Reader, I laughed so hard. And cringed.

That’s pretty much my reaction to the book as a whole.

I would absolutely recommend this to anyone with the above caveat about format.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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I paused as Dorothy Kisling, the owner and operator of the Busy Bee Café, sidled up to the table, pen and pad in hand. “Howdy. Whose murder?”

I sat my menu back on the table and looked out the window at the ducks treading water in Clear Creek. “An old one.”

“What, you’re running out of current ones?”

“Thank goodness.”

What’s The Longmire Defense About?

While out on a search and rescue hunt for a woman who hit snow she wasn’t ready for, Walt comes across a place his father had told him about—the place where his father saw his first dead man. That’s the kind of story that sticks with you, I’d imagine. At the time, it was ruled an accidental death, but no one ever figured out who had shot the man. Shortly after encountering the woman he was looking for, Walt’s dog finds a gun that had been tucked away for years—the kind of gun used in that accident. Assuming it wasn’t an accident (and the way the gun was left at the scene, that seems likely), Walt suspects the men who were hunting with the dead man. Except, of course, his father.

One of those men in the hunting party was Walt’s grandfather, Lloyd. Walt narrows in on him almost immediately as a suspect and charges into the investigation—not to clear him, either. It’s not long before Walt starts to uncover a motive for the killing—and it suggests something far bigger than one murder—and maybe to criminal activities that are continuing today.

Meanwhile, the woman who was stuck in the snow keeps getting into trouble. Walt does what he can to help her, but is so focused on the cold case that he maybe doesn’t do everything he could for her. It’s understandable, but it rankles me (and probably will bother Walt once he realizes it)

In the end, Walt’s past—and his family’s past—and future collide in a way that will leave him knowing much more about his family than he expected to learn.

Off His Game?

Walt’s still recovering from the injuries suffered in Hell and Back, technically, right before Hell and Back and this is really his return to work. He needs to shake a little dust off to return to form. That’s derailed as soon as he uncovers that rifle and connects the crime with his grandfather. He also has to deal with a personal issue or two, a personnel issue or two, and some other changes (including the return of an old friend to town—not all of the distractions are negative)

We’ve known for some time that the relationship between Walt and Lloyd wasn’t good—Walt clearly holds a great deal of resentment (to maybe understate it) toward his grandfather. But it’s here that we really dig into things—but I don’t think we get to the bottom of it all. Walt rarely has seemed so determined to prove something—perhaps forcing clues to lead to a conclusion.

Because of these distractions, he’s missing some things—he certainly doesn’t handle things as well as he could with a couple of personal items. The contemporary crime he’s confronted with really could’ve used more attention, and I’d like to think he’d typically give it that focus, and prevented some of the worst outcomes. But he’s so preoccupied with his grandfather and what might have happened in the past…

Walt’s human. He makes mistakes. He holds grudges. We know this—but it’s not often we see it placarded like this. Anyone tempted to hero-worship the Absaroka County Sheriff should get disabused from that by this book. It’s the way he reacts to these errors that will tempt the reader back toward the idolatry (however tarnished).

Saying Goodbye

Wow, there’s a lot of goodbyes to take in over the course of this novel. Some are said, some are implied, and others just happen. Absaroka County won’t look the same after The Longmire Defense

Okay, maybe it’s not saying goodbye in every case. I guess there are several points along the way that make this more of a “Death Card” in tarot (at least as far as I understand it)—there are a lot of phases of life that close here. Many things change. Careers, families, and so on.

Johnson isn’t letting anything like a status quo settle in with the series—and for book 19, that’s great to see. It’d be really easy for him to coast along and just keep getting the team back together for another adventure like one or two they’ve had before. Instead, Johnson moves several characters in new directions, introduces someone we may see a lot more of, and makes sure we see parts of Walt we’ve never seen before (whether or not we may like those parts).

Ummm…What?

When you read this from start to finish, everything works—you’re going to be into it and will be enjoying yourself. Once everything is over, you’re going to look back over things and think of one scene/event and it’ll be jarring. In retrospect, I absolutely don’t understand it. I wonder if one of the people involved could’ve used some therapy leading up to it—and one of them might need a little after it. I’d seriously like to ask Johnson what he was thinking when he wrote it (and why his editors let it stand).

Once you’ve read this book, and are wondering what I’m talking about, feel free to send me a message to see if I’m talking about what you’re thinking I am. (you’re probably going to be right)

So, what did I think about The Longmire Defense?

The snow dropped down to about six inches and I couldn’t help but feel good chugging along with the rays of the sun warming my back and doing one of the things I really enjoyed: putting a little effort out to help someone. I sometimes wondered how I’d ended up being a sheriff—if it had simply been the path of least resistance from being a marine investigator in Vietnam, becoming a deputy when I’d gotten back stateside, and then eventually running for the office. I like to think it was more than that, and the thing I usually settled on was being of assistance when people needed it the most.

I know it sounded corny in the modern era, but it was what I was good at, something I did well.

Yeah, maybe corny, but it makes me feel better to think that there are people out there like this.

I’ve been up and down when it comes to this series since Depth of Winter—The Longmire Defense is an up— big up. I think it’s entirely possible when I reread this (and I will) that I’ll wonder why I only gave it 4 Stars (but then I’ll remember that therapy-inducing scene and a couple of other things).

The character work was fantastic—for Walt, Henry, and Sancho in particular, along with the rest of the regulars and all the new characters, too. The murder investigation (not-really-a-spoiler to say that) was intriguing, and the lengths people went through to cover up the details of the related crimes were astonishing (until you realized what the related crimes were, anyway). The final reveals and ultimate resolution to that story were fantastic.

Early on, I sent a message to a friend who’s had to delay reading the book saying, “I know exactly when you’ll be texting me.” And it has nothing to do with anything associated with that case. Rather it’s one of the Death Card moments. That one in particular, but all of them, were just so well-written and timed that long-time readers will love them (even if they’re not crazy about what they mean long-term). New readers to the series will pick up on a lot of the weight thanks to Johnson’s writing, and won’t feel lost, either. They just won’t get it all, as you’d expect.

I thoroughly enjoyed the read—it’s one of those that you don’t want to end because you’re having so much fun, but AAAARGH! you just have to know how it all gets resolved ASAP. I hope this is a true return to form for the series*. If not, I’ll love that we got The Longmire Defense. I strongly recommend this to Longmire fans new, old, and yet to start.

* I’m going to keep reading them regardless, it’ll just be nicer for me if it goes this way.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Scareground About?

Nancy’s an adventuresome girl who helps in her (adoptive) parents’ bakery. There’s something about her that puts most children off—but on the whole, she enjoys her life—and gets up to a lot of mischief by running all over the rooftops of the small town she lives in. (she seems a little young, and historically early to practice Parkour, but really that’s what she does).

Through her antics, she has managed to make one friend, Arthur. Arthur’s father is overprotective due to his mother’s death and keeps a short leash on his son. But these two find ways to stretch the leash and have fun together.

Some strange things start happening in their town, pointing to the arrival of a fair. There’s no way that either of them will be permitted to attend, but they’re determined to have a look. It seems fun enough, it’s something that doesn’t happen often (not in their lifetimes, anyway), and they’ve been forbidden by their parents. For pre-teen Middle-Grade characters, you know that means they’ll sneak into it and get into adventures. Nancy has another reason to go—but she can’t bring herself to tell Arthur—she’s pretty sure that she’ll learn something about the circumstances around her parents leaving her to be found and taken in by the Crumpets.

And they do sneak in, they do get into adventures—most of which are far beyond what they could’ve imagined. The fair—the Scareground—is much more than a typical traveling fair.

Kecojevic’s Language

There’s something about the language—particularly a couple of word choices—that bothered me. A few words (like “macabre,” and “maritime”) are used perhaps too often. It feels like someone learned a new word and was trying to squeeze it in as often as possible. I obviously don’t think that’s what happened—it just feels that way.

Aside from that, the vocabulary and phrasing do strike me as someone trying to capture or create a mood—a feel to the book. One that’s reminiscent of a fairy tale or a story from another time. I don’t know that Kecojevic was entirely successful at it, however. But you can’t help but see that’s what she was going for, and it adds just the right amount of whimsy to enliven this story and the characters (Nancy in particular).

So, what did I think about Scareground?

As many good things that were in the book, several little choices that Kecojevic made added up—like the final words of the prologue which were an over-the-top threat delivered to no one at all just so the villain could monologue for a bit—and almost makes this book die a death of a thousand cuts. Please note the “almost” there. Thinking back to the prologue—you snip that monologue and you’ve got a nice, disturbing introduction to the book.

The book works well if you take it on the surface, enjoy Nancy and Arthur—and the friends they make along the way—and get caught up in the story and the strange world it takes place in. If you think about many aspects too much, it doesn’t hold up too well. It’s not a house of cards by any means, but maybe balsa wood.

Or, come to think of it—think of this as a carnival ride or fair attraction. That’s appropriate, right? It might be a spooky ride through a house of horrors, it might be an exciting-looking roller coaster, or it might be a pretty carousel—but if you look behind the curtain, or too closely at the structure, or spend too much time looking at the paint job on the horses or the lighting fixtures, and it’s less impressive.

Thankfully, you’re not going to find a lot of the target audience dwelling on aspects—they’re going to be in it for the ride. Which, getting back to my main point—works well when you take Scareground that way.

Nancy and Arthur are a whole lot of fun. The Crumpets are a delightful couple and the kind of parents (biological or not) that you want to see in fiction. And so many other characters could be talked about in this way. Nancy’s extra abilities are a wonderful, imaginative touch—but so is her heart and drive. Arthur matches that heart and drive without her abilities, and it’s their friendship that makes a lot of this work.

It’s a fast and strange ride that will entertain, for sure. I recommend it to readers of the right age.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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“…there’s also what you might call a demotivating factor.”

“Which is?” said Mrs. Plansky. For some reason she was now finding Agent Gatling easy to understand.

“From our point of view the scammers are bad guys, end of story. But to the elite running the show over there the scammers are bad guys who also have a nice little industry going, bringing in the Yankee dollar and lots of ‘em. And to the everyday Joe they’re punching up, the kind of outlaw people have a soft spot for.”

“Like Robin Hood.”

“You got it.”

They gazed at each other. The message was in his eyes, Mrs. Plansky voiced it.

“You’re telling me to lose hope.”

“Not in so many words.”

What’s Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge About?

Mrs. Plansky is enjoying her retirement (however much it’s tainted by the semi-recent death of her husband). Her hip replacement’s healed enough that she can play tennis, and she’s practically back at the level she was before the surgery. Her kids are established in their lives, her grandchildren are doing okay (although she has some concerns about her grandson’s friends and associates). Things are as good as she could’ve wanted.

Then one day, she’s scammed by someone claiming to be her grandson who needs some money for bail. We’ve (probably) heard about versions of this scam—they don’t just get the bail money, they get enough information from her to empty her accounts.

She’s devastated. How is she going to live? How’s she going to help her father, her children, or her grandchildren? Is she going to be able to convince them that they don’t need to worry about her emotional stability or soundness of mind? And what can she do when even the FBI seems to be giving up before they’ve even started?

Well, Mrs. Plansky does what she’s always done—put her nose to the grindstone and get to work. The FBI said something about some small Romanian town, why not start there? So she sells a very nice piece of jewelry and buys a plane ticket. It may be a fool’s errand, but little ventured, little gained, right?

Norm and the Mrs.

Throughout the book, Mrs. Plansky is identified as “Mrs. Plansky.” Not “Loretta” or “Plansky” as most writers would do after establishing the protagonist’s name. This is how she thinks of herself (although she tells people to call her Loretta all the time). Now, you could come at this with some sort of feminist critique about how her personality/identity has been swallowed by her husband’s or something along those lines. And in some books that would be valid.

But I don’t think that’s the case here (Mr. Quinn, feel free to correct me on this). She just thinks of herself as Norm’s wife. And, I expect, that were he still with us, Norm would think of himself as Loretta’s husband. He’s constantly on her mind as she goes through all this. They had a strong marriage, built a business together (each displaying their own strengths), raised a couple of kids together, and enjoyed a life together (made all the more pleasant by the business taking off and giving them a very comfortable life).

The fact that after his death she still thinks of herself in this way I found particularly sweet. They may have been parted by death, but in many real and tangible ways, they’re still married. It’s a great character point and tells us so much about her without Quinn having to do so. This is not to say that Mrs. Plansky might not consider future romantic entanglements, but she’ll always be Norm’s wife in some sense.

Mrs. Plansky’s Other Opponent

She closed her eyes, resting them, in fact. Giving her eyes a little rest from time to time? That was new in her life. Her eyes had gone along for more than seven decades content to take their rest when the rest of her was resting—team players, the pair of them—but now they were making demands.

Related to that—Mrs. Plansky’s no spring chicken. She’s in great shape for someone of her years and will surprise herself by some of what she’s able to do physically (for example, on the tennis court). At the same time, she’s having to come to grips with the effects of aging—her strength and endurance isn’t what it was, her attention slips from time to time, and her recall might struggle a bit. Everything, basically, is a little more difficult than it used to be. I appreciated the way that Quinn depicted this—not that everything’s falling apart, or that with grit and determination she’s triumphing against the effects of aging, she’s simply noticing and adjusting.

There are moments here and there where this makes Mrs. Plansky (rather, a close third-person narration) slightly unreliable. But Quinn’s spent years writing from the POV of a dog who doesn’t fully understand what humans are doing, and he’s great at depicting that without casting doubt on everything going on and getting the reader to understand things that the protagonist missed.

The Tone

Overall, the book has a lighter and optimistic tone. Most of that comes from Mrs. Plansky’s character and frame of mind.

But (to go with that character), not all of it is light. There are some dark moments, some real despair and worry. For example, I knew the premise of this book months ago, back when Quinn first announced it. Yet when Mrs. Plansky’s on the phone with the scammer and is giving away too much information, I was reading with one hand over my eyes. Similarly, as she comes to grips with just how bad things are for her—and takes in Agent Gatling’s message about how little hope she has to recover the funds…you can’t help but feel for her.

But when she comes up with a plan and begins to execute it—and enjoys doing so. It’s impossible not to catch that optimism and lightness.

So, what did I think about Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge?

This is a very different flavor than I’ve seen from Quinn before—yes, it shares some elements from his other work (The Right Side and the Chet and Bernie books in particular), but overall, it feels like a new and welcome direction. I mean, it’s welcome here as long as he comes back to Chet and Bernie. There’s a depth, a perspective, and a different kind of character than I’m used to. And a total dearth of animal companions, which is just strange.

I loved most of the characters (even the bad guys). And even (in the case of her children, for example—a sure sign that Mr. and Mrs. Plansky weren’t great at everything) when I didn’t like the characters, I appreciated the way Quinn wrote them. The one exception is her father, who lives in a nearby assisted living facility. I’m not sure that we needed Mrs. Plansky’s father as a character—I think he was supposed to be both comic relief and just one more source of financial pressure for her. I don’t think the comedy worked all that well—and Quinn could’ve given us another source for the pressure.

One quick aside, I’m just curious—between this book and Osman’s Thursday Murder Club books, I’m wondering if there’s a surfeit of charming Eastern European men with a “flexible” understanding of the law running around. Can anyone confirm that?

An implausible, but great story. A revenge fantasy that many people will have had, taken on by a relatable character that you can’t help but root for. There’s plenty of heart to go around, and it’ll just leave you feeling good (as long as you don’t put it down while she’s being ripped off).

If you’ve tried Quinn before and he hasn’t clicked with you, try this one. If you haven’t tried him before, try this one. If you’re not sure you want to read a dog-less book from him, try it. If there’s anyone I haven’t covered in this paragraph—try it.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Hansel and Gretel About?

This is the story of Hansel and Gretel almost straight from the Brothers Grimm—given a quick shine by Gaiman. There’s nothing particularly Gaiman-esque about the writing or the approach to the story. It’s a pretty decent and straightforward approach to the story.

The Art

In the spirit of “If you can’t say anything nice….”, I’m tempted to leave a few lines of blank space here and move on. I don’t get it. Really. I just don’t understand what Mattotti was going for here. The pictures are spread over two pages, and most of those pages are black. There are bits of white to help you get an image or the shadow of an image, but again—it’s just black. The kind of black that would’ve threatened to bankrupt printers just a couple of decades ago.

Maybe a quarter to a third of each two-page spread was interesting—but the rest. Ugh.

Call me a Philistine here…but I just don’t see why someone would bother.

I’ve looked at Mattotti’s website, and I like a lot of what I saw there…but this was a swing and a miss.

So, what did I think about Hansel and Gretel?

So, the text was okay. The art was disappointing. Overall, I give this a “meh.” If this were a person’s first exposure to the story—it’d work well. And honestly, if that’s what someone uses it for—I’d probably rate this higher.

But for someone wanting a little bit of that Gaiman magic applied to this familiar tale? It just doesn’t deliver.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader, along with a Q&A with the author, excerpts, and more.

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What’s Eclipse About?

Django and Mikka are just going about their lives like they have been. They’ve never met—and likely never will. Their lives couldn’t be more different. But because they’re the primary characters in this book, we know they will at some point.

How does an agricultural specialist from a space station come across the path of a cargo-hauling ship’s captain?

That’s where the rakish, brash, legend-in-her-own-mind, Abigail Monroe, space pirate comes in. Abigail just being Abigail starts a ripple effect that will end up disrupting the lives of these two and maybe even change much, much, much more.

That’s not much of an answer to the question, let’s take a look at it like this…

Django’s Storyline

Django has a life he’s been contented with. Like his family before him—he works on the agricultural ring of a space station, growing food for his fellow residents and creating the fauna that will help rebuild the ruined Earth below. He likes his work—he’s dedicated to his mission (while he knows it will be his descendants who will actually reap the benefits when they can live on Earth again). But his lifelong friend (and he probably would like more than that) Eventide is leaving the agricultural wing. She’s worked her way into a more prestigious job and he’s feeling left behind as she prepares to fully transfer—including moving to a new ring. I’m not convinced he realizes how much it’s bothering him, but we readers can tell.

The day of his sister’s wedding things start to go wrong—first of all, now that his sister’s wed, the pressure for him to settle down is going to move to him. And Eventide’s move is happening, and then…well. Disaster strikes and part of his family dies. At the same time, Django may have seen something that undercuts his entire life’s work and beliefs. Like any good human, he convinces himself that everything’s actually okay and he misunderstood what he saw. But…his uncle isn’t convinced. In fact, his uncle starts to sound like some sort of conspiracy theorist, even talking about getting off the space station. Django didn’t even think that was possible.

Django can’t wrap his head around it all. Between grief and confusion, he’s overwhelmed. Over the next couple of days, things get worse and Django starts to wonder if he should be leaving.

Mikka’s Storyline

Years ago, there was a space pirate named Jax Luana, who enjoyed some renown. Suddenly, she dropped off the map—with a lot of questions and rumors surrounding that. For reasons I won’t divulge, she got out of piracy, and changed her name and appearance. After a couple of lucky breaks, Mikka is able to get a small ship and a partner and takes on small cargo jobs and the like—see Mal Reynolds and his crew on a good day. Her mother has a long-term—probably terminal—disease, and Mikka pours all her profits into her mother’s care.

After running into Abigail Monroe, the tenous life and reputation she’d built starts to fall apart. That’s not true—it crumbles almost instantly. Like Michael Corelone, she’d gotten out and they’ve pulled her back in. Now Mikka has to become the pirate for her own sake as much as her mother’s.

I could be wrong about this, but I think this storyline doesn’t get quite the same space as Django’s—which I get. But it bugs me, because I really wanted the balance to be different. Honestly, I’d have been fine without him at all, with just a book about a pirate who’s gone straight and is having a hard time staying that way.

* Please note that I’m not saying I didn’t like Django or his story. I also think in future books I’m going to enjoy having both of those characters and their stories to follow. I’m just saying this is how much I liked Mikka’s story.

So, what did I think about Eclipse?

This is essentially a “getting the band together” kind of book, we meet all the players for the series (at least many of them), we get an idea of the political/criminal/social forces at work while they near a boiling point, and put our characters in place for the books to come. We don’t get much more than that—and I think that was an error on Steuernagel’s part. It just felt too much like an introduction without any real payoff. I don’t think we needed much more—another chapter or two leading to a cliffhanger of sorts to propel us into the next book would’ve been enough. The novel’s arcs have resolved, we see that longer stories are in the future, and the metaphorical table is set for more to come, but that’s all we get.

Instead of an exclamation point, the book closes on ellipses.

Along the same lines, I have a whole bunch of questions about what happened on the Eclipse that have nothing to do with Django, and everything to do with Eventide. I don’t know if it’d have helped the novel much for Steuernagel to have taken a moment to fill in some details—but I’d have felt better about it (perhaps the storylines in the future will address it, but I’m not holding my breath).

That said. I did like the book, and will close this post by recommending it. I just wanted to like it more.

Django is a great example of a farm boy being yanked out of his pleasant life to get involved in a struggle involving powers and plots well above him that he’s frankly not all that interested in. We know that kind of character so well because they work so well almost every time we see one—Django is going to be great to watch as he grows and is exposed to things he never thought possible. Eventide will be equally great to get to know as a character herself—we essentially know her as Django’s friend and not much else (but there’s more to her, obviously). The same thought applies to Mikka’s partner/navigator Kiara. As I suggested, everything we saw about Mikka was enough to make me want more of her—as she returns to the life of a pirate, but this time with a mission? She’s going to be something great.

As for the agent of chaos, the monkey wrench in the works, the black fly in your Chardonnay, Abigail? I cannot wait to see her in action. In our Q&A, Steuernagel says she gets talked about the most—and I understand that. I want to be one of those who talk about her a lot, but I can’t figure out how to do that without spoiling a lot. Just know that she’s great.

This is a fun novel that really whets the appetite for more—give it a shot, and I think you’ll be as eager for Book 2 as I am.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader along with a Q&A with the author.

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What’s Shadow Ranch About?

So, I knew going in that this book was about a woman who ended up as part of a polygamous cult—so there’s no way that things are going to go well for Kasenia as we meet her. But even if I didn’t know that, after half of a page of dialogue between her and her romantic interest—you know that this guy is a creep. He might as well be named Redd Flagg, the heir of the vast Crimson Banner Estate (actually, I’m going to call him that for the rest of the post, just because).

Quite possibly because Kasenia has no girlfriends or confidantes to help her see how creepy Redd is, she falls for him. And almost instantly, things get worse—he’s a horrible, controlling husband, but she’s trying to make things worse. Then Redd turns on the charm—why don’t Kasenia and her brother come out to his family’s ranch for the weekend? Kasenia drags her younger brother along (he’s on to Redd—at least to a degree) and they head out for a chance to rekindle their marriage.

Of course, his family consists of multiple other wives (none of whom are happy to see her), enough kids to fill a schoolroom, and a few foster kids (there’s an ethnic and language difference between the foster children and Redd’s own). Between a combination of threats, guards, isolation (geographic and technological), and psychological manipulation, Redd has created a family full of people that are (almost entirely) devoted to him, and work themselves constantly to earn money for him and to earn approval from him.

Kasenia is determined to find a way out for herself and her brother—when she discovers that there’s more to Redd’s debauchery and devilry than she’d realized. The stakes are higher than ever—will she be able to find freedom for those he’s a threat to?

A Little More about Redd Flagg

Now I fully realize that when you’ve got someone with megalomaniacal tendencies like Redd, you’re going to find someone with a lot of messed up qualities. No one who deceives and manipulates a young woman into joining his group of wives—and keeps her as one through threat of violence (that he does follow through with to some extent) is in any sense a good guy. Moreover, I know that Lyles did some research and that there are more people like this in the U.S. than anyone wants to think about.

Still, I couldn’t help but think that Redd was too evil. “Like so evil, that you would say it was E-VEEL.” Every time you think you’ve found the depth of his moral void, there’s a new level of despicableness. Yes, that’s a common thing in fiction (or life), but it just felt like Lyles was laying it on a bit too thick.

Manipulative and abusive is enough—you’ve got yourself a true villain right there. But once she starts adding the other crimes that he’s committed and/or planning to commit? I’m not sure the reader or the story needed that.

I Was Uneasy About…

It’s a risky thing (for storytelling reasons and, more importantly, for the risk of blaspheming) to bring God into a work of fiction as an actor in the story. Multiple times characters who are trying to free themselves from Redd will pray and instantly—or quickly—something will happen that could be interpreted as an answer to that prayer. Is it possible for the reader or someone in the text to interpret these happenings as coincidental? Sure. But not one single character does—they all see the good things happening to them after praying as a direct answer to that prayer.

I absolutely am convinced that prayer works—but I don’t think it works like a bunch of kids praying for help getting away from a gunman and suddenly a mountain lion shows up to frighten off the gunman.

Using prayer like that almost turns God into a genie in the bottle—or at least those praying into Magicians with just the right spells ready to get the heroes out of danger.

I absolutely appreciate and celebrate Lyles taking prayer seriously, demonstrating people acting in faith and trust in the Most High with integrity and not turning them into hypocrites or anything. I also think she doesn’t go over the line to treat God as a genie—but she walks right up to that line. It makes me uneasy (at best) to read on several levels, though.

So, what did I think about Shadow Ranch?

Overall, there’s a lot to commend about this book. It reeks of research into situations like this one, it’s full of distinct and clearly drawn characters. Many of these characters are really well-developed and (largely) well-rounded—a mixture of good and bad qualities, understandable motives, and repulsive actions. The tension and the pacing are enough to keep propelling the reader through the twists and make it hard to put down without knowing what happens next.

According to the Internet—and a book I read in grade school (so I’m more inclined to believe it, but not much)—Abraham Lincoln in trying not to say he didn’t like a book said, “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.” That’s very much what I want to say about this book. Let me rush to say that I did not dislike the book, but it wasn’t for me. I know there’s an audience out there who really get into this kind of thing (The Lifetime Movie Network alone proves that), but you’re not going to count me as part of it.

In a Q&A Lyles did with me months ago, she mentioned that her novels always have a happy ending. That alone kept me reading, just to see how she pulled it off—and there were a handful of times I considered abandoning the book. The ending could’ve been dark. It could’ve been ambiguous. It could’ve ended up in a pretty twisted and sordid way. But no, Lyles stuck with her pledge and provided a happy ending (that’s not too cheesy).

I do think the touch of romance (that didn’t involve Flagg or anything toxic) was a little out of place, and possibly unbelievable—definitely misguided on the part of the characters. But it feels on brand from what I can tell about Lyles’s work, so ignore me.

Again, there are people who will like this sort of book—and more power to them. If you think you’re likely in that camp in any way—read this. I think you’ll be rewarded. If you’re leery of it? I’m not going to tell you to give it a chance—trust your instinct. There are books that I’d approach differently, and encourage people to take a risk. Shadow Ranch isn’t one of those—it delivers what it promises.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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I murdered a young father today. Shot him in the head. This is my job. Call me all the names you want— scumbag, snake, sneaky little lowlife, murderer. I don’t care what you think. This is what I do. I take care of (kill) people when they don’t obey the rules. The rules of the streets. The rules to life.

I do the work 99.9 percent of people don’t want to do. You hire me and I guarantee you will be happier because I’m getting rid of your problems. Sometimes it’s just a warning, you know, a slap on the wrist. But most of the time I’m here to kill.

What’s The Lemon Man About?

When Dublin hitman Patrick Callen finds a baby living in the squalor-filled apartment of his latest victim, he’s overcome by empathy. It’s not like he can call the authorities to come help or anything, right? On an impulse, an unexpected burst of compassion, or temporary insanity—he grabs the baby (after looking up how to change a diaper on YouTube and taking care of a much-neglected task) and takes him home.

Of course, it’s hard to achieve a work-home balance as a busy hitman, so Callen calls on the escort he’s been seeing lately for help. This spurs some

Meanwhile, Callen’s been having trouble with his work—it doesn’t seem like he has the taste for it anymore and is having trouble completing a few tasks. But he’s busier than ever and it seems like something’s changing for the crew he’s with. Maybe this is the first step toward a new phase of life for him. Assuming he can survive his current assignments (and all the life changes that taking care of an infant brings), that is.

So, what did I think about The Lemon Man?

As I’m leaving, Jack says, “It’s not the gun you’re having the problem with.”

Stories about hitmen turning a corner due to love or a child aren’t new—and I’m a sucker for them. So this is right up my alley. The mix of humor and tension/action fits this situation well. A bicycle-riding hitman alone is a fun idea. Bruton pulls off all of this with style and confidence.

Bruton takes full advantage of the strange—ludicrous, even—situation he puts his characters into. Callen running from the police while pushing a stroller is a fantastic scene and it had me grinning and chuckling throughout. His jobs that don’t go right (I’m thinking of one killing and one attempted threatening in particular) are the kinds of things we need to see more of in Crime Fiction—not necessarily played for laughs, either—but not all criminals succeed in their first attempts—targets don’t always respond the way one plans on, etc.

But it’s not just fun and games—sure, Callen has some doubts about his profession, he’s more than a little worried about what his boss is up to, and he’s not so sure he can get away with everything he’s trying to do (keep the child, save his friend that he’s discovering feelings for, etc.)—but this is what he does. It’s all he’s known. He doesn’t—can’t—just walk off into the sunset with his strange new family. Does he really want to?

Take out the lightness and quirks and you’re left with a pretty solid novel (although the baby would be hard to explain without that part). With them, you have a really fun and rewarding read.

I’m struggling to find something more to say without getting into the nuts and bolts of the plot and how it works out—so I’ll spare us all my attempts to struggle through. Here’s the main takeaway: this is a good, quirky, fast read that’ll leave you with putting Bruton on your radar like he is on mine.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Proxies About?

Jair Howard is a tech working to maintain the Faster-Than-Light network. Lambert doesn’t give us a lot of details about it, so I’m going to give you even less. The pilot he works with during his maintenance runs, Merab, is his girlfriend. Or maybe. Jair’s reluctance to commit to starting a family has put things on the ropes.

A bigger—or more pressing, anyway—concern is that during their last trip, Jair found some disturbing evidence of hacking into the security network. He’s having trouble convincing anyone of it because the evidence is largely gone. Jair keeps digging, though, he knows what he saw and anyone who can do what he saw—and remove all traces of it—is someone to worry about. Then some of the evidence reappears, and it points at Jair. Suddenly everyone who doubted what he said about a security breach believes it and is coming for him.

To keep his freedom for a little while longer—and hopefully to find proof of what’s really going on—he needs to get into space and get access to the network. The only way that’s going to happen is with Merab’s help.

Remember When AI Wasn’t the Enemy?

Jair doesn’t work alone—in fact, he doesn’t do most of the work. He has a team of AIs helping him. Jair’s a classic movie fan. Black and White Movies that we consider classics today—he’s far enough into the future that he has to think of them as practically ancient. He’s such a fan that he’s given his four primary AIs the names and personalities of the Marx Brothers.

He spends a lot of time tweaking their personalities and humor to get them to better match the versions he knows from film—and finding a way to get Harpo to be able to communicate what he needs to while capturing the essence of the silent brother. It’s something for him to fiddle with while waiting during interstellar travel or while a report generates and the like.

It’s a fun bit of whimsy in the book—and it felt very strange to read while being hit with headline after headline after headline about the problems with AIs this summer.

So, what did I think about Proxies?

The heart of this book isn’t the threat posed by the hacking that Jair found and then lost, etc. Nor is it the efforts that he and Merab undertook to expose and maybe stop the threat. It’s in Merab and Jair’s efforts to get their relationship to work. The bulk of that is on Jair, to be sure—but Merab has some work to do, too.

That’s about all I’m willing to say about that, although it deserves more—because Lambert did a great job with that. As much as I enjoyed the relationships that the protagonist of his first book found himself in, they didn’t feel as grounded as this one. They were clearly there to serve a story, create conflict, and so on. Here, the relationship is the story—and that makes all the difference. If he continues to grow as an author this way, I’m going to be happy reading him for a long time.

This is a Space Opera, so the details of space flight and other science-y stuff don’t need to be really well worked out or discussed—which is good, because Lambert doesn’t bother to (whether that’s because of the genre, or he went with the genre so he didn’t have to doesn’t matter). And a lot of the detailed work into the investigation can be waved away with “Groucho and Zeppo did a thing and came back to tell Jair the results.” I both wanted to see more of the science-y/investigation bits and was perfectly satisfied with the lack of them, because that left time for all the people-y stuff. (I’m clearly in the mood to talk in generalities today).

If you’re looking for some light Space Opera with a lot of heart—you’ll want to pick up Proxies. If you’re not looking for that, you still might want to try it, it’s a fun way to spend a few hours.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader along with a Q&A with the author.

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What’s the Setting for Stone of Asylum?

While we spend a little time in California, this takes place largely in the Idaho territory (in what would now be considered North Central Idaho…I think) during the Civil War.

There are characters with strong sympathies toward both sides of the War, but it doesn’t come up much, really. Mostly I mention that because it helps locate the story. We do get to see a lot of the racism faced by Chinese workers (Asians in general, although they’re all considered Chinese) in the mines (and other places), as well as other kinds of bigotry and mistreatment of others.

It’s not a kind or forgiving world that Johnson gives us in these pages, but it’s one that seems pretty realistic. At least until you get to the man who can turn into animals. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Yi Bae

Yi Bae is a Korean warrior who has made his way to San Francisco looking for his sister—they’d been separated sometime before as they traveled through China. He needs to find her to fulfill his mission in life—he is to protect her at all costs. Together they are the last two Watchers in the world—a duty his family has to protect a particular type of garnet with magical abilities.

His search for his sister brings him into conflict with a Chinese businessman/criminal in San Francisco. He then learns some things that convince him to look for his sister in Idaho, which is in the midst of mining booms of various types. He finds that same businessman—who Yi Bae is convinced has something to do with his sister’s disappearance. He also finds himself in the employ, however temporarily, of some less-than-decent people, but is doing what he has to do to track down the other Watcher.

Not only is Yi Bae very capable when it comes to hand-to-hand combat (and those scenes are a lot of fun to read), but that thing I said before about changing into animals? Well, he can do that, too. He’s more like DC’s Garfield Logan (Beast Boy/Changeling) or Jane Yellowrock than your typical lycanthrope, because he can change into various animals.

Eldora

Our other protagonist is Eldora—a young woman whose father is an employee of a wealthy family. Eldora is old enough to begin working as a servant on their ranch. Her primary duty is to be a companion to the family’s daughter. The reader understands quickly that Eldora thinks the relationship is closer than the daughter does—and far closer than the ranch’s owners do. Despite living in a part of the territory that is already fading from prominence in favor of other locales where the mining is better, they’re trying to cling to Southern gentility’s pretensions of position and class.

She is happy (naively so) and well-loved. Which is no small thing. If you can read about Eldora and not almost immediately like her, there’s something wrong with you. Sadly, you know that this happiness and (perhaps) loving environment isn’t going to last long.

I’ll skip over some nasty classist business that reeks of Austen/Brontë-esque villains to the turning point—she has some sort of seizure and is taken from the ranch almost immediately—without her father’s involvement. She’s placed in an asylum, which is exactly as pleasant an experience as you can imagine given the time and location. It might actually be worse. Now we get to find out exactly what Eldora’s made of.

A Chance Encounter

Eldora and Yi Bae do eventually (as we all expected) cross paths with each other—on her way from the ranch. This was my favorite part of the book and I was eager to see what would happen in that eventuality. Sadly, it didn’t last that long—but it did change things for both of them (sadly, only the readers really understand that, for now).

It was kind of a let-down when they didn’t spend too much time around each other, but that’s what future books in the series are for—and what we got was enough to make me want more. A lot more. Which is odd because it wasn’t like they struck up a friendship, or even had a really good conversation. But there was something about them in the same scenes that really worked for me.

The Part that Really Bugged Me

I’m not crazy about the way that Johnson ended this book. It was a bit too abrupt—it felt like she hit a word-limit or page-count and said, “Okay, that’s enough,” and just stopped.

That’s not at all what she intended (I trust)—but that’s what it felt like to me. The last chapter was likely to have been a cliffhanger ending to bring people back for book 2. And that’s fair—I’m not the world’s biggest fan of cliffhangers, but I can appreciate a good one (and can begrudgingly accept them). This wasn’t a good one. I think if she’d left the last couple of pages off and just resolved the arcs for this novel, the ending would’ve been more satisfying. Also, the closing pages and implied threat to one protagonist would’ve been a great hook to start the second novel. I was interested in seeing what happened next to both main characters and knew things weren’t that great for both of them already—I didn’t need the threat to carry me along.

That’s just me—I might be wrong and your results will almost certainly vary.

So, what did I think about Stone of Asylum?

This is a deceptively fast read—there’s a lot more to be mined* from this book if you stop and soak it in—Johnson makes that tough and you can easily just sail along with the current. This is a perfectly fine and enjoyable way to read the book, but you’ll be happier if you catch everything she’s doing.

* Sorry. Had to.

Her fight scenes are great—particularly the way she works in Yi Bae’s supernatural abilities and martial arts skills together. Even if I didn’t care about anything else, I’d probably give the book 3 stars just for these fight scenes.

Yes, I wasn’t happy with the last couple of pages, but the rest were an intriguing mix of family drama, action, fantasy, and cultures mixing (and/or trying not to mix). This blend is a great idea and I’m really looking forward to seeing how Johnson develops this and brings our heroes (and several other characters) through it. I’m also really looking forward to seeing some characters get their just desserts (I’m pretty sure Johnson’s going to be that kind of author) and our heroes figuring out everything they missed or misunderstood here.

In short—this is a solid first entry to a trilogy that I’m eager to see played out over the next two books. I think you will be, too.