Jeff
Film Noir in a Book
I usually like Baldacci's writing and this book was no exception. Though this is his second “Archer” book it's the first I've read and I found it quite enjoyable. The style and period for this story was the mid 1940's and read just like the pulps of that time. Almost like watching a film noir unfold in a book. Archer's a good character and I can see where more stories can go with him. Highly recommended.
Andy Weir's Best Yet
As good as The Martian was, Project Hail Mary is even better. It's very much in a similar style as The Martian with a similar character and similar storyline, but it is in no way a rehash. It's an excellent story that holds your attention and reaches a satisfying conclusion. Highly recommended, especially if you enjoyed his previous work.
The World's Finest
A tale of the first meeting of these Golden Age heroes, Superman and Batman. At first suspicious of each other, The Man of Steel and The Dark Knight combine their talents and powers to bring evil Industrialist Lex Luthor to justice, with more than a little help from intrepid Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane.
Man, I love reading this guy's words.
“A Promised Land” is mostly concerned with Barack Obama's election to the highest office in our land and his first four years as President, as told through his eyes, memory, and life.
Obama has always had a way with words, as evidenced by his first major speech at the Democratic National Convention where he initially captured the interest and admiration of so many Americans. Over the ensuing years of his presidency, his words spoke to a nation with a message that needed to be heard in a way that was effective, informative, and just enjoyable to hear.
This book provides a glimpse into the mind and thoughts of a man who occupied the office of the President of the United States for 8 years, helping even those who admired him understand that the job was never easy. The history he provides, with the additional background of his own thoughts, paints a picture that fills in some of the “holes” normal histories or biographies would miss.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this book covers the first four years of his presidency. This book is actually Book One and I cannot wait for the second volume. If you haven't read “A Promised Land” yet, you should be sure to add it to your To Be Read list.
What If You Had a Different Life?
We've all asked ourselves the question, “What if I had a different life?” Nora Seed gets to experience the answer to that question when she decides to end her life.
“The Midnight Library” is like the movie “It's a Wonderful Life” on steroids. An interesting mixture of quantum physics/parallel universes/philosophy combined to make this a story that is hard to put down.
And like Nora, I don't think you'll be disappointed in the result.
Highly recommended.
A Sad, Yet Uplifting Journey
The Water Dancer is a story suffused with sadness (because how could a life of slavery be anything else?) and the joy of the hero quest. It makes a powerful, engrossing combination based on our own country's sordid history of owning other people. I can assure you, you will be more for reading this almost lyrical yet melancholic story.
A life that is still becoming
If you have not already done so, I highly recommend you read this book. While I learned a lot about our first First Lady of color, I also learned a lot about her husband. If you had any interest in their administration, then I believe you will find this look at her life in particular and her daughters and husband's life as part of hers to be quite interesting.
In Ireland of 1918, the flu pandemic is raging through the country. Three women, a nurse, a doctor, and a young orphan woman cross paths in the maternity ward of a hospital.
I don't want to give away the story, but it and the characters in it are worth your time. While the nurse and young orphan woman are fictional characters, Doctor Kathleen Lynn is a real historical person who was a member of Sinn Fein and being pursued by the police.
The parallels between the flu pandemic of 1918 and the COVID-19 pandemic today and people's reactions then and now make you realize that 100 years is not such a great divide of time.
My only complaint; Ms. Donoghue's style of writing is a narrative where dialogue is never offset by quotes and punctuation that is painfully distracting. I almost stopped reading the book early on because of it, but I persevered and I'm glad I did.
Highly recommended.
Very helpful as I have difficulty with plots, creating them and using them to effectively tell the story I want to tell.
I'm not one who usually likes using forms or templates in my creative work, but I found the plot planner extremely helpful and the scene tracker, in a lesser fashion, to be something I could make use of in certain situations.
I recommend this book to those who need assistance in creating and planning the plot(s) within their work.
“Becoming Superman”, by J. Michael Straczynski is the writer's autobiographical story of his childhood and career, constantly backlit by his desire to emulate the greatest superhero of all time; Superman.
Like a lot of children from my generation, which is also his, Straczynski found superhero comics at an early age and, also like me, his favorite was Superman. He would desperately need that example of goodness and right, because his childhood was one of violence, poverty, and sadness visited upon him by his own family; his father in particular.
Without getting into the details that you should read for yourself, suffice it to say that he suffered physical, verbal, and emotional abuse at the hands of his father and unspeakable sexual abuse from his grandmother. Through all of those things over years of his childhood that would have made most children as evil and demented as his family, Straczynski held onto the Man of Steel as the example he would follow to the best of his ability. He vowed to be the opposite of his father and as much like Superman, who was fair and just and kind and stood for right, as he could.
I first became aware of Straczynski when I began watching the science fiction TV show “Babylon 5” in 1993. Strangely enough (and you find out why in this book) it came out at almost the same time as “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and for a fan of science fiction like myself, this was a treasure trove of TV viewing. However, although I am a huge Star Trek fan in general, I found myself liking B5 more than I did DS9.
But “Babylon 5” was not Straczynski's first TV work by any stretch of the imagination. It turns out he was a writer for the animated cartoon show “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” a decade earlier as well as other animated shows and moved on from those to network live action series shows such as “Jake and the Fatman” and “Murder, She Wrote” (neither of which I ever watched aside from a few minutes of Jake one time).
Before becoming a screenwriter, Straczynski was a print journalist for various weeklies in the LA area where he grew up and even wrote a play or two for fun. Writing was something he felt a compulsion to do, like most writers. But once he exhausted all he felt he could do in print journalism he moved to stage, television screenplays, and then...comic books.
Which was where I picked up him again in 2001 when he became the writer for “The Amazing Spider-Man” at Marvel Comics. I liked some of the things he did with the character, but there were more things I didn't like and so I gave up reading the title. That's OK, no one is going to agree with everything a writer does to a character they have been reading since they were 7 or 8 years old.
He also was the writer chosen by Marvel to bring back “The Mighty Thor” in the comic books. Much of what he did in the book was also used in the first Thor movie. And best of all, he was an extra on the movie. Remember the first guy that drives up to the crater where Thor's hammer has landed, gets out of his pickup truck, goes down into the crater, and tries to lift the hammer? Yep, that was J. Michael Straczynski.
The next time I came across Straczynski was in 2010 when he had been hired to write 3 graphic novels of my favorite character and his; Superman. Titled “Superman: Earth One” he did a few different things with the character's origin and arrival in Metropolis, but I looked at them as taking place on a slightly different earth and he did do some fun things that I enjoyed.
What was even more interesting was after I finished this book the other night I went back and re-read all three volumes of “Superman: Earth One” and I was amazed and amused to see how he had taken events from his own life and woven them into the comic book story, such as meeting a vivacious redhead (who sort acted as a stand in for Lana Lang, in my opinion) and even gave Clark a kitten/cat much like a kitten Straczynski literally rescued from a drain pipe that lived with him for many years.
I don't mean to give you the impression that this man was perfect in any way. He made some mistakes and some bad decisions, but we all do. Here is the main truth of this autobiography; always strive to be the best you can be and stand for what is right. My end thoughts on completing the books was this: Straczynski has a will of iron. He determined that he would never be like his father and in fact would be the complete opposite of his father. He would hold Superman as his example and would do all he could to emulate those attributes of truth and justice and standing for the humanity of mankind.
There is much, much more to his story than what I have covered here. Finding out the truth about his father, a million-dollar movie deal and so much more.
One last thing; That front book cover photo of a Superman costume hanging in a closet is not just wishful thinking. Straczynski claims to have a tailor-made to his body exact re-creation of the Superman suit that George Reeves wore in “The Adventures of Superman” TV show from the 50's and 60's hanging in his clothes closet. He also claims he's never worn it, but c'mon! I think this might be one time he is fudging it just a bit. How could you have THAT in your closet and NOT wear it at least once?? I know I would! Lol!
This is an inspiring book to read whether you are familiar with J. Michael Straczynski and his work or not, but I admit I think I enjoyed it more because I've seen some of his work and this book gives you that all important “behind the scenes” peek that always excites me.
I highly recommend “Becoming Superman” as an excellent book to read.
I truly wish I had better things to say about this book. Over the years I've heard and read good reviews, so I expected a lot. Maybe that's part of the problem, but I'm not so sure that it is.
The first half of the book was enjoyable and I had high hopes that this would be a story I would remember fondly through the years. Some of the dialogue was...boring and repetitive in nature, but the twist of a “Narrative” being responsible for events on Intrepid (their version of the Enterprise) was interesting. Their equivalent of the red shirts becoming aware that at least one of their number on an away team will die, and their subsequent efforts to avoid being chosen to go, drive a lot of the humor during the early portions of the story.
But things went downhill in the second half of the story and especially, to me, in the three Codas that followed. I get that Scalzi was trying to inject satire into the use of nonsensical plot points to explain away poorly written screenplays, but it just did not resonate with me. I found it confusing and disappointing.
Your mileage may vary.
This is the only work by Scalzi that I've read, and based on my experience with “Redshirts” it may be the last. I've read posts by others praising some of his following works, but this one just left a bad taste in my mouth and, since I had heard good things about “Redshirts” that did not line up with my reading, I have a real reluctance to take that chance with him again.
