Michael Tice
Like all books that had a movie based off of them, I went into this thinking, “This must be looked at like its own separate entity.”
I can see how, in 1965, people would have seen this as an extremely shocking novel. The depictions of violence committed against mainly women are definitely horrific. However, other than a brief foray through another gang's territory where they decided to turn into a war band in a very ritualistic method, which I am assuming is reminiscent of a scene in The Anabasis, but since I have yet to read Xenophon's text, it's on my TBR, I don't know for sure.
Anyway, there is a lot of hanging out on Subways. A lot of people out doing weird daily business in the middle of the night, but I guess its New York City, and that's the city that never sleeps, so it makes sense? Maybe? I sure as hell didn't think so, but what do I know.
Overall, it was just a very average book. When you've already read A Clockwork Orange, this just seems like a relic of the past that was attempting to be sensational, but these days doesn't quite get there, and is kind of dull in a lot of places.
Once upon a time, Jack Reacher had to do things The Hard Way but that's nothing compared to this time out.
Reacjer has told people so many times how he could beat them with both arms tied behind his back, and while he has done that in the past, he still had his head. But what if Reacher has right arm tied behind his back AND a concussion meaning no headbutting‽
You already know what's going to happen.
I definitely feel this was a better Reacher outing than the previous volume. Plenty of Reacher kicking ass. Plenty of Reacher meeting an extremely compotent, ass kicking woman who teams up with him and kicks plenty of ass.
A bit of a mystery with an obvious twist. Look, you've more than likely read a Reacher book if you're reading book 29, right? You know how the formula works by now. You're not reading them for anything new or some important ideas about society today.
This is a pretty good one, although I'm starting to wonder exactly how old Reacher is supposed to be now with a mention of him seeing America for 3 decades.
If you like the books, you'll like this one. Check it out from the library and give it a read.
Have you ever read a book, and when you're done, you just think to yourself, “Did I like this book?”
That is how I feel about “Created, The Destroyer”.
It was definitely a book written in the 1960s, considering how women are represented and treated and the casual racism, but since it was written in the 1960s, and we cannot use modern sensibilities to judge a book written 60 years ago, we just have to look beyond that.
Taking that out, I'm just wondering what exactly was here? Was there any actual meat in this book that makes it worth reading more of the books in The Destroyer series?
I feel like this the same way I do about the Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler. Boy, did they start out bad, but the fist Pitt novel I ever read was Inca Gold, and that was great and a lot of fun, so they have to have just gotten better over the years. The Destroyer was made into a movie, and if you fall into that 44-52 range of men who saw “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins” when it played all the time on HBO when you were a kid, you're probably one of those people interested in where Remo came from. That's what brought me here, finally.
Looking at this book, the Afterward made me laugh my ass off. It was a short, fairly quick read. The action was fun and energetic. The bad guys are bad and the good guys are good.
I guess this is like proto-Jack Reacher? Maybe, in a little while, I'll move on to the next book and see if things get better. Maybe I can skip a bunch of books and go straight to something better? Like when I read Inca Gold first and thought all Dirk Pitt novels were good!
Worth reading? Ehhhhhhh... I don't feel it has really left any kind of impression on me. It was just pure fluff. I enjoyed it, though, so I guess that makes it pretty average overall.
For its time, I think this was probably a very progressive book. Looked at through a modern lens, some of the stereotyping of lesbians and Spenser's overt machismo and the way Wallace reacted at the end don't hold up.
I felt the end was kind of rushed, too. Like, we have all this build up, and Parker's typewriter was running out of ribbon, so he wrapped everything up nice and tidy with a little bow in 10,000 words.
Still enjoyed it, but I would rate at 3.5 not 4, as it was only slightly above average.
I think I enjoyed the first 2 books more than this one. Yeah, Parker told them what was going to happen and he did it, but it just didn't seem to have the same verve that the first two Parker novels did.
Still a fun read, that I honestly should have finished quicker, and I'll keep on going in between my other readings.
I was told that this book was fabulous and it was super scary and that it was an absolute must read.
The revulsion level is high, but this attempted Lord of the Flies with a parasite just feels empty in a lot of ways. And some characters do things that make no sense at all based off of what tiny bit we've learned about them.
Honestly, I'm surprised I finished it because it was, overall, just dull.
Maybe this shouldn't have been my first Agatha Christie book? I don't know, and won't until I read another. All I know for sure is that I loved every minute of it, and the final outcome was pleasing.
Also, having read this, and then looked at so many other mystery stories, you can see where this influences them. Hard.
It wasn't a bad book, but it was definitely not a very interesting book. I picked this up after finishing the first collection of “The Laundry Files”, since I saw it was considered similar, but this book was just an absolute slog to get through.
You can see that it took me damn near a year, and to finally finish it, I checked out the Audiobook version from my library with the Libby app so I could finish it out. I do feel that having someone else read it to me did help make it a bit more exciting.
However, reading with my own eyes or getting it through the Audiobook, this book left absolute no impression on me. It just passed right through me, and I do not remember much about what happened.
Rolling into town, Jack sees a murder happen in front of his eyes and decides that he needs to get involved. Ok, yes, the inciting incident is pretty damn shaky on this one, but as long as you can suspend your disbelief for that, it turned out to be a pretty fun read. Not as much of a page turner as earlier entries, but enough action and intrigue to keep it going. Nice to see Andrew is over the sophomore slump and I look forward to what he'll do with Reacher in the future.
It was ok. I think my main issues are really just because it was written in the 70s, and there's some stuff that just wouldn't fly these days. Being the first time Hak shows up, though? Loved that. When I first started reading the Spenser books, I also started watching the Spenser For Hire TV series, and did not even realize that this was the basis for the mini series that started the show until the gun sale was going to happen and then I thought, “Wait, I've seen that in an episode.”
This is the only comparison I have to make between the tv show and the books, and that's that Avery Brooks completely captures the spirit of Hawk in every way possible.
Worth a read, just for the inclusion of Hawk and how it advances Spenser and Susan's relationship, but beyond that it was just an ok book overall.
If you're a true crime fan, then this is absolutely worth a read. If you're coming here from the show, then you should know it is nothing like the show. The show is a fictionalization of this book. The book is just the facts, ma'am, but they are very interesting facts presented in a matter of fact manner.
My criticisms are how Douglas has to describe every woman in the book as beautiful, even before any other descriptors, like what matters the most is how a woman looks, and his antiquated devotion to the death penalty. I get it. These are monsters, and they should not be allowed to roam free, but an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
There was also a bit of a tonal shift at the very end, by I attribute that more to Olshaker, since we don't really know who wrote what.
I went into this knowing absolutely nothing. I had never even read the blurb on the back. To say that knowing nothing of the story enhanced my enjoyment of this book is an understatement.
This is one of the best science fiction books I've ever read. I wish I knew Chinese and had the cultural understanding to read it untranslated.
I'm excited to move to the next book in the series.
Since I'm all caught up on Reacher books, and every time I read a Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt novel it absolutely turns my stomach, I've been looking for something to occupy my quick read trash novel desires.
I think the Spenser books just might fit the bill.
The first wasn't too bad. Standard fare of giant jumps to logical conclusions in detective stories, but Spenser is a fun character, and I find the overall 1970sness of it to be an absolute hoot.
Spenser's sophomore outing was definitely better than the first, although while I do miss the devil worshipping sex cult, at lest now we have a bunch of sex crazed Boston suburbanites!
Some weird 70s thoughts about homosexuality, but at least Parker didn't treat it as a giant joke like Cussler's Iceberg when Pitt spent the entire novel being the worst possible caricature of a gay man.
Worth the read, since it was quick, and definitely want to continue this journey with the next book.
I saw the movie based off of this book in theaters back in 1996. I remember enjoying the movie, but also hearing about the controversy surrounding it. I decided it was finally time to give the book a read.
There wasn't much changed between the two mediums, however the book definitely explores more the boys' lives in Hell's Kitchen and goes into more detail about the happenings at the upstate penitentiary.
However, knowing the controversy, and reading more into it after I finished the book last night, I definitely have to call into question whether this actually is a non-fiction book, as stated by the author. I don't feel that that detract's from the quality of the book, when viewed as a novel.
It is definitely worth a read, if fake true-crime is something you enjoy.
I'm going to keep this brief.
Racist. Misogynistic. What the hell was up with that stupid one time used holographic messaging system? The Lincoln Memorial is destroyed but somehow Lincoln is still standing?
The action at the end was decent, but we had to throw in one more dig at women talking about Emma.
And the way every black character is described? Jesus Christ.
I think 2 stars might be more than this deserves, but it was still better than Iceberg or Med Caper.
As always, all Reacher books are only rated against other Reacher books. This was a middling Reacher book.
I was about to say, “For Andrew's second outing on the way to taking over the Reacher books, this seems to suffer from the usual sophomore slump,” before I realized that I could not remember what The Sentinel was about, so maybe that wasn't as good as I remembered? Although, as I think more, I don't know that I remember specific details of most any Reacher book, since it's just the same story told over and over again.
Reacher, walking alone, rolls into town, and seems something going bad. Reacher doesn't want to get involved. Reacher gets involved. Predictable stuff happens. Reacher elbow and kicks punches people in the the head. There is a mild twist to explain what happens. Reacher wins.
This one just felt, I don't know, forced? Maybe? The no phone thing is getting old. I know grandparents who understand technology better than, “What's Face ID‽” Reacher. Maybe I'm just getting tired of the fluff thriller two fisted punchy punchy the bad guy books? It was still fun, sure, but it wasn't as fun.
It lacked pizzazz.
I thought I had read this years ago, but it appears I had only made it through part 1. With the creation of the new TV+ series, I decided to give the books a read so I could compare the two.
The first book is a collection of 5 of the original short stories that formed the basis of the Foundation series. I'm broad strokes, and looking at brief vignettes of time revolving around a small cast of characters each, they show how the Foundation is set up on Terminus and then how it manages the first few Seldon Crises.
Looking at this book for what it is, as a collection of short stories revolving around a singular subject of the Foundation, it does its job well. That's the most important thing to remember when thinking about reading it. This is not a novel. It does not contain a huge cast of characters with a singular storyline thread running throughout.
A quicker and easier read than I thought it was going to be, but definitely an enjoyable one.
I had never heard of the Redhanded podcast until I saw Dan Harmon talking about this book on Instagram. On his recommendation, I picked it up. This was an absolutely delightfully chilling dive into the minds of serial killers and what makes them tick. If you're a fan of true crime, then it is worth a read.
It, well, it started a little rough. There were numerous parts where I was all, “Wait, did I just read that a few seconds ago? Are we repeating things? Huh?”
Then everything smoothed out and got rolling.
It was exactly what you would expect from a book full of one giant battle where it's told in the first person. Harry not an omniscient narrator, so he has no idea what is happening outside of his sphere if influence.
There's lots of fast paced action, literally EVERY ONE (please read that like Gary Oldman in The Professional) shows up, and more changes probably happened than in Changes.
It was fun, it was gut wrenching, and it definitely sets up lots of questions about what's going to happen next.
Years ago, in the XXth Century, I read my first Discworld novel. It was Small Gods. I thought it was pretty good, gave me a few chuckles, but it never really made me want to read other Discworld novels. I owned others, never read them, sold them to a used bookstore, and went on with my life. Then, a dreadful show premiered on BBC America about Ankh-Morpork and the head of the cops there, whose name currently escapes me. I couldn't finish the first episode, it was so bad. However, it did inspire me to go back and maybe start reading Discworld novels from the beginning.
This took me 9 months, to the day, to read.
I think that should do enough to cover my overall thoughts of the book.
I don't know. Maybe I'll continue with them, but probably not.