David Woodger

Back in 1993 I picked up Jumper, the first novel featuring Davy Rice. It had a queer-looking cover but I bought it anyway on the strength of the premise. Davy Rice is a teenager who learns how to teleport himself instantaneously from one location to any other location he has fixed in memory or can see. It was okay, other people liked it more than I did. Last year I read Helm by the same author and really enjoyed that one. And now Reflex continues the story of Davy Rice ten years later. (It's got a much less embarrassing cover too.) It's a fun read and an improvement over Jumper. This time some baddies figure how how to imprison a teleport and they capture Davy with the intent of conditioning him and using his talents for their own nefarious ends. But what no one realizes is that after being countlessly teleported by her husband over the years, Davy's wife Millie stumbles upon the ability to jump as well. And she wants her husband back. It's a pretty cool little story and a fast read.

I was in the mood for another fantasy and this one was rated favorably... It tells the tale of a thief named Locke Lamora and his small gang of Gentlemen Bastards in the canal-ridden city of Camorr. Locke has another grand scheme in motion to divest some visiting nobles of half their fortune when things begin to get more complicated and dangerous. It's sort of a cross between Robin Hood and Ocean's Eleven with a dash of sorcery mixed in. Locke and his gang are interesting characters and the various other players in the story are equally of interest. There are spies, swordsmen, numerous crooks, and con men everywhere in this story. It's also interspersed with flashbacks of Locke's upbringing. At 752 pages it's fairly lengthy but moves briskly. I found the denouement to be particularly exciting and I was entertained throughout.

When my lovely wife Tina brought this home from the library it hit me that our tastes in fiction are overlapping more often. This book has been on my To Be Read list since I saw it on the New Books table. I have already read the author's previous foray into fantasy, The Book of Lost Things, and found it imaginative, witty, dark, and exciting. (That was two years ago.) Tina read that one too and thought it perhaps a little too dark. Pshaw! This one could be aimed at a younger audience – there are some obvious YA flourishes – although, it was not classified as such by the megastore and/or publishing bureaucracy.
The plot centers on a young boy named Samuel Johnson, who happens to witness his neighbors inadvertent opening of a portal to Hell in their basement. His neighbor, Mrs. Abernathy becomes possessed by an arch-demon working for The Great Malevolence. Samuel endeavors to stop her/it. The story cooks along with nary a dull moment and is chock-full of droll wit. In fact, while my wife was reading it (and glued to it), she kept chuckling from one page to the next. A good laugh always promotes a book to the top of my To Read Next list so when she finished it, I put aside my current reading matter and dove in. Such a fun story. It works in the Large Hadron Collider, a horde of demons, and judicious use of a cricket bat.
This would be awesome source material for an animated movie.
After reading this, I wondered what the author's other books might be like. I did a little research. He's got a series of books featuring a tormented cop that you'd find in the crime thriller section. The subject matter of these appear to be seriously dark and gruesome. I might check one of them out.
But in the meantime, I'd recommend The Gates for anyone looking for a witty, horror-lite romp.

This book continues the tale begun in A Princess of Roumania in which a young woman named Miranda Popescu learned she was hidden away in our world but is a princess caught amidst political intrigue in an alternate real world where Roumania is one of the world's superpowers and is busy fighting off the advances from Germany in a Victorianesque era. The goings-on get even stranger in this second book (of a quartet) and we follow the exploits of Miranda and her friends Peter and Andromeda. Peter is actually a renowned soldier named Pieter de Graz and Andromeda is really a (male) soldier named Sasha Prochenko. But in this story she morphs from a dog to a young woman. Miranda also ventures into the hidden world while conjurers like the Baroness Ceausescu and the Elector of Ratisbon put their own plots into play. It sometimes gets confusing only to clear up later and I enjoyed the real sense of strangeness in this story. It's always interesting and I'll be reading the follow-up soon. It's called The White Tyger.

This is the third book (in a series of four) that was begun in A Princess of Roumania and it's only getting stranger. In fact, this is one of the strangest plots I've come across in some time. In this outing, Miranda learns more about the mysterious hidden world which seems to be populated by people's animal spirits. And the Baroness Ceausescu must be half-crazy and a cold-hearted bitch besides. She's such an odd character with a weird appeal to various men around her. Some of the stranger developments concern Miranda's friend Andromeda who is really Lieutenant Sasha Prochenko in Roumania. Prochenko seems to vacillate between three modes of existence and not always mutually exclusive. He's both a he (Sasha), a she (Andromeda), and at times, a dog. Or a furry he-she. Strangeness abounds. The Hidden World is the next book.

Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance are once again pitted against the evil mastermind Ledroptha Curtain who of course just happens to be the twin brother of the benelovent Mr. Benedict. This tale is not quite as zippy as the preceding books but my two kids ate it up just as rabidly. As ever, Constance Contraire is a chief source of amusement, but the plot is harder to summarize. Basically Mr. Curtain wants to regain the Whisperer for his megalomanical plans. And Constance is developing some mental telepathy. Once again the kids would beg me to read more whenever I'd finish reading for the night. They love the Mysterious Benedict Society.

This is the third book of what I understand to be eventually a five-book series. I read the last one six years ago and was looking forward to getting back into the world of the Abarat. Candy Quackenbush, the young teen from Chickentown USA, has a powerful enemy in Mater Motley, the grandmother to Christopher Carrion. Mater Motley has apocalyptic plans for the twenty-five islands of the Abarat archipelago. I enjoyed the story and rich imagination behind it, but I did like the first two books better. Still, this was a fun continuation of the story. There were some nice surprises. But the sudden love match that Candy gets involved in seems to come completely out of the blue. And the ending really makes you wonder where the author will go in book four.
This is also quite literally the heaviest book I've ever read. It's about three pounds at least. The pages are thick and sturdy and frequently feature the authors own artwork. The artwork is by turns creepy and phantasmagoric. I wonder how long the wait will be until book four gets published?

The fun, frothy tale is set in an alternate Victorian London where vampires and werewolves have been integrated into society. The Bureau of Unnatural Registry is the organization keeping tabs on them and one 25-year-old spinster, Alexia Tarabotti keeps finding herself in their company. Alexia herself is one of the rarest of the unnaturals. She's a preternatural, i.e. one who has no soul, and thus she has a negating effect on werewolves and vampires when she comes in physical contact with them. When Alexia accidentally kills a rogue vampire – one that is not part of a hive – the plot gets into motion. Alexia herself is a wonderful character: smart, witty, forthright, self-concious about her dark skin tone, dead Italian father, and prominent nose; she is eager to have something to do. Preferably something to do with the BUR and the handsome head of the BUR the Earl of Woolsey, Lord Maccon, the land's hunky alpha werewolf. This story was very much fun, perhaps a little short on action but long on wit and with a healthy dose of erotica. I'm probably not the target demographic for this sort of thing, but I greatly enjoyed it and will no doubt scoop up the follow-up, Changless, when it becomes available next May.

This book has been sitting on my bedside since last Christmas. I've been reading a chapter here and there between books. Chabon is an interesting guy, especially when he gets to talking about his interests. But I'm not always fascinated by others' accounts of being a father. And, in fact, there's one kinda funny essay here which likens all of us dads into one big fat cliché when it comes to being fathers of girls. It was kinda easy to see myself lumped in there with all the rest. For such an accomplished novelist, Chabon comes across as very modest and self-deprecating (which I respect). Not surprisingly, I enjoyed some essays better than others. But there was nothing really “OMG” really going on.

I re-read this recently aloud to my daughter. It's an unusual story that mixes the fantastical with a diary left by the author's father, a documentary filmmaker, in a red box. The author's father had traveled to Tibet to film the making of a highway into Tibet and was gone for just over a year. The drawings within are awesome – I'm a big fan of Peter Sís and his detailed, intricate line-drawings. And the story within is by turns fascinating and strange.

Kajsa (age 7) asked me what this book was about when I was more than 200 pages in and I couldn't really come up with a satisfying answer for her. I got 264 pages into this huge book before giving up. That was far too many pages than it deserved. Not much of anything happened in that first quarter of the book.

Then I started checking out what some GoodReads members said of the book. It's rated greater than 4 of 5 stars by the 12,000+ readers who have read/attempted it. Lots of Stephenson fans out there. I, too, am a big fan of Snow Crash, and Cryptonomicon even more so. This book is not like those books. And, since I had decided to abandon this, I checked out some reviews with spoilers. None of those did much to make the book any sexier, either.

In Anathem we have a far-future Earth-like planet called Arbre, where scientists, philosophers and mathematicians live like monks, closed off from the rest of the secular world. One such monk, 19-year-old Erasmus, narrates the story but “story” is a bit of a stretch. First of all, there's a maddening glossary of terms that you constantly have to check to figure out what the hell a character is talking about. Second of all, there's just lots of talking about arcane bits of science, math, etc, all of which does nothing to move the story toward any direction that is evident at this point. There's more than that but, who cares? It's really terribly dull. So screw that.

This is book number 6 in the series that I've been reading aloud to Luke and the only reason it took a while to finish is that we were pretty busy doing other things like moving to Sweden for a year. You know how that is. Anyway, in this outing, the brave young Tom Ward gets recruited by his Mam to head south to Greece to fight a dangerous menace known as the Ordeen. Tom is in for some nasty surprises and some tough decisions.

Luke and I read to page 270 or so when he just couldn't wait for the next reading. I told him to go ahead and keep reading on his own but NOT to tell me what happens on pain of death. He finished the book in two days and then valiantly kept his mouth shut about the exciting conclusion and shocking developments. As luck would have it, we have the seventh book on hand and since Luke was itching to get started on it, I told him to forge ahead without me and I'd read it after he was done with it. He read about 100 pages in that one on the first day.

This was a boring story about boring people doing boring things. I'm amazed that I bothered to finish it.

I'm slowly working my way through the Parker novels by Richard Stark (aka Donald E Westlake). There are 24 of them. So far I've read the last nine of them and am now working my way through the beginning books in the series. This one is book 5 and not as strong a story as some others. It's about Parker teaming up with a large crew to basically hit a whole small town in a single night. FYI: My introduction to Parker was Comeback which was excellent. The 16th book is Butcher's Moon and was published in 1974. Westlake didn't get around to penning another Parker novel until Comeback in 1997. The first Parker novel is The Hunter (1963), AKA Point Blank (turned into a movie with Lee Marvin), AKA Payback (turned into a movie with Mel Gibson).

I enjoyed this handsome little compendium of plant facts and lore. But it's also scary too. There's more than a few plants in this book that I never want to come in contact with. One that is native to Australia called the stinging tree can leave you in pain for up to a year. I also learned about several very invasive species of plants that are taking over both land and sea. There was also poisonous plants that need only hours to kill you after ingesting; and plants good for getting high (mostly mildly) although some of them look very much like other plants that will kill you. Lesson learned? Just say no. This book includes handsome etchings.

A couple months ago I had a Borders Gift Card burning a hole in my pocket and as luck would have it, there's a big fat Borders store a short walk from where I work. So I was browsing again and came across this title. I'm much better about impulse buys than I used to be so I checked out the comments on Amazon before snagging it. Well, as of this writing it's rated 4 and a half stars out of 5 from over 200 reviews. And sure enough, I was hooked by the second page. The plot concerns a young woman named Yelena sentenced to be executed for murder. But she's given an option: die by execution, or become the Commander's food taster, a life-long position (which is currently available since the last food taster died from poisoning.) Yelena chooses not to die and then gets caught up in the political intrigue surrounding the land known as Ixia. It's a breeze to read and the pace rarely flags although the rest of the story is not as strong as the first third. This book can stand alone but there are two more “Study” books featuring Yelena. They're on my list. 4 stars.

This is very light reading about a guy who figures out that many of the authors on the current bestseller lists are just really good con-artists and he wants in. He comes up with some hilarious rules for writing a bestseller and sets off to write a schlocky romance-and-redemption story filled with heinous clichés and such. He also wants to be famous just so he can upstage his ex-girlfriend at her upcoming wedding. But the character's trashing of the bestselling ilk that passes for entertainment these days is the good stuff. It's often quite funny and possibly hits pretty close to home on occasion. This book can be read very quickly and should appeal to the cynic in you. Oh, also: all the blurbs are fake.

I still own my 1979 copy of this book (first published in 1968) and needing another read-aloud book for my daughter, decided to revisit this one. This marks the third time I've read it. My daughter enjoyed it but then again she enjoys being read to, period. She's been reading plenty on her own these days too, a lot of reading in fact. When I mentioned to her that she's been busy reading to herself and maybe I would stop reading to her, she said no, I need to continue reading to her. So I've been reading to my kids for over thirteen years now. (You didn't really expect an actual review of this, did you? It's not exactly fresh material. It stands up to the test of time though. That's all you need to know.)

Read in 9th grade and naturally led to reading LOTR. What a find!

The concluding book in this trilogy is the weakest of the three, but overall this trilogy was endlessly inventive and unpredictable. The first in the trilogy, Scar Night, is still the best especially in terms of plotting. But beginning with the second book, Iron Angel, characters go off in different directions and new characters enter the fray. John Anchor was a favorite. Also, not all loose ends are wrapped up. The story concerns a fight for supremacy among gods (winged angels cast out of Heaven) and the ruler of Hell, King Menoa, the self-styled Lord of the Maze. I enjoyed it all but I it seems to me that the plotting was either more rushed after the first book or the author was nearly making it up as he went along. I'd be keen to see what he comes up with next, though.

Always on the lookout for a clever crime novel, when this one showed up on the New Fiction table at Bankrupt Megastore, it went directly onto the want list. Got it for Christmas. (Thank you, Santa!) In this story a man calling himself David Loogan gets involved with crime fiction magazine editor's wife. The editor soon ends up dead and more bad things happen in quick succession. The story hooks you strongly in the first 70 pages and then messes a bit with your expectations as you continue. Cool story, lots of fun, zippy style. I plowed through it. Part of the fun is the way the author pokes fun of or works in the usual mystery clichés, since several of the characters in the book are mystery writers. Also, it's fun to read a stand-alone story, i.e. one not part of a series with a recurring character. Highly recommended.

This series of books featuring career thief Parker has 24 books in the series. Donald Westlake chose to write them under the Richard Stark pseudonym. Westlake didn't write any Parker stories after 1974's Butcher's Moon until picking it up again with 1997's Comeback, the 16th and 17th books, respectively. I got my start with Parker with the excellent Comeback and promptly read each successive story. Now I'm starting from the beginning and have reached this one, the fourth in the series. It's not my favorite, in fact, it may be my least favorite. But each of these books takes me only 2 days to read, 3 max. The stories are all characterized by a spare style with the taciturn Parker proving himself to be a ruthless, efficient criminal that doesn't take any grief from anyone. They are the perfect thing for a quick foray into crime. I'm working my way through them and have 11 more to go.

It can be very refreshing when the main character is a bit of a douchebag. The haughty, cold-hearted Johannes Cabal has sold his soul to the Devil in return for knowledge in necromancy. However, not having a soul, is throwing a wrench in occult studies, so he wagers with the Devil to get his soul back. He only has one year to sign over 100 souls to Hell or else forfeit his life and his soul forever. The Devil throws in a fiendish carnival to make things interesting. To call this book unusual seems fairly obvious by this point. But I ended up enjoying this tale very much. It had me snickering in places and as much as Johannes is a bit of an ass, he can be very amusing which is all that I ask of a character. Plus, he's aided by his charismatic brother, Horst, a vampire. I'm looking forward to reading the follow-up tale in which Johannes tries his hand at detective work.

With this book the author leaves behind his historical novels and begins a foray into fantasy. And, as fantasy novels go, this one is excellent. There are several detailed characters, a fascinating world with its own varied history full of legends and hidden secrets, and numerous surprises in store for the reader. Acacia is the name of an empire ruled for generations by the Akaran dynasty, currently headed by Leodan Akaran. The rulers live on an island of the same name known for its many acacia trees. But from the very beginning you know that Leodan's days as ruler are numbered. A people known as the Mein, long ago banished to the icy northern climate, have sent an assassin and are amassing for war. Leodan's four young children are successfully spirited away in the ensuing conflict. The children, two sons and two daughters, each go on to live wildly different lives since the start of the war. It's all very interesting and engrossing reading. Woven into the story are themes of slavery, oppression, a sinister drug trade, and the Akarans own revisionist history. It's exciting and fascinating to see how events unfold, especially in the last two thirds of the book. This is the first of a planned trilogy and I am eagerly awaiting the next book. One of the best fantasies I've come across in years. According the author's blog, “Acacia has been put into early production to be a feature film by Relativity Media and Michael De Luca Productions. The screenwriter Andrew Grant is at work on the film adaption now.” Cool!

Road Dogs is the 19th novel I've read by Elmore Leonard. That's a record number by one author that I've read. The reason is that Elmore Leonard's stories are just consistently entertaining. You can't tell exactly where the story is headed and the journey there is just so much fun. In this story he revisits the main character of Out of Sight – haven't read it, but the movie adaptation is a favorite – Jack Foley, convicted bank robber. The title refers to prison buddies. In this case, Jack's buddy is Cundo Rey, a cocky little Cuban who's sitting on a fortune and helps Jack get an early release from prison. Cundo's girlfriend Dawn, a psychic, has some ideas on how to separate Cundo from his money, but it's not an easy task and Cundo is dangerous. Jack, of course, is one cool customer and not easily fooled. It's a fast-moving, fun tale.