hc.newton

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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In the Imperial Japanese Navy I learned only one trade—how to man a fighter plane and how to kill enemies of my country. This I did for nearly five years, in China and across the Pacific. I knew no other life; I was a warrior of the air.

What’s Samurai! About?

The inside page of my edition puts it this way, and I can’t do much better (although I might tone down the language a bit, but it’s not bad for the late 70’s)

The Outcast Who Became Emperor of the Skies

He was a school dropout, juvenile delinquent, and family disgrace—until he first stepped into an airplane. From that moment he soared into legend as Japan’s deadliest ace, and the most feared pilot of World War I.

SAMURAI! is the unforgettable saga of Saburo Sakai—a story of explosive action, violent victory, and personal agony that is absolutely true and vividly real . . . from the roaring of winged cannons in aerial combat, to the anguish of a defeated nation.

The Foreword Alone

The foreword to the book gives an abbreviated biography of Sakai and is the only point that Caidan and Saito are mentioned, to emphasize the “autobiographical” nature of the book*. It also describes some of the research that went into the book.

Honestly, you don’t have to read the whole book to get the idea that Sakai is an impressive figure. Just read the foreword. His post-ward activities alone are pretty impressive—possibly more so than the feats during the war, given the context.

If you’re at all curious about the book, read the foreword. If you’re still curious—dive in. If you decide, “I’m good,” at that point, you probably are. (Although you might want to take a glance at chapters 2 and 3 to see what his military training was like. If you’re similar to me, you’ll think that Full Metal Jacket‘s Gny. Sgt. Hartman wasn’t so bad after all.)

* There might be one or two mentions of Saito’s research in footnotes, but I’m pretty sure Caidin isn’t mentioned again. Like a good ghostwriter, he disappears.

Incredibly True

The back cover of my edition claims that this is “an incredibly true, powerfully moving story of glory, defeat, and ultimate victory—told by the man who lived it.”

Maybe it’s just me, but anytime you put a qualifier on “true,” my skepticism kicks in a little. I’d prefer something “credibly true” any day. Yes, this is an incredible story. And yes, I think it’s based on truth. Probably truth that’s grown a little in the telling.

Is this just fallible memory? Is it the story of someone whose accomplishments get embellished by himself/others a little over time to the extent they don’t remember the actual details? Is this the case of a ghostwriter goosing the facts to make for a better, more exciting read in the States? Possibly all of the above—I lean toward a combination of the latter two (my instinct to favor the third option is helped by the fact that this book wasn’t published in Japan).

It should be stated that the foreword claims that in addition to the hours and hours of interviews with Sakai that Fred Saito, an Associated Press correspondent, researched military archives (from multiple nations) and interviewed associates to authenticate this. How much of that ended up in the final product is beyond my ability to state.

The text points out some places where there are discrepancies between official records and witnesses and what the text states happened. So, it’s not like Caidin and Saito are unaware of some discrepancies.

On the Other Hand…

In April of 1944…With the secret reports available to me as an officer, I had been able to maintain a true appraisal of the war. The secret documents were a far cry from the drivel shouted over the radios to the unsuspecting populace. Everywhere in the Pacific our units were being forced back. Incredibly powerful American task forces, fleet units the size of which staggered the imagination, roamed the Pacific almost at will.

… We were still hanging on at Rabaul, but no longer did that once-mighty bastion threaten Moresby and the enemy’s other bases. Rabaul suffered in more ways than one. The Americans were using it for bombing practice, to break in their new replacements.

From the war in China, the reports internal to the Japanese military, what the civilians heard, and what American military/news reported, one thing that Sakai is clear about for almost the entire book—everyone was lying, exaggerating, hiding, and spinning facts.

So it’s no wonder at all that it’s hard to document or “prove” all of what he says. Probably everything we read about the War in the Pacific should have an asterisk following it, not just this book.

Sakai’s Mistakes and Injuries

No longer was I myself inviolate. It had been the enemy’s turn then, and no less than a miracle had brought me here on this train as it swayed along the tracks leading to Sasebo. A man sees the war differently after the doctors have scraped away rotten flesh from his skull, have dug jagged steel splinters from his body, and comforted him with the staggering living-death sentence, “It is not so bad, Sakai, you will be only half blind.” Only half blind!

Sakai is pretty upfront with mistakes, blunders, and times that his ego led him and others into trouble (although he was rarely alone in letting ego get the best of him). His first arial combat was just…ugly, and he got chewed out for it—as he should’ve, from what I can tell.

He sustained his share of injuries throughout the conflicts he was in—obviously, the worst was the injury that cost him most of the sight from his right eye. I’m not going to go into details about that incident—you really want to read about it yourself, even more than the hint you get in the Foreword.

But when you read about the medical care he received, you have to wonder a little bit what 2025 doctors would do differently. It’s not quite as bad as reading about Civil War surgeons dealing with injuries—but it’s not unlike it, either.

Still, that he came back from that at all to take to the air again says a lot about him. It probably also says a lot about how Japan was doing in the War at that time, and how much they needed pilots.

So, what did I think about Samurai!?

But to fly is just like swimming. You do not forget easily. I have been on the ground for more than ten years. If I close my eyes, however, I can again feel the stick in my right hand, the throttle in my left, the rudder bar beneath my feet. I can sense the freedom and the cleanliness and all the things which a pilot knows.

It’s easy to think of this—in part, anyway—as Sakai telling stories that make him look good (with a few exceptions for the sake of true or perceived humility). But he’s quick—and consistent—to praise others. He makes some of these other pilots sound really amazing, and I appreciated Sakai singing their praises and lamenting their deaths (as appropriate).

Like any good narrative about war*, Sakai does wonder about the costs to both sides.

…that night, for the first time, I thought of the enemy pilots I had shot down as other human beings like myself, instead of unknown entities in their planes. It was a strange and depressing feeling, but, as with every other facet of war, it was kill or be killed.

He doesn’t forget that—but in kill or be killed, survival comes to the forefront.

More than once, I realized that when I was pleased to hear about a close escape, or a great victory for him, that I was cheering against the U.S. in the War. And that feels more than a little strange, I have to say. It’s one thing in a work of fiction to get invested enough to cheer for an enemy or opponent. But in non-fiction?

I didn’t even get into the strange but sweet love story about Sakai’s first wife, and wish I knew more about what happened to her after the War, although it’s clear it’s not a happy story for anyone.

From his horrific days in training; through the combat in China; through hearing about how Dec. 7, 1941 could have had more infamy to live in; through his injuries and triumphs; through the end of the war—this was a riveting read. Yes, I have many questions about some of the details—but as a reader, not a professional historian, I can let those go and appreciate what we have.

I recommend this book, with some obvious caveats. But as someone rapidly approaching the time in life when I’m legally obligated to read WWII histories and watch hours of documentaries about it a week, this is a decent place to start. Fellow Gen Xers approaching the same deadlines would do well to give this a glance.

People who just love an exciting first-person account should do that, too.

* Maybe that’s my personal preference shining through.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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Suddenly the cat spoke.

“Books have a soul.”

Its beautiful eyes seemed to capture the light of the stars and they, too, twinkled in the darkness.

“A book that sits on a shelf is nothing but a bundle of paper. Unless it is opened, a book possessing great power or an epic story is mere scraps of paper. But a book that has been cherished and loved, filled with human thoughts, has been endowed with a soul.”

“A soul?”

“That’s right,” replied the cat emphatically.

What’s The Cat Who Saved Books About?

Rintaro Natsuki, a high school student, finds himself the proprietor of a used bookstore after the death of his grandfather/guardian. It’s a bit too much for him to handle—and he’s going to have to move, anyway—so he plans to close it.

But before he gets that far, a cat appears in the store and starts talking to him. Not just talking to him, but telling Rintaro that he needs to accompany the cat to go rescue books. On the one hand, it’s ridiculous for the teen to follow the cat into a mysterious and strange reality to do this. But also…I sort of figure that if a cat starts talking to you, you tend to follow along with whatever nonsense it’s telling you.

The pair go off on a short series of adventures to…well, save books from people who aren’t treating them the right way (another reason to go along with the cat). This is hard to explain in a satisfactory way, at least in my reckoning. It makes utter sense when you see it in action.

Translator’s Note

There are a few pages from the translator at the end of the book, describing some of the choices made. I found it fascinating—and would’ve gladly read another 15+ pages about it. But it’s probably good we didn’t get all of that—leave a little mystery to her craft, right?

But what I learned about the Japanese language—and a little bit about the culture—it just made me want to learn more.

So, what did I think about The Cat Who Saved Books?

In the local doctor’s opinion, he’d most probably suffered a heart attack and died quickly.

“He passed away peacefully.”

If you combined the kanji character for “go” with the one for “live,” you got a strange-looking word meaning “to pass away.” Somehow seeing this word was what had shaken Rintaro the most; it struck him as out of place.

Okay, so I don’t want to say much about this book because it’s really one of those that you have to find your way through and experience.

But I do want to say a little. The magic system makes no sense. I don’t understand why Rintaro gets recruited. I don’t understand his aunt’s role in anything, or how Rintaro actually accomplishes anything, what happens to the books he and the cat save, or the brevity of their campaign. The encounters with the people they’re saving books from are entirely too short and are all anticlimactic. I probably have more to say along those lines, but you get the gist. Basically, Sosuke Natsukawa needs someone like Gareth Brown, R.F. Kuang, or Peng Shepherd to come in, expand on his ideas and fill in all the stuff that would make this make sense and cohere.

Here’s the thing, though. And this is important.

I do not care about any of that. Not a lick of it. It doesn’t matter—and this is a conversation I had with myself at least a half-a-dozen times while reading the book, and I always came to the same conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I loved what it said about reading, books in general, the writing of them, the importance of them, the kinds of books to be produced and why. I enjoyed the book, it warmed my heart and made me smile. There was sweetness, there was whimsy, and it just didn’t matter that none of it made sense. It’s entirely possible that addressing my issues would’ve ruined the book—it almost certainly would ruin it.

Go, grab it, and bring a warm glow to your inner bibliophile. It’s a gem.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Guard in the Garden About?

After a lifetime of effort and service, Felton Holdum is admitted to an elite group of warriors, a culmination of his work. Shortly thereafter, he’s seriously injured. He’s convinced he’ll recover enough to rejoin his team, but no one else seems that convinced.

After convalescing for a while on the couch at a home his aunts share, he tries to rejoin his—or any unit. They politely guide him to the City Guard while he “continues to gain strength.” The Guard takes him on and assigns him to patrol the Districts he lives in. One of the quietest, most peaceful, crime-free districts in the city—or in all of Fiction from what I can tell.

He takes the job seriously, however (which is his basic approach to life). Then he goes home each night to wallow in self-pity.

But slowly, thanks to the people he meets on patrol, acquaintanceships he renews, and some wise words from a fellow injured-vet, he starts to find new purpose in life.

The Little Things

Let me pause here for a moment to say that Felton Holdum is a name that screams “dwarf” to me somehow, and yet it’s probably the least dwarfish name. Seriously, come for the sweet story, stay for the details like “Bendur Clagstack.”

There are loads of tiny touches that really bring this world to life, grounds it in Fantasy, and gives a little boost to the whole experience. These names, characteristics, creatures, and so on. One detail that I liked that I can’t resist sharing is that one of Felton’s neighbors is a human blacksmith in a Dwarven city. And he’s a successful one at that, which is strange to everyone. While noting the strangeness, everyone accepts him because of the work—and that part of town is just like that. My New Favorite Curse

I try not to curse personally, but I fail at that daily. So I do try to be creative about it, and steal from fiction just to make myself grin. The first time I read Felton say, “Shave me,” I knew I found a winner. Not only is that a perfect curse for a dwarf—seriously, how have I not seen someone else use this? It’s right there, fantasy writers!

But also, as a bearer of a chin curtain, it’s just a great curse. It carries the same self-maladictory tone as the more popular alternative—and it won’t get me looks from anyone at work.

So, what did I think about Guard in the Garden?

This book is the walking, talking definition of Cozy Fantasy. You can see most of this book coming light years away—and you don’t care. You just don’t. This isn’t about suspense or plot twists—this book is about healing, growth, satisfaction, and finding joy in new ways. It delivers that in abundance.

The meet-cute that really kicks this story into a new gear is as cute as you could want—you can’t help but smile at it. And really, that goes for just about everything else.

I should note that there was one paragraph of really awkward dialogue—it stood out to me because the rest of the book was so seemingly-effortlessly smooth. But as it was the one moment like that, and I only remembered it because I made a note about it.

Do we get the blow-by-blow about Felton dealing with his demons? No. Do we get all the details we want about the romance? No. A lot of both of those happen between chapters, and we see the result of the work he’s doing. The way we see the bonds developing and deepening between Felton and the people in his District, his friends, and family.

This is a pleasant read that will leave you feeling warm and hopeful. You’ll enjoy the characters and getting to watch them. It’s everything that a Cozy promises to be—what more could someone ask?

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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Panic wouldn’t help. The hospital had trained her for high-pressure situations, teaching her to compartmentalize fear and act decisively. But this—this was different. The darkness wasn’t a patient to be stabilized or a diagnosis to be made. It was a thing, vast and unknowable, and it clung to her skin like the rain.

What’s You’ll Never Walk Alone About?

I’m not sure how to talk about this short story without giving it all away. So I’m going to just quote part of the author’s description. I don’t know if I’d have said everything he did (then again, he’s sold more books than I have, so what do I know?)

…nurse Grace Whitmore is caught in a storm—both outside and within. As she trudges through rain-soaked streets after a long hospital shift, every shadow threatens to pull her back into a childhood terror she’s tried to forget.

When Grace senses an unseen presence tracking her steps, paranoia and dread begin to twist her reality. Is it her imagination, or is there truly someone lurking in the dark? Each echo of footfalls drives her deeper into a maze of fear and doubt.

So, what did I think about You’ll Never Walk Alone?

This is a short, intense read. Atmospheric doesn’t begin to describe it–I read this in the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day, and I thought about turning a light on when I was halfway through it.

It’s hard to look at a 26 page story and think, “You know, I think it could’ve been tighter.” But I kind of do–there were a couple of beats to this story that felt repetitive, they didn’t do quite enough to crank up the suspense to justify that repetition.

But that’s just picking at nits. This story starts dark and tense and Lambert keeps ratcheting up both until the last line. And because he’s done such a good job at that, even though you know it’s the last line–and a good and effective one at that–you want the next 20 pages. Not eventually–you want the next 20 pages now. Knowing that you’re just never going to get them is frustrating as well as a relief.

If that doesn’t make sense, just go read the story and come back, it will then.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Bounty Inc. About?

Wyn Kelda was raised in a privileged way, by a super-wealthy father to be part of his family’s business. And then when his father died, he threw that all away. He sold the company and used the proceeds to start a new venture. The galaxy’s first conglomerate of bounty hunters. He wants to take as many of the lone-wolves he can and turn them into a team—a team that can act independently as they desire, or can pool their abilities for other jobs.

There are some things standing in his way—beyond the idea, he doesn’t really know how to pull this off. He’s also so green at this kind of thing that Kermit would say, “As not-easy as it is for me being green, you’re helpless.”* He also wants to be in the field, not just the CEO. So he needs to be trained.

He recruits an experienced hunter to help him on both fronts—who takes the job for an easy check, believing this a doomed endeavor. But her presence helps recruit some great hunters, and his naiveté gets them some…interesting choices with promise.

* That was a much-zippier sentence in my head.

And well, the rest of the book traces the company over its first (only?) year of operation. His initial investment can only carry them for so long. Can they turn a profit? Can they form a team? Do they actually want to? Will they get an excuse to fire off the slag cannon they con Wyn into buying? These questions and more will be answered in Bounty Inc.

The Various and Sundry Alien Species

One of the areas that comics and (especially) short stories/novels have been superior to TV/Film is that the latter are usually restricted to humanoid appearing aliens, and the former aren’t. Holcombe takes advantage of this—while keeping plenty of humanoids around. He also plays with scale of beings, too. Yes, most of the group are humanoid-ish, but they all present in different ways.

Wyn is a human—and was raised in an almost total human environment, so other species are things he’s aware of, but he only has the most surface-level understanding of them. This makes him the perfect POV character for most of the book—as he encounters species for the first time, we can react to and understand these representatives through him encountering them in a non-theoretical way. When he’s freaked out—we know we should be (and probably would be in person), when he’s agog, we get the signal to be, too.

This works so much better in this context than someone meeting “just another X” and then having to info dump for the reader about X. Not that can’t be done well (and isn’t all the time), but for this story, Wyn’s reactions really enable us to understand him and the people we’re going to encounter in the series.

This goes beyond appearances, I should stress. These species are really diverse, with individual cultures, governments, and traditions. Most of the assembled team understand each other (particularly those with shared histories), but there’s still a bit of foreignness to everyone. A coming together understanding that everyone’s a little strange. Even the two humans have different-enough experiences that they’re foreign to each other (and not just because of the student-mentor relationship).

This isn’t (as is often the case), Character A is a representative of Species B, and all of B are pretty much the same as Character A—that’s true to a degree for some of these characters, but some of these are outliers—even outcasts. I love this particular kind of troupe—in SF, in Fantasy, even in Urban Fantasy.

The Tone

This book has two tones at its core—two that some people would tackle in a way to make the book feel disjointed, but Holcombe’s better than that. This book is a space opera/SF adventure. With intrigue, action, strangeness, betrayal, and more. It’s what you expect from this kind of book—and it delivers that well.

However, this is Adam Holcombe, who is best known (at least today) for his Gam-Gam series, which is a wholesome, found family, cozy-ish, feel-good fantasy series. And that’s what this book is at its core—Wyn is looking for a family, while also wanting be an action hero amongst action heroes. This business venture is simply the best way he knows to get it. You can tell that from the start (even if he doesn’t know it)—and that earnest spirit reaches every corner of the book, for good or ill (I only include the “or ill” to be thorough, and because some won’t want it in this story). Firefly springs to mind as a good example of this kind of vibe, but it’s overused. So I won’t. Maybe think Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, or later seasons of most ST series.

I do think you could successfully argue the other—that this is a wholesome feel-good SF book with an action novel at its core, but I don’t want to.

And there’s plenty of humor, too. Not Red Dwarf, Hitchhiker’s Guide, or Epic Failure levels of humor. But, you’ll smile enough.

The Action Scenes

Speaking of the action/battle/combat scenes—whatever you want to call them. Boy howdy, these are about as far from cozy as you could want/ask for. “About” being an important word. Holcombe isn’t Pierce Brown or Joe Abercrombie (sorry, I’m blanking on SF authors at the moment).

Obviously, there’s some decent action in his Gam-Gam books, but those aren’t the same kind of thing. But we do know that Holcombe is capable of them. What we get here is barely even the same species.

This is true throughout—but especially in the last two climactic battles. I’m trying to be vague here, you’ll need to read the book to really get what I’m saying here. There’s one battle that most of the Bounty Inc. team is in, and there’s another. Both are vastly important and both are on different scales—seeing them back to back is a real treat and showcase for Holcombe. Both go on for far longer than I expected—an observation, not a complaint—and keep the tension going throughout. Almost every time you think you know how things are going to play out, you will find yourself wrong, and will be pleased.

These scenes are a great way to reveal character, to help us understand things that were hinted at (or more) in a very clear way. You can easily see why some of these hunters were successful on their own. You get a really good idea of how they can work together. At the same time, you get to enjoy some really kick-ass fight scenes filled with cool SF tech.

Holcombe shows off a whole new side of his skills here, and you’ll be left waiting for more examples of it.

So, what did I think about Bounty Inc.?

This reads like someone who watched the bounty hunter scene in The Empire Strikes Back and never got over it. Wyn himself says at least once “Bounty Hunters are cool.” Please note, that I have yet to fully get over that scene myself, so there’s no shade there. I had most of the action figures, too.

And yes, Bounty Hunters are cool—particularly the fictional ones. It’s hard not to have a fun time reading (or probably writing) this kind of thing.

While reading the book, I said something online about Holcombe fans becoming bigger fans by the 20% mark (if not earlier) of this book. The next 20% of this book was better yet. And the rest? Dude.

Is the big romantic arc entirely predictable? Yes. Is it effective, sweet, and wholly satisfying? Yup. Will you get gut-punched by what happens to some of these characters? Yup. (I didn’t say it was cozy, I said it had that heart, bad things happen). Will you cheer at parts of the action? Yes. Will you be dismayed by some of the twists? Yup. Will you want this pretty long book to be longer? YUP. Will you think about camping out in Holcombe’s backyard until the next book is ready? I sure think so (I gave him enough warning that there’s likely a protection order in place, so I won’t).

For all the good things I’ve said above, I don’t think I’ve done a good job of articulating the strengths of this book. I think I’ve captured my enthusiasm, but not the particulars. Which rankles me—but without breaking down key scenes or something, I don’t think I can. There are solid, solid reasons to be enthusiastic about this book on a micro-level as well as on a macro-level, or even just vibes.

I don’t doubt that this is going to end up as one of my favorite reads of the year. Get your hands on this.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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I rubbed my temples. “I’m losing it. I’m talking to my dog.”

Bandit walked over and sat beside me. What do you mean? We always talk.

“Not like this!” I stared at him. “Doesn’t this seem different to you?”

He tilted his head. I guess. I mean, sometimes you’re a little thick. You seem to have trouble understanding me. Like when you don’t want to go for a walk, but the weather is perfect. Or you’d rather sit on the couch than play fetch. Or it’s dinner, and we could have steak, but you make a cheese quesadilla. Or—

What’s A Tail of Mystery About?

Luke has hit a little roadblock in his journalism career—his editor fired him. The newspaper industry being what it is now, he didn’t have a lot of options. So he—and his Australian Shepherd, Bandit—are off to his old (small) hometown to live with his mother for a little bit and to lick his wounds.

He has a fairly well-to-do uncle who lives in the same town, too. He’s more eccentric than he is well-off, too—and runs some ethically questionable animal experiments in his home. Luke didn’t realize exactly how ethically-flexible Uncle Zeke is, but by the time he realized it, he’d already agreed to let Zeke use him in his experiments (Luke really needed money, it should be stressed).

Something goes wrong during the experiment—and when Luke wakes up he can hear Bandit’s thoughts in his mind. And vice versa. It’s not unlike Hearne’s Atticus and Oberon, although Bandit seems to have a stronger command of English (and math). Even more wrong, Zeke has been murdered. As the only person at the scene, Luke’s the prime suspect of most of the police town.

And he really can’t tell them “I didn’t do it, but my dog smelled another human around there.”

So, faster than you can say, “Spencer Quinn,” Luke has to team up with his mother (who assures him she’s watched enough Murder, She Wrote to be qualified) and his best friend from High School to see if they can clear Luke’s name, with an assist or two from Bandit.

Crystal Falls

Crystal Falls was just off Highway 55, nestled in a mature forest of pines and firs. A short walk from the center of town took you to the Crystal Falls River. On quiet nights you could hear the musical trickle of water as it flowed over the smooth rocks. The more ambitious hiker, heading north for twenty minutes, would arrive at Crystal Falls, the landmark that gave the town its name. The waterfall was two stories high, and thundered down to a pool of water large enough for the adventurous swimmer or college skinny dipping dare. I left the highway, and took Crystal Road.

Childhood memories flooded back as I drove the curving ascent into town. The road, flanked by thick firs, led through a dense mountain forest. I cracked the window, letting the fresh, cool air fill the car. A choir of chirping birds was scattered among the trees.

The center of town was laid out in a giant oval. One and two-story city buildings and retail stores ran along the edges, and a circular park the size of a football field sat dead center. The park was dotted with Douglas firs, and a colorful variety of deciduous trees displaying a canvas of fall colors. The orange-yellow leaves of willows ringed the outer edge, ushering me into town. A large, white gazebo marked the center of the park, a sentimental landmark of small town America. Roads branched off into the hills, leading to residential homes.

Doesn’t this sound like the perfect, quaint little town? It might as well be Stars Hollow or Del Sol, New Mexico. It’s the kind of small town where everyone knows each other, knows each other’s business, and the biggest scandal is that someone might be cheating in the annual Cinnamon Festival Bake-off (the investigation into this is Luke’s first assignment for the local paper). A murder of an infamous crank definitely gets folks talking—as is any clumsy investigation not done by the police.

We don’t get to see much of it in this book, but we get enough to know that I’m going to enjoy spending time here and getting to know the populace over the next four books.

Bandit

Bandit crept closer, sniffing the fallen body. I’m guessing raccoons… They’re devious creatures, you know? Totally capable of an attack like this.

So, you know I have to talk about Bandit, right? I’d forgotten the whole thing about Luke and Bandit being able to talk to each other when I started this book, and I already thought Bandit was a good boi before he started communicating. He’s a big dog with a lot of heart, and will surely catch a bird or squirrel soon. He’s convinced that raccoons are not to be trusted (and he’s probably right), and has strong opinions on baked goods as well as other foodstuffs.

His personality is great—he’s generally upbeat, devoted to Luke (but he has a soft spot for some of the other humans around, even the ones who smell). It didn’t take me long at all to know I was going to read more of these books just for Bandit (although the rest of the book warranted reading the sequel, too—but I had to wait to decide that).

So, what did I think about A Tail of Mystery?

It’s getting late, so I won’t take the time to get into all the colorful characters we meet here—also, I’d risk giving something away about the murder. But I’ll talk about Luke’s mother, his friend, Kenny, and some of the other memorable folks in a future post. For now, I’ll just repeat myself from above—I want to get to know this Crystal Falls and its populace more. (see what I said about Del Sol and Stars Hollow)

The murder was well-plotted and just mysterious enough to keep you guessing—it would’ve been very difficult (but not impossible) for someone to figure out without Bandit’s nose. Which is one of those notes that I’m always going to love.

I liked Luke—even if he could be a little whiny, hopefully Book 2 doesn’t involve him being accused of murder, so we can see more of the good side of his personality. Regnier’s narrative voice is charming enough that you’ll enjoy the book despite Luke’s misery.

It’s a fun, quick, easy read that hits all the right notes. I encourage you to pick it up—I’m getting the next one soon myself.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Leveled Up Love About?

Zack Moore is living off the generous inheritance he received from his parents, occasionally (when forced) looking in on the charitable foundation they started, and playing video games. Primarily, he’s playing Star Fury, and his team is gearing up for a big tournament that could lead to them playing on a professional circuit. He doesn’t need the job or money—but his teammates do. Zack needs to be good at something, and Star Fury seems to be it.

But his gameplay is interrupted one day, and the trustee overseeing his accounts (and former guardian) is there to get him to sign some documents. One of those documents (that Zack doesn’t read because he’s in a rush to get back to the game), is an agreement to alpha test a new game—and progress in that game will affect things like access to his accounts, access to the rest of the world, and access to the internet. Zack’s luxury condo (which looks like the sloppiest dorm room you’ve ever been in—without the textbooks) is so tied into smart technology that everything Zack owns or uses can be controlled by this software.

The game is Dating Evolution App, with the goal of a significant relationship with a romantic partner. Zack has to level up in various areas—like hygeine, personal style, employment, general reputation (several impassioned internet comments—all about Star Fury and its players—have to go, for example). If he wants to get the time online that he needs to help his team win the tournament, he has to start jumping through hoops—now.

General RomCom situations ensue.

As a LitRPG

I’ve never read a LitRPG before, so I may be off base, but…according to the repository of all human knowledge, Wikipedia:

LitRPG, short for literary role-playing game, is a literary genre combining the conventions of computer RPGs with science-fiction and fantasy novels… In LitRPG, game-like elements form an essential part of the story, and visible RPG statistics (for example strength, intelligence, damage) are a significant part of the reading experience… Typically, the main character in a LitRPG novel is consciously interacting with the game or game-like world and attempting to progress within it.

If that’s the case, Wong & Marshall nailed it.

Zack’s stats at the beginning of the game were:

Zack Moore Current Attributes (Social Level 8) Physique: 31 Style: 19 Reputation: -18 Occupation: 0

He would get similar stats fed through his smart glasses, based on social media/other internet data on any woman he focused on for long, which was so creepy and invasive I shouldn’t have to say (and yes, landed him in hot water not nearly as often as it should’ve).

He’d then get fed quests like:

Quest Found! Hold a conversation with a woman face-to-face! Restrictions: In-person. Non-VR generated. Unpaid interaction. Difficulty: Variable Reward: Access to electronics and internet

Now, with access to non-essential internet usage—like the massive tournament he was preparing for, Zack had no little choice but to take on these quests (similar ones for Physique, Style, Reputation, and Occupation). That’s what’s driving him through almost this whole novel—not his health, not the way he looks/dresses/smells (he’s not around people enough to care), or lack of relationship. It’s about access to Star Fury.

As a RomCom

This hit all the main points—a misunderstood, and loveable schlub (think of a social Sonny Koufax, without the girlfriend in the beginning), who (like Sandy) is wealthy. There’s a cute, wholesome woman without all the advantages he has that befriends him, and they build a relationship. There’s a knock-out bikini model neighbor who sees him as a nice guy that will buy her fancy clothes, nice jewelry (that matches whatever she has on), and will take her to expensive places and dinners.

Zack casually dates them both to get game points (although neither woman is aware of the other).

Meanwhile, he starts to grow in some ways through the other things the game has him work on, and he just might be growing up.

If you can’t guess the rest of the plot from here—you really haven’t spent much time with RomComs. Wong & Marshall get all the plot points right, deliver them in an entertaining and amusing way, and lead up to an emotionally satisfying resolution. Practically textbook.

So, what did I think about Leveled Up Love?

This reminded me of several books where a man-child is forced (by whatever) to change their lifestyle—exercise, eating right, concern for their appearance, and maybe even a better job—and along the way, they find that they like doing all that after all and get the girl. Does that make it bad? No. Predictable? Pretty much, yeah. But you don’t pick up something like this to be blown away. You pick up something like this because you’re curious about how it pulls it all off. How it hits all the conventions (in this case, both genres) marks in an entertaining way.

Or maybe because you love the conventions and you don’t care how fresh this book’s take is on it, you just want the familiarity.

Either works—and either will be satisfied with this book.

I liked all the characters—I wish we’d gotten to know a few better (particularly Zack’s teammates). The overall atmosphere is pleasant—and it’s one of the “cleanest” RomComs I remember reading. This just leaves you feeling warm and comfortable—it delivers some good smiles, and a chuckle or two, too.

I do think it could’ve been shorter—it was a lot longer than I expected when I started it (I really should glance at page counts for ebooks). But on this side of things, I don’t really know what they could’ve cut. Still, it dragged a bit for me (just a bit).

All in all, a completely enjoyable experience—could it have been better? Sure, dial up the laughs a bit more—but that might have detracted from something else. Leveled Up Love. It delivers just what it tells you in the subtitle. If that seems like your kind of thing, you’re right. Give it a try.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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“You see,” said Colon, “thieves are organized here. I mean, it’s official They’re allowed a certain amount of thieving. Not that they do much these days, mind you. If you pay them a little premium every year they give you a card and leave you alone. Saves time and effort all around.”

“And all thieves are members?” said Angua.

“Oh, yes,” said Carrot. “Can’t go thieving in Ankh-Morpork without a Guild permit. Not unless you’ve got a special talent.”

“Why? What happens? What talent?” she said.

“Well, being able to survive being hung upside down from one of the gates with your ears nailed to your knees,” said Carrot.”

What’s Men at Arms About?

The Night Watch is in flux—Captain Vimes is on the verge of retiring, and there are questions about who his successor will be. There’s a class of recruits that need to be trained—including a (gasp) woman. Our friends from the first book are trying to navigate this, train these recruits—and get their job done.

The job is made a bit more complicated when a murder victim shows up—killed by some sort of weapon no one on Discworld has seen before. Two guilds are implicated in this, the tensions between two non-human races are stoked due to the investigation, and the Night Watch has only a little time to get to the bottom of this all.

Fantasy Races

It was a state of permanent inter-species vendetta and, like all good vendettas, didn’t really need a reason any more. It was enough that it had always existed. Dwarfs hated trolls because trolls hated dwarfs, and vice versa.

I don’t remember Guards! Guards! doing a lot with the whole fantasy race thing—there were humans and dwarves, right? Maybe some mentions of others, but I don’t recall it being that big of a deal.

Here we have more dwarves and trolls—and a lot of animosity between the two races. We also have plenty of reasons to see how ridiculous expressions of this animosity (and probably even the grounds for it) really are.

I really found this a compelling aspect of the book, particularly the way that two of the Watch’s trainees (one from each race) learned to work together—it’s not in an after-school special way, but one that felt genuine.

The Gonne

A handheld firearm has found its way into Discworld, and the results are devastating.

Several people want it destroyed—and definitely don’t want it replicated. But when they get it into their possession, they can’t seem to destroy it. In fact, many become obsessed with it, it’s like they start to take orders from it.

Back in 1993 (original date of publication), Terry Pratchett saw the attraction of the power that comes from wielding a handgun and depicted it in a way that feels incredibly of the moment. Obviously, this has been something humans have been dealing with for a long time—it’s nothing new—but I don’t remember coming across something so clear, so incisive along these lines until more recently.*

* Sure, this may say more about what I’ve read than it does about Pratchett…but even the more sensitive treatments I read that are older than this don’t seem to get it as well.

So, what did I think about Men at Arms?

Colon thought Carrot was simple. Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was. Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.

I didn’t find this as funny as Guards! Guards!. It was quirky, and odd, and amusing—yes. Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t riddled with great lines. It was entertaining as all get out—and I enjoyed it almost as much. But it was more focused on character development, story, and social commentary than yucks and guffaws. It’s probably a better novel over all, honestly. But not as fun.

So it really wasn’t what I expected, which is a shade disappointing. But what I got instead is a superior product—with some great avenues for future stories. I didn’t expect to have emotional reactions to what happens to characters in a fantasy novel that I expected to laugh my way through! (the reactions might have been small since I didn’t know them that well, but still, it was outsized for how many pages I’d known them for)

As much as I enjoyed Captain Samuel Vimes and what happened with him—I really didn’t appreciate Sybil Ramkin. I thought she was great in Guards! Guards!, but she was a giant let-down here. I expect that to change in the future. I’m really excited about the possibilities for Vimes going forward.

Carrot…good ol’ Carrot. As great a character as I thought he was coming into this—he was far, far better throughout. Especially what we got to see of him through the eyes of other characters—particularly Lance-constable Angua von Überwald (who’s just a great addition regardless). It’s one thing to give us things from his perspective, or from the omniscient narrator’s point of view—but for us to see what others see in him, particularly the intangible stuff, and how they’re confused by his success—utterly fantastic.

Whatever my issues with Pratchett were before Guards! Guards!, they are well and truly dead and buried. I’m going to work on devoting more time to him in 2026 (if not before). This was a great read with depth I didn’t expect (but maybe should’ve) in one of the strangest fantasy worlds I’ve encountered. Funny, thoughtful, deep (in the right ways), absolutely silly (in the right ways).

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Death at the Door About?

I almost hit “Publish” with this part blank. Which would’ve been pretty enigmatic. Possibly too enigmatic, even for a mystery novel.

In the months since we left them, Ruby and Cordelia have continued to build their friendship as Ruby becomes acclimated to Boston. Cordelia is even teaching Ruby to cook! In that strange way of communicating that they have. Yes, it does involve some hijinks at a grocery store and freaking out a fellow shopper who is silly enough to think that glass jars shouldn’t move from the shelf to a cart without anyone holding them.

I probably should’ve mentioned that Cordelia is the ghost of the woman who lived in Ruby’s apartment—I forgot for a moment that not everyone reading this post has read the first book—or remembers what I said about it last year. So, yeah. The ghost of a 40-something woman is “rooming” (for lack of a better word, she’s certainly not haunting) with a woman who can’t legally drink yet. They’re chummy and have solved a murder together. Now you’re caught up.

Until one fateful day, when Ruby discovers a body in the restroom at work. Naturally, given that this is a mystery novel, it was not a natural death. Nor a supernatural one, I feel that I should add, given the nature of this series. It’s a plain ol’ murder. Yes, the restroom in an office building on a floor occupied by a tech company is not where you’d expect such a thing. Especially if you’re a young woman who’s still a little naive about life in a major city.

Both Cordelia and Ruby liked the delivery driver and were uncomfortable with the way the police didn’t seem to care about his death (criminal record, and apparently a criminal present). So, Cordelia decides she’s going to look into things to make sure that Ruby’s safe. Ruby decides that the two of them are going to look into things because they were successful last time, and Ruby feels bad for his family. Eventually, they compare notes and Cordelia begrudgingly involves her roommate.

And well, after that…things happen, as they often do when amateur detectives decide to solve a crime. But with a ghostly twist

Growth

A New Lease on Death was our introduction to this world, these characters—and their introduction to each other. Death at the Door shows how much the characters and their relationship has grown since then (the world is pretty much stagnant, that kind of change is outside the possibility of cozy mysteries).

It’s strange to think of a ghost growing/developing. That’s the point of death, right? But many ghost stories do show us that kind of growth, that’s how in some works that the ghost gets to move on. Or in others, they just grow and develop just like the living. I’m thinking particularly of the Charlie and Rose Investigations—but with a little thought, I could likely add some other titles here. But that series seems pretty apt here, so I won’t belabor the point.

That’s too many words to say that Cordelia isn’t quite the same person we met in the last book. She’s adjusted to some of Ruby’s quirks and developed a strong mothering/big sister approach to her. Teaching her how to cook, looking out for her when it comes to friends, and so on. She’s also much better at being a ghost. She’s learned a couple of new tricks—and learns one in these pages, too.

Ruby’s a lot more independent now—not just the “I’m going to prove to everyone I can live on my own” kind of attitude that we met before, now it’s more of a—she’s working it out (with some help from her roomie). She’s comfortable in the neighborhood, in her job, and with herself. She still can’t handle alcohol, but it’s not a problem (long-term), and is kind of cute. She’s able to be assertive when she needs to, too. She’s better at thinking on her feet, too. And on at least two occasions, she demonstrates that in a way that she couldn’t have in the first book.

The affection between the two is real, and you can’t help but feel (and share) it. They’re better at understanding each other’s intentions and communicating with each other—although you’d have thought they’d have used a little of Ruby’s Dunkin’ money for some more fridge magnets or something. Both their communication—and miscommunication—are just fun to watch. There’s an interrogation scene near Ruby’s office (to keep it free of spoilers) where Cordelia and her ghost friend “warm up” the interrogate-ee before handing it off to Ruby, and the way these two trust each other and interact (mostly by not interacting) here is something to warm the reader’s heart.

None of this is to say that these two don’t make mistakes—because, boy howdy, do they.

A comparison I thought of just before I published—Ruby/Cordelia give a very Janine/Barbara from Abbott Elementary-vibe, with a similar arc. If you’re looking for oversimplification.

Ghosts

Like Cordelia herself, I expect more ghosts—especially in a city as historic as Boston.* We’ve seen three, that I recall. And only two have stuck around—and other than giving Cordelia a conversation partner, I’m not all that happy to see him.

Where is everyone else? I’m not looking for millions of them—or even hundreds (although I’d like to think that hundreds exist). But there have to be a few others in the parts of town that our duo spends their time in. Or, when Cordelia travels to a part of the city she’s never been in—why can’t she run into someone new? Even under the rules that Blacke has established for her ghosts, a city like Boston has to have a few more. Heck, just the ones that Hawk, Spenser, and Patrick Kenzie have left in their wake (unintentionally or not) would give Cordelia someone to wave at. And those are the good(ish) guys!

This isn’t really a short-coming of the book/world. It just sticks out as an oddity. Also, it makes me worried about Cordelia’s long-term prospects. How long does she have left? Ruby needs to do better on the flesh-and-blood friends and independent living fronts.

* At least by U.S.-standards. As the book notes a couple of times.

So, what did I think about Death at the Door?

I had no complaints about A New Lease on Death (or, if I did, they were minor and fleeting enough that I don’t remember them, and I’m not going to go check to see if I did), but Death at the Door is a much more satisfying read. Everything that Blacke did well, she repeated here—and improved on most/all of that. And the rest? Didn’t show up here.

We get two new characters for the pair to interact with—well, we get a handful, but there are two that mean more to the series overall. And I thought they were great. Blacke does a good job of giving us reasons not to totally trust either of them, but spends the majority of the book making us really like them and wanting to trust them. Which is a nice trick—and only occasionally frustrating. It’ll be so satisfying, and maybe a relief, when we learn which way to eventually fall on that point. They are really well-drawn characters, regardless, and are just what this series needed (even if I didn’t realize that until I was done with the book).

Given the location of the murder—and most of the pair’s investigation—we spend a lot more time in Ruby’s current/Cordelia’s former office and interacting with their co-workers. This does two things—it teaches us a lot more about what Cordelia was like when she was living, and really helps us understand the people and culture of the office. As Cordelia’s murder was almost-certainly due to something work-related, this is important for us. Also, it’s pretty fun to see what Black is doing. Anyone who’s suffered from team-building activities will appreciate that portion of the book, if nothing else.

The mystery itself (I probably should focus on that, right?) was cleverly told. The herrings were just the right shade of red, and were very convincing. The antics our duo get up to along the way are the right combination of illuminating and goofy. I’m not an expert on Blacke’s work, but this is the fifth (!) novel of hers that I’ve read, and her character-driven mystery game has never been better.

I’m tempted to speculate about the arc of the series at this point, but most of what I expect is around the corner was what I suspected for this book. So I won’t go further than to say, Blacke’s got something great in store for us. And as she prepares her readers for it, she delivers a satisfying and enjoyable mystery.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press & Minotaur Books via NetGalley—thanks to all for this (particularly the associate publicist—who might not want me broadcasting their name to the world—that got me into Olivia Blacke’s work a couple of years ago).

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Bones & Betrayal: Silence of the Dead About?

Holtar is a former adventurer who has left that life for a quieter and safer option in the city. Sadly, as a necromancer, he’s only somewhat welcome. He’s a walking NIMBY target, really. Being a Dark Elf probably doesn’t help much, either.

But the Captain of the city guard has decided he has a use—who better to help than a necromancer who can call the dead back long enough to ask who killed them? It really tends to make solving a murder pretty easy (and, for all his good points, it really seems that Capt. Moorland isn’t incredibly well-suited for solving crimes). So it’s really not much of an event for Holtar to be called to the shop of a merchant specializing in strange goods to consult on his storeowner’s death.

It becomes an event when Holtar can’t raise him—in fact, quickly decides that his death points to a dark magic that runs a chill down his spine. Holtar and his partner barely start investigating this murder before another one happens. And there’s really no reason to doubt that the killer is just getting started.

Also…will the charming elven baker’s business be able to survive when the word gets out that her pies have been weaponized and turned into the murderer’s weapon? (assuming she isn’t the killer)

Holtar

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not knowledgeable about necromancers. There’s the one in The Hobbit, and a couple here and there that I’m familiar with. Oh, and of course, Adam Holcombe’s Gam Gam. But that’s not really many—and really, the specialty doesn’t appeal to me. So, I really didn’t know what to expect out of Holtar.

I didn’t figure on a Dark Elf with anxiety and no natural grace (the guy can’t even climb wooden stairs without creaking like crazy—who knew that was possible for an elf?). He seems to have a strong degree of talent, with one trademarked spell—and, who knows, he might have more to develop if he wasn’t putting up with Moorland’s chores.

With his adventuring days behind him, he really just wants a quiet life—and who can’t relate to that?

It’s easy to forget what Holtar does for a living throughout the book, but the authors will slip in a quick reminder here and there to remind you that there’s something inherently creepy about Holtar and his magic. He is not a creep himself, but necromancers aren’t particularly popular people in this world. For good reason.

One way we’re reminded of the dark nature of Holtar’s magic is this impulse he calls The Urge, which is essentially an impulse to let the magic go wild and raise whatever dead happen to be in range of his abilities. Holtar’s worried enough about it that I can’t help but wonder if at some point or another, he didn’t resist The Urge to calamitous results.

Another way is Holtar’s friend/partner…

Seymour

Seymour is a thief—a full-fledged member of the Thieves Guild—who used to travel and work with Holtar until…well, for our purposes, we’ll call it an industrial accident. Remember that their industry involved parties of adventurers who included a necromancer. But thanks to the same necromancer, Seymour isn’t (as Miracle Max would say) all dead. He doesn’t have much of a body—or any organs, he’s simply a talking skull.

Somehow, he can eat, drink, and move around—don’t ask Holtar how any of that works. Which is great fodder for comedy and a pretty neat trick, all things considered. Seymour has a great sense of humor, he loves puns (I’m talking puns/wordplay that would make Burt Ward’s Robin distancing himself), and is not above joking about his body-less state. He’s also a loyal friend who has some pretty clever ideas from time to time (although he typically reserves his cleverness for quips and pranks). He’s the ultimate in wise-cracking sidekicks.

But Holtar is very aware of the optics of a necromancer carrying around a skull that he talks to all the time. So, he pretty much hides Seymour and only takes him out in private.

If you have only one talking skull in your literary life, go with Dresden’s Bob. If you have room for two, however, Seymour is your guy.*

* I can see myself being open to changing the ranking after another book or two.

The Tone

This is a buddy-cop kind of book, technically a buddy-P.I. (of sorts). A partnership full of banter and rarely expressed affection, and obvious loyalty. On page or screen, I’m a sucker for this kind of thing.

It’s best to think of this as a PI novel set in a Fantasy world—the tone and focus hold up better than if you think of it as a Fantasy novel featuring PI-types. (That’s still correct, but I think it gets the accent in the wrong spot).

There are hard-boiled elements, but it’s still light-hearted and comedic. It’s not a cozy, but it’s not far off from it. I think it’s a shade less cozy than Baldree’s Bookshops & Bonedust, for example.

While most of the banter comes from the interplay between Holtar and Seymour, that’s not all of it. The same kind of humor displayed in Ewington’s The Hero Interviews or the sillier parts of Peter David’s Apropos of Nothing books is more than evident here. I could bask in the jokes for a while (and have).

So, what did I think about Bones & Betrayal: Silence of the Dead?

There’s a lot to commend about this book, and very little to quibble with. There’s some really subtle world-building at work here, including some nice references to Ewington’s Hero Interviews, and this expands and adds depth to that world nicely. There are some wonderfully composed sentences in this book—they’re just so efficient that they can deliver a paragraph’s worth of meaning in them—moving the plot forward, or showing a character trait—while doing some effective world-building. Or a combination of the others. This happens often enough that I had to stop and admire them, because it’s one thing to do that once or twice—but Marks and Ewington did it often enough that it had to be purposeful, and it’s just so nice to see, particularly in Fantasy which has a tendency to take too long with this kind of thing.

This is a really good PI story, first and foremost. I think it takes Holtar a little too long to figure out what’s motivating the killer—I talked back a lot to the book on these lines. I don’t know if it’d have hurt things for him to suss that out as quickly as he should’ve. But the rest of the mystery elements are so well done that I can shrug that off (mostly). There’s some good comedy going on, but it’s not the focus–it’s a function of how Holtar’s mind works and the way he and Seymour relate. So, yeah, it’s funny–but it’s not a goofy mystery. It fits along Duncan MacMaster, Gregory Mcdonald, Lee Goldberg, and Marshall Karp’s early works. Which means it’s just what I want a steady diet of.

Then you get the whole Fantasy world of it all–so there’s the D&D-ness of The Hero Interviews. But also the Fantasy+mystery novel of Alex Bledsoe, Luke Arnold, and Keith DeCandido’s Precinct novels. Also, the tone of The Chronicles of Pell (that’s the closest match I can think of right now).

I really want to spend more time with Seymour and Holtar, for the sheer entertainment of the banter alone. But I also like seeing their partnership at work, and a solid buddy-dynamic like theirs should be celebrated as often as possible. I’d like to see something develop between the flirtation between Holtar and [name withheld] (although I’m not certain the attraction is two-way, but dealt with correctly, that could be funny). I could enjoy seeing Holtar butt heads with Moorland more, or Moorland being replaced by someone, too–really not sure I care. And, I’m super curious about the events that the ending sets up for Book Two.

This novel delivers the perfect amount of bang for your entertainment buck. It is a satisfying combination of mystery, tension, magic, and stupid jokes and puns. The friendship that forms the heart of this book will endear you to the protagonists as much as their banter will make you grin. Setting the whole thing in a Fantasy world that will be instantly recognizable to anyone who reads the genre or has played D&D, just makes the whole thing even more satisfying. I had a blast with this–and I literally have a list of people I’ll be giving this to as a gift. I’m eagerly awaiting another two or three installments in this series already.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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A Couple of Content Warnings

I don’t normally do these kind of things, but it seemed like a good idea for this book. First, there’s some active suicidal ideation at the beginning of the book. It’s (first chapter, so not a spoiler) not effective. Also, it’s rapidly moved on from, and if the characters bring it up again, it’s briefly (I don’t think they do, but I failed to track it). In some books, the way the characters leave it behind would be a problem, and worthy of some discussion. But here? It works.

Secondly, Sole gets pretty close to sacrilege with a number of religious figures—Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist (and likely some others). Particularly with a certain Tibetan Buddhist. I tend to have a hair trigger on this kind of thing, but I think Sole landed pretty firmly on the right side of the line. If for no other reason than his depictions of the persons in question are so far from the way the religions think about them or they’re depicted in their texts, it’s hard to take the identification seriously.

(except for that Tibetan Buddhist, but even there, it’s a stretch)

What’s The Amazing Twin Chicken Freedom Fighters About?

Jake and Joy meet one night under poor circumstances and do not get along at all. But then they find themselves in an unfamiliar and possibly hostile situation dressed in chicken suits (that not everyone sees but also they can’t get out of).

Before they can fully wrap their heads around that, they find themselves running for their lives and involved in a cosmic struggle for the fate of humanity. As they were prophesied to be.

No, really. That’s the plot.

Jake, Joy, and their new mentors/companions vs. Hip Gnosis* and his bickering subordinates. What follows is zany, action-filled, profound entertainment.

* Readers of Justice League comics of the late 80s may be interested to know that Gnosis reminds me of Lord Manga Khan, and his associate, Madelyn has a certain L-Ron quality to her, too.

The Book’s Humor

This book is hilarious—it’s more than that, but let’s start with that. But what kind of humor is it?

There’s word play—some very clever and sophisticated, and some painful puns. There’s some scatological humor (including one of the all-time greatest scatological jokes). There’s philosophical humor. There’s some jokes that are fit for an elementary school playground. There are some that are fit for a New Yorker cartoon.

Basically, the humor is all over the place. I mean that as a compliment and a description—definitely not a criticism. Primarily because every, and I stress every joke* lands. The book was so funny that you could miss everything else going on (and you shouldn’t) and you’d have a wonderful time.

* I should probably note that I may have mistaken a few lines for jokes that weren’t (but I laughed anyway), and I may have missed a few (which annoys me to admit).

That Hideous Strength

Somewhere along the way…either in the last two-thirds of the book, or maybe when I was finished (I can’t tell from my notes, and I can’t remember), it struck me that this book is a strange, non-Christian version of C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength.

That’s not a spoiler—because Sole doesn’t resolve things in a way that resembles Lewis at all (and frankly, I think Sole’s is more narratively satisfying, which is odd for a book that is so messy). This isn’t a hill that I’d fight to possess, but I think the parallels are clear. In essence, you’ve got the same two opposing forces and similar groups to take action on Earth—for very similar ends. I’d be more specific, but you need to read the book to appreciate it. Do that and come back, and we can talk.

Maybe it’s That Hideous Strength mixed with Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency. I should take a day or two to develop that idea into a few paragraphs, but I won’t.

So, what did I think about The Amazing Twin Chicken Freedom Fighters?

This book is just absurd—and I mean that in both the technical and the vernacular uses. I’m struggling to find words to describe it beyond that.

By page three, I was smitten with this book. By page 60, I wrote that, “This is either brilliant or the ravings of a madman. Possibly both.” And stuck with both of those reactions until the last sentence.

I talked about the humor above—and that would be enough to get me to recommend this book. But there’s so much more going on in these 204 pages. Things I haven’t begun to fully unpack yet. Things I’d probably need three or four reads to glimpse.

Sole doesn’t just play with narrative rules here. Nor does he simply experiment with them. He ties them up, tosses them in the trunk of his sedan, and goes for a joy ride. Less violently, you could say that Sole treats them as if he were Bugs Bunny after too many espressos and they were Elmer Fudd.

Then you throw in the prophecies, the philosophy, the semi-spirituality discussions, the action, the whale, teleporting via bathrooms/port-a-potties, the…I don’t know how to finish this sentence.

The plot is solid and interesting—but only somewhat important. The primary characters are three-dimensional, but only by the skin of their teeth. It’s not that important that they’re incredibly well-developed (as much as I hate to say something like that, it’s true here). What’s important is why things are happening and how Sole describes it.

Toss your suspension of disbelief in the trunk with Sole’s narrative rules, and dive in. You’ll be glad you did.

People who’ve read this site much know that I’m a huge Jo Perry fan. After I read the book, I noticed she’d provided a quote for the Publisher about it. As I’d fully expect, she put everything so wonderfully. I can’t match it, so I’m just going to close with what she said.

The Amazing Twin Chicken Freedom Fighters is the deep, learned, bookish, illogical, profound, effervescent, scatological, otherworldly, etymological and hilarious history of a shift in Joy’s and Jake’s (not their real names) ways of being and ours after they leap as one from a bridge and become heroic, pizza-eating—not just any pizza, but The Pizza Eternal-soul-yoked chickens. Enchanters, clicking and singing cetacean metaphors, the-down-and-out, lambs, assassins, the sorrowful, the faceless, the brain-on-fire, the ego-mad, the blind and seers inhabit Sole’s audacious and ambitious soul-adventure. This is a wild novel as sweet and hot as a from-the-oven lemon rosemary scone. Onward to Book Two.

Disclaimer: I received this ARC from the Publisher in exchange for my honest opinion and this post. They got short-changed in this deal.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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There are times when I sit down, ready to write, with no idea what words might begin the story. It’s like an itch in the mind. Words are the only cure, calamine lotion for the desire to create.

What’s Typewriter Repair Shop About?

Jake Randall is a writer who has been struck by the muse—it’s one of those times that he just has to get a story out of his mind and onto paper (or screen). He typically likes to bounce around between his laptop, a notepad, or an actual old typewriter. This time, however, he can’t quite seem to write anything without that typewriter—but that’s okay with him, he enjoys the sensations.

Well, until one of the keys stops working—the letter just won’t strike. Which is infuriating—or would be, if a typewriter repair shop hadn’t just opened across the street from a bar and grill that Jake likes to frequent.

Sure, it seems like a dumb business idea in the 2020s, but at the moment, he’s not looking a gift horse in any orifice. He takes it in, gets the letter repaired (while he enjoys some fish and chips at the grill), and goes home to write more, he really wants to tell this story.

Then a different letter stops working. And so, Jake repeats the sequence. But now he’s more driven to tell the story. And then…yeah, a different key…

The Look of the Thing

So, I don’t know how well an eBook would do with the funky typography/handwriting things that Lambert does here. Probably fine, but also…it could be a mess.

The dead-tree version, however, looks very cool. We frequently get to “see” the typewritten portions with the missing letters, and sometimes where Jake filled them in by hand.

This makes it easy to see why he’d give up—it’s easy to think to yourself, “tough it out, fill it in by hand.” But when you see it in front of you and then think about the effort? No thanks. Back to the repair shop for sure.

So, what did I think about Typewriter Repair Shop?

I’ve got to be quick about this—if I talk too much, you won’t have a reason to pick this up—and I want you to.

This is a very Twilight Zone-y kind of story. You may get to the point where you think you know everything that’ll happen (and you might be right), but that’s not the point. The point is to go on this fast, twisty, and strange ride with Lambert.

Revel in the creepiness, the atmosphere, the…whatever it is that’s going on in Jake’s mind.

This novella is absolutely worth your time and money. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next from this series.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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On a span of blasted ground, she finds the letter.

It does not belong. Here there should be bodies mounded between the wrecks of ships that once sailed the stars, Here there should be the death and dirt and blood of a successful op. There should be moons disintegrating overhead, ships aflame in orbit.

There should not be a sheet of cream-colored paper, clean save a single line in a long, trailing hand: Burn before reading.

What’s This Is How You Lose the Time War About?

Red and Blue are agents from two great forces who are battling to control the timeline. They do this by going back and forth in time—along strands—to make small adjustments that will have big implications. For example (not from the book, but to give you an idea), instead of going back to kill Hitler, they’d go back to convince the man who taught Hitler’s art teacher to go into a different field.

Red is an agent of the Agency—a technology-driven group, with aspirations to keep history moving in a direction for their cybernetic, singularity culture to thrive in. Blue works with Garden, who are all about nature, growth, and nurture.

They both seem to be some of the best agents each side has—and they keep running into each other, preventing each other’s missions from succeeding. Until after one defeat, Red finds a letter (see above). Thanks to mechanics that work only for time travelers, she’s able to burn the letter and then read and retain the contents.

Blue knows her from her work and taunts her for her recent defeat. At their next encounter (where Red comes out on top), she’s hidden a letter for Blue—and I’m not going to try to describe how that letter is hidden/revealed. The two begin exchanging taunts, which turns into a friendship of sorts (very few individuals in all of existence—past, present, future) can really understand their lives. From friendship, a romance blossoms—and that is where the danger is found.

Atlantis and The Absence of World Building

Atlantis sinks.

Serves it right. Red hates the place. For one thing, there are so many Atlantises, always sinking, in so many strands: an island off Greece, a mid-Atlantic continent, an advanced pre-Minoan civilization on Crete, a spaceship floating north of Egypt, on and on. Most strands lack Atlantis altogether, know the place only through dreams and mad poets’ madder whispers.

Because there are so many, Red cannot fix just one, or fail to. Sometimes it seems strands bud Atlantises to thwart her. They conspire. History makes common cause with the enemy. Thirty, forty times throughout her career she has walked away from some sinking, burning island, thinking, at least that’s over. Thirty, forty times, the call has come: Go back.

It’s here with the talk about Atlantis—and the following discussion about the various ones—that was probably the highlight of the book for me. It’s at least where I liked the book the most. Somehow in all the possible pasts, the strands keep bringing Atlantis into the world—which is where we get all the various stories about it. Just this idea and Red’s distaste for all of the Atlantises…and compared to Blue, it turns out she might have a positive view of the island.

In each chapter—this falters later on in the book, but it’s close enough—we’re introduced to a possible future or past with an explanation of what the agent we’re focusing on in this chapter is trying to accomplish—and then we see how they fail. Before getting a letter.

The possible settings are fantastic. They each feel like they could be the basis of a gripping 300-page novel—but we dispose of them in a few pages. Each Agent’s mission—and the counter—is depicted and explained in a way that’s just as wonderful. The only thing that tops either of them is the transmission/delivery of the next letter and its reception.

We don’t really get worldbuilding here—we just get glances at them, a quick bit of immersion into the world—and then right back out and into the next. Beyond that, we’re not given any idea how Red, Blue, and the rest travel upstrand or downstrand. We don’t get a clear picture—outside of tech vs. nature—of what the war is over, or how the missions are selected and designed. We get a little of Blue’s backstory, but not much—just enough to set up a great scene or two.

This is both frustrating and fantastic. It’s my nature as a reader to want more, to want the nitty gritty. But, I’ll tell you what, El-Mohtar and Gladstone make this work—it’s enough to get these glances. And to give those details would change the nature of the book—and it’s probably best they didn’t.

Humor and Heart

This is a strange, fantastic book with an earnest tone—what I wasn’t prepared for was the humor. But fairly early on, Red taunts, “Ha-ha, Blueser. Your mission objective’s in another castle.” And I was caught off-guard, “Oh, we’re doing laughs, too?”

And yes—the very next page is hilarious. And the two will make me laugh several times after that.

But this is not a comedy. I want to go back to the earnest idea. This book wears its heart on its sleeve. There a big feelings expressed and felt. Largely, those are delivered in a prose that’s simply delicious. Worthy of quotation and meditation.

So, what did I think about This Is How You Lose the Time War?

Killing gets easier with practice, in mechanics and technique. Having killed never does, for Red. Her fellow agents do not feel the same, or they hide it better.

So clearly, after everything I’ve just said, I loved the book, right?

Sadly, no. All the elements were there—killer concept, the execution of individual scenes was spot-on, the characters are interesting and engaging, etc., etc., etc. I loved the authors’ language, their approach to the whole thing, and more. Seriously, a time-traveling epistolary novel? Come on…

But I couldn’t buy the central relationship. They went from taunting admiration to a camaraderie across battle lines pretty quickly, and I could’ve bought that (probably). But then it goes into a romance that threatens to mark one or both of them as traitors to their cause, and they risk everything to keep going? That just happened too quickly. If we’d gotten a few more letters before things got super-serious between the two, I could’ve maybe accepted it. But in the end, it was just too deep, too fast—and these elite agents are both ready to throw caution to the wind and risk incurring the wrath of their superiors?

I wanted to like this, I really did. There’s little reason why I shouldn’t—sadly, Gladstone and El-Mohtar found the reasons I shouldn’t.

I’m going to be in the minority here—or so I bet—and for those who can really get into the book, I understand you and envy you that ability. But I just couldn’t go that far.

Fantastic building blocks, but poor use of them, left me with mixed feelings at best—but mostly a strong sense of missed opportunities.

I think most readers will find something—probably several things to relish in this book. I just can’t be positive it’ll be worth it to you (then again, it’s less than 200 pages of nicely moving prose—maybe it’s worth the investment). Also, if you look at the accolades this book has garnered, I could be way off base about this.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Promise?

This is a collection of 21 short stories. The cover calls them “weird Science Fiction” stories—this is true. When Nogle described herself in a Q&A here last year, she described herself as “focusing on horror and horror-adjacent work.” I’d say most of these qualified as Horror-adjacent; there’s just something unnerving about just about every one of these. Now, I grant you that my tolerance/acceptance of Horror is pretty low, so while I might call these Horror-adjacent, real Horror fans might roll their eyes. That’s fine, I get it. But some of these are really unnerving/creepifying.

When trying to come up with a good way to describe this collection, I saw the back of the cover blurb and decided that I couldn’t do better.

A young woman confronts her digital doppelganger at a creepy academy. A mother and daughter struggle underground, finishing robots the rich will use. A loving couple find that their mirrors are very different than mirrors used to be. You can order a headset to speak with your dog, and your devices sometimes connect not just to the web but to the afterlife.

Be prepared for strangeness here. We have several types of aliens, cults devoted to contacting alternate dimensions, virtual-reality writing retreats, time-travel games and timetravel tragedies, augmented consciousness, cosmic artforms and living paintings, haunted Zoom meetings, giant worms, and guesthouses for the dead. These stories reflect the weird and unknowable future. They are often bizarre and dreadful, but they also veer towards themes of hope, potential…and promise.

I Have So Many Questions…

A little over halfway through my notes, I wrote, “I have so many questions about her process.” I can’t tell you exactly what prompted that, but I’m pretty sure the question had been building. And I’d still like to ask a few now that I’ve been prompted.

Sure, there’s the old chestnut of “where do you get your ideas?” I know authors hate that question (and I get it), but…just how does someone come up with these? And beyond the generic planner v. pantser, I really wonder how much of these strange worlds she has worked out before she starts to tell a story in them, and how much she figures out along the way.

But also—what does the first draft look like compared to the final? Does she write everything and then pare it down to just the essentials? How does she choose the starting point for these? I know my reflex would be to start most of these stories about 8 paragraphs of story earlier than she does (and generally to give another few paragraphs at the end). How does she choose the twist/reveal/whatever it is that clues the reader into everything that’s going on?

I guess I’m just looking for a DVD commentary on each of these. Something about Nogle’s construction makes me more curious about her approach than I usually am.

So, what did I think about Promise?

So, two of these stories did nothing for me (2 out of 21 is a great number). Several I’d just qualify as “good,” but a handful wowed me. There are a couple I’m still thinking about all these months later (not steadily, mind you, but every now and then the mind will wander a bit—or I’ll see this cover, and…pow, I’m back in it).

I love Nogle’s prose and approach to storytelling. There’s some variation because no two stories have the same voice—but generally, I can say she gives you just enough to know what’s going on, but you have to use your imagination and think about it to really understand the story. There’s no spoon-feeding here, but nothing so cryptic or ambivalent as to be obscure or oblique.

Was I satisfied with the conclusion of every story? No—but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be. Particularly the couple that really don’t conclude, but just end.

Creepy, mind-bendy, the kind of short story you can vanish into and leave the world behind. These stories will leave you feeling the way that the Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone episodes do. I rather enjoyed almost all of these and think you will, too. (and many of you will really get into the ones that left me cold, and won’t be wigged out by those that got me…we can compare lists later)

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Silver and Lead About?

Queen Arden has a task for her hero–and she’s more than happy to take it on. During the recent…whatever you want to call what Titania did, several items were removed from the royal vaults. Dangerous items, naturally. Now, Arden had wanted to wait until Toby had given birth and recovered before sending her to find them. But at least one of the items has been used, and someone is dead. She can’t put it off any longer.

Toby’s tired, fed up, and annoyed by basically being under house arrest because of her worried husband during the last few months of her pregnancy. Yes, Tybalt’s worries are understandable, but he’s maybe gone a little too far. Toby’s glad for the excuse to get to work, and promises she’ll be extra careful. (Any guesses how that goes and how cooperative the people she’s looking for are going to be?)

Quentin–whose identity seems to be the worst-kept secret in all of Faerie–sticks with her every step of the way. This adventure brings us across many old friends and allies and reminds us of one old enemy.

Oh, I forgot to mention, before any of this happens, everyone’s favorite Sea Witch has a request–both sweet and terrifying–for Toby before any of this business with Arden starts.

All in all, this is not the way most people spend the last couple of weeks of their pregnancy. But of course, Toby wouldn’t do it any other way, and her readers expect no less.

Aftershocks

While we are not looking directly at what Titania did in these pages, we’re looking at the aftermath. We’re also learning a little bit about how her plan didn’t completely work. But I’m going to gloss over that (but you’re going to want to stop and muse about it while reading).

Quentin is trying to wrap his mind around the version of himself he saw and remembers, and cannot stand it. He’s overcompensating—and you can’t blame him for that—when he’s not letting it interfere with his thinking in the present.

Some of the ramifications of Titania’s work are seen in the motivations behind this novel’s primary villain. This doesn’t justify their actions (they’d have likely found another way to justify things), but it gives us an idea of all the unintended consequences of her re-write of Faerie. (unintended, but she probably wouldn’t care).

I really appreciate this–we’re not primarily concerned with her, nor have we just gotten a “it’s been a few months, stuff happened, life goes on” kind of thing. Faerie learned a lot about itself, they found some messes that need to be cleaned up. Yes, life goes on, but it’s different and will continue to be for a while.

So, what did I think about Silver and Lead?

So after a few novels with big, world-changing events at their core, it’s nice to get back to the bread-and-butter kind of novel. Yes, the stakes are important. Yes, there are life-and-death situations all around—and if Toby fails, it will mean bad things. But it won’t be the end of the world.

One of the advantages of a long-running series like this is that you can pluck a (seemingly?) random someone from an early novel, dust them off, and have them play a major role in the current book. Which is great—it also means that every random someone has the potential of being important. McGuire used that well in Silver and Lead.

While I enjoyed Raysel’s use here, I’m a little afraid that she’s being given some short-shrift overall, and the interesting storyline that seemed to have kicked off for her in Be the Serpent will end more with more of a whimper than it should. (Hopefully, this means that McGuire has something really big cooking).

Early on in the reading, I texted a friend, “a very pregnant Toby is fun.” She really is—and just as it was good to get back to a smaller stakes plot, it’s nice to be with the characters again, adapting to/preparing for this new stage of life.

McGuire’s humor and willingness to put her characters through the wringer for the entertainment of her audience shine forth. Toby’s determination (read: near-uncompromising stubbornness), grit, and humanity are on display for all. Tybalt and May are Tybalt and May (always good), and Quentin continues to develop into quite the man. The Luidaeg was fantastically used—particularly at the beginning. It was also good to see the rest of the cast, and I’m looking forward to seeing what life is like for Sir Mommy Daye.

Fans will be pleased with this one, and it might draw in a few new ones. Silver and Lead is just what we needed after the last arc.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Tor Publishing Group via NetGalley—thanks to both for this. Sorry it’s up late, it’s been one of those months.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Algospeak About?

I can’t do a decent job of summarizing this (I’ve tried), so I’m just going to paste the Publisher’s Description.

From “brainrot” memes and incel slang to the trend of adding “-core” to different influencer aesthetics, the internet has ushered in an unprecedented linguistic upheaval. We’re entering an entirely new era of etymology, heralded by the invisible forces driving social media algorithms. Thankfully, Algospeak is here to explain. As a professional linguist, Adam Aleksic understands the gravity of language and the way we use it: he knows the ways it has morphed and changed, how it reflects society, and how, in its everyday usage, we carry centuries of human history on our tongues. As a social media influencer, Aleksic is also intimately familiar with the internet’s reach and how social media impacts the way we engage with one another. New slang emerges and goes viral overnight. Accents are shaped or erased on YouTube. Grammatical rules, loopholes, and patterns surface and transform language as we know it. Our interactions, social norms, and habits—both online and in person—shift into something completely different.

As Aleksic uses original surveys, data, and internet archival research to usher us through this new linguistic landscape, he also illuminates how communication is changing in both familiar and unexpected ways. From our use of emojis to sentence structure to the ways younger generations talk about sex and death (see unalive in English and desvivirse in Spanish), we are in a brand-new world, one shaped by algorithms and technology. Algospeak is an energetic, astonishing journey into language, the internet, and what this intersection means for all of us.

The Best Parts for Me

After the Introduction sets up the book and the reason for it—Aleksic traces the use of language to get around censorship back quite a ways—at least back to the use of grawlix and the like.

He also talks about things like rhyming cockney or leetspeak, how both use a sense of play to get around censorship or monitoring—as such, they’re precursors to Algospeak. Which is really just another form of slang that spreads just like all other forms of slang before it—through people talking to one another in person or through the media. That just happens on a faster and larger scale now than it used to.

What I found really compelling was the way he demonstrated the two primary sources for dominant Algospeak—4chan’s (and the like) channels and memes, and African-American English. It almost seems impossible for those two sources could produce something together, but Aleksic makes a compelling case for it.

The last chapter in total is worth the price of admission—but subsections discussing the “purity” of language that’s being shaken by these developments, and the new kinds of dialects emerging, etc., are just gold. It’s the kind of thing that I’ll return to again.

Not Sure this Really Helped

Starting in Chapter 3, “No Because What Happened to Your Attention?”, Aleksic spends a good deal of time in several chapters discussing the nitty-gritty aspects of getting TikTok’s/YouTube Shorts’/Instagram Reels’ algorithms to feed individual users certain types of short-form videos, and how creators work to get their videos to be fed to the largest amount of likely engagers. He discusses how word choice, speed of speech, how long it takes for a voice to start, camera movements, etc., etc. all play a role in this.

Yes, he does end up applying this to “How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language,” in each chapter. But it often seemed more like he was giving tips on how his readers could be better at getting attention for their own short-form videos/accounts (often using himself as a case study) than in discussing linguistic evolution. I was wrong each time I started to wonder about that. Nevertheless, I did.

That said…I found it great reading and more interesting than I might have just described it. There’s just so much of this that I’ve never thought about—or even realized I could think about. For someone who cut his teeth on Windows 3.11, 28.8k modems, and Usenet forums, I find a lot of this mind-boggling (and kind of cool, even if it does make me feel positively paleolithic).

So, what did I think about Algospeak?

A couple of years ago, my daughter got me hooked on the Instagram account of @etymologynerd, and his rapid-fire insightful (and fun) glances at word origins so on. So when I saw that he’d gone analog and produced a book, I just had to check it out (the book’s description helped, too). And I’m so glad I picked this up—and think you will be, too.

It’s because of this book that I publicly defended the use of “unalive” as a verb the other day. I can honestly say that I’d never expected that to happen. That right there is probably a huge endorsement for the book, I’m not sure what else I can say to match that for this stodgy stick-in-the-mud who still isn’t sure about using “contact” as a verb.

I found this whole discussion fascinating—sure, the bits about various speeds of talking depending on the type of influencer you are seem odd and too technical for me—but when Aleksic shows how this spills over into not just wider online speech, but into offline language use, it becomes worth it.

More than that, the chapters that are primarily focused on language development and how online use is shaping that (whether in text or video format), it’s like popcorn—I’ll shove handful after handful of that into my mouth without noticing that’s what I’m doing.

It’s entertainingly written, too. Aleksic’s passion for this kind of discussion comes through loud and clear. It’s not nearly as infectious as his videos are, but it’s close (of course, he can’t tweak the pace, volume, or anything else about the way that I read the way he can with his videos—so it makes sense). I do wonder how this would come across in audiobook—but I think you’re going to want the print version to slow down over some of the math.

This is about more than language—it’s also about how the Internet changes the way we think and express ourselves in general. And therefore, how society changes (which leads to Internet changes, and other circle-of-life things).

If you’re on the fence—read the Introduction and the closing chapter—and you’ll likely be convinced that you should read everything in between. Language in general—but English particularly—is a constantly-changing thing, and these changes are happening faster and faster l the time. With the tools provided in Algospeak, you can start to see some of this change in realtime—and that’s a gift in itself.

Language nerds—go get this. Other readers might want to check it out—and get started on becoming a language nerd.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Knopf via NetGalley—thanks to both for this. Sorry it’s up late.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue About?

Mrs. Plansky and Kev Dinardo (who I think we met briefly toward the end of her first book), win an exciting mixed doubles tournament between a couple of retirement communities. Flush with victory and excitement, they head back to his home to celebrate on his yacht. Their mood is sobered considerably when his yacht explodes in front of them. Kev tells the fire department that it was lightning that hit the boat.

The next day, Mrs. Plansky returns to check on Kev and is told he’s not available. The person who tells her this seems…off. But she accepts him for who he claims to be. Mostly. But when she can’t find Kev and it looks like his home has been ransacked.

When she factors in the fact that she didn’t see any lightning and that Kev seems to have been involved—at least a little bit—with her son and his probably criminal associates…all sorts of bells go off in Mrs. Plansky’s head and she starts to do a little sleuthing.

Things get interesting—and perhaps a little dangerous—after that.

Also, I should mention that the alligator on the cover is not just there for decoration.

Your Results May Vary, But…I Just Had No Patience

When I started writing this post, I was afraid I was going to have to walk back something I said last year when I wrote about Mrs. Plansky Gets Revenge. So I went back and read that post. Turns out, I agree with myself. Last year, I wrote:

I loved most of the characters (even the bad guys). And even…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.

It turns out that I have an even dimmer view of her father as a character this time (as a person, I’m just as impressed). I didn’t find him, his antics, or his behavior amusing at all. I found scenes that he was in tiresome at best—and I don’t think Mrs. Plansky came across half as well in them as she does in the rest of the book.

I hope that I’m alone in this and that the rest of Quinn’s readers don’t get what I’m saying. I just don’t see it, and hope that the events of this book take him off the board for most of the next book.

Mrs. Plansky’s Chettification

I write frequently about Quinn’s other ongoing series, the Chet and Bernie mysteries. And Chet is one of my favorite characters in detective fiction—and one of my favorite dogs in fiction. That said, we don’t need another Chet. And there are times in this book that I think Mrs. Plansky got too close to it.

She’s under stress, she’s dealing with injury and confusion (and possibly a concussion at one point). But there are times when the omniscient narrator gives us a look into her thought processes and she comes across as distractible and erratic as our beloved canine hero. That carries over at least once to a conversation she has with a human.

I’m not saying it’s not realistic, nor am I suggesting that it’s wrong to think that a woman in her seventies might not be as wholly lucid as she was a decade or two ago—or as lucid as she wants to be. It’s just…when she reminds you of a non-human character…it’s not good. Particularly when the book usually shows her as strong and capable—determinedly working through a world that’s ready to ismiss her because of her age.

Quinn’s capable of better.

So, what did I think about Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue?

This was not my favorite book by Quinn (nor was it my least favorite), and I wasn’t as enchanted by Mrs. Plansky this time. But let’s not for a moment think that means I didn’t have a lot of fun with this book. Also, I’m more than ready to see what Quinn has in store for her. (There’s no way that he leaves this here; at the very least, Kev needs to get some stability in his life)

I do like the…I don’t want to say growth, that feels out of place—the development of Mrs. Plansky’s character. She’s gained some good confidence in herself after her Romanian adventures. This doesn’t mean she’s impervious to self-doubt or braver than she should be. But she knows—and can prove—that she’s capable of more than what most people think she is. She can see this through—although she knows she needs help.

There were some good twists—some surprises that I don’t know that I fully enjoyed, and a couple that I did. And I did enjoy this read—and most people who met Mrs. Plansky in the first book will, too. And I’m very glad to see that she isn’t the victim of anything—this time she’s just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time who decided to do something about it.

I do recommend this to the growing audience for senior citizen amateur sleuths out there (more than I would most others in the subgenre), it’s fun, and Mrs. Plansky is a great character that you cannot help but root for—in her investigation and on the tennis court.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Tor Publishing Group via NetGalley—thanks to both for this.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s The Blue Horse About?

For Porter Beck and the Lincoln Sheriff’s Department, change—and a pandemic—are in the air. But we’ll talk about that later. The main thing that they all have to focus on is a controversial wild horse roundup.

It’s a Federal mandate that it occurs, and there are plenty of good wildlife management and other environmental arguments in favor of it. There are also plenty of traditional, environmental, or animal rights arguments against it. Naturally, the event faces protests both large and small—even in the middle of a pandemic. So Beck and his team are providing some security.

Because of that security, Beck and Tuffy are around to witness a helicopter involved in the roundup crash. Thanks to them, it’s not written off as human error or some other accident—they know it was murder (a difficult one to perpetrate, mind you).

The easy answer seems to be that it’s someone associated with the protests, but Beck’s not satisfied with that. And despite what the FBI wants to focus on, he starts assembling evidence to buttress his hunch. Then another, grisly murder happens. And all signs point to something worse on the horizon. The Feds want a quick resolution, Beck wants the truth.

Brinley and Rafa

So, while all this is going on, Beck can’t rely on his sister to pitch in. As a follow-up to the volunteering she did in Shades of Mercy with the “at risk” youth of the area, she’s off with a handful of these teens on a wilderness retreat. Rafa, in particular, is one she can identify with and really wants to help. He, on the other hand, wants no one’s help. He’s learned that he can only rely on himself and what his own strength, temper, and brutality can provide for him.

One night, after Brinley had already started to think he’d run off, he does just that. Annoyed at herself for letting her guard down enough to let that happen, and assured of her superior ability to track compared to the other adults in the group, she takes off on her own to track him down. As it’s Brinley that we’re talking about, she’d normally be right—but with COVID symptoms kicking in, are her stamina and clarity of mind up to the task? And what will she do if/when she finds him?

Sometimes, it can be a critique for a reader to note that a subplot like this one is frequently more interesting and engaging than the primary story. Early on, I was mildly irritated every time we cut from this back to the murder investigation. I really enjoy Brinley and Rafa is both a good character by himself, as a foil for Brinley? He’s perfect. Together, it’s a great combination.

I eventually came around on the murder investigation—it was more of a slow-burn for me, but by the end, I was equally invested in both storylines.

COVID-19

I thought it was gutsy for Borgos to tackle COVID and the reaction to both the virus and the social reactions to it. Especially in places like Beck’s part of Nevada, you’re not going to get a lot of people reacting to either of them the same way as you would in L.A. or NYC. (I think this is going to be the case for readers drawn to the series, too)

Borgos dealt with it as well as you could hope—Beck didn’t seem to take a firm stand on things like masking or hand-shaking himself—he basically matched the environment he was in (somewhat begrudglingly at times). And his deputies clearly saw it as overblown—particularly one deputy who showed clear signs of it. The clinic is full, and the disease shows up in several ways—some that hit too close to home for Beck, too.

At the same time—the impact of the virus itself was clearly shown. Whether it was a temporary, minor obstacle or a life-altering disease (or points in between) for the characters—COVID made its presence felt. Beck doesn’t have an overabundance of deputies for his large county on the best day. You force them to deal with murder cases like this—plus the security they need to provide for the roundup—with deputies out sick? That’s going to have a major impact on their ability to do any of their jobs effectively.

More than a gutsy move by Borgos for the social observation, it’s a smart move for narrative tension.

All the Personal Stuff

I was relieved to see Charlie Blue Horse back again—not only was she a good addition to the cast in Shades of Mercy, but I really didn’t like the idea of Beck having a new romantic interest/dalliance in every book. I’d have been perfectly content to have a few books without one, too—but a returning romantic interest is a good way to go, too.

I did think that Beck was a bit too clueless in the beginning—you can tell how he got to his age still single—but that’s a tangent.

There’s a lot more going on for Beck outside the case—his father’s health continues to deteriorate, there are big changes looming for the Sheriff’s office as we learn early on. Basically, these murders come along at a juncture for our Sheriff and serve as a welcome distraction as much as they could interfere and possibly derail his plans.

Deputy Frank Columbo

Bo may have been a two-time washout from the K-9 academy, but he’s a good, loyal companion for Beck—and he shows signs of being a good seeing-eye dog in the future. Who doesn’t want a good dog along for a story like this?

But honestly, he just seemed to be a nice little flavoring—something to add to the Western/Sheriff setting. Like Spener’s Pearls, Joe Pickett’s dogs, Max Boucher’s Russ, Ballard’s Lola, and didn’t Quinn Colson have one? They’re there, they’re fun to see, but they’re not a major player in the story.

But by the end The Blue Horse, he’s that and more. He’s not quite as remarkable as Longmire’s Dog, or Sharp’s Winnie, (definitely not in Chet Little’s league). But he’s on the way—this will come as no shock to anyone who’s read me, I loved Bo’s moments of glory (even if they weren’t appreciated at the time). I don’t need this series to become the Beck and Bo show, but I hope he gets more chances to shine.

Then again, would the Beck and Bo show be a bad thing?

So, what did I think about The Blue Horse?

We’re only on book three of this series, but we’ve got a strong recurring cast already (with promises of more). There’s the FBI Agent that Beck didn’t really get along with last time (and he continues to not really get along with now), there’s our friendly hacker doing the things Beck and Charlie can’t—but legally (probably), all the great characters in the Lincoln County Sheriff’s office, and even X Files. Yes, he’s back again—and I loved the way he get’s involved with this one. There’s more to this guy than paranoia and delusion. The characters—suspects, witnesses, standers-by, and more—are up to the same standards, and you’ll end up hoping that those who live and aren’t serving time come back sometime soon.

Three books in, one thing that Borgos has clearly shown us all is that he can people his novels with compelling characters. What about the story? I don’t know that anything will (or can) live up to The Bitter Past, but this is as good as you can ask for next to that. The storyline involving the murders is really well-paced and plotted—the herrings are the perfect shade of red—and Beck’s atypical approach to policing really helps here. Aside from my own impatience early on, there’s nothing to complain about here.

Mild-spoliery thoughts—feel free to skip this paragraph. I do wonder a little about Chapter Two—it takes away some of the mystery, you’ll know that the murders likely tie into it at some point, and you might not bite on some of the bait Borgos wants to tempt you with because of it (at least not as hard as you might otherwise). But it also makes a twist or two seem like they don’t come out of nowhere. I can argue both sides of it convincingly to myself. The more I think of it, I think Borgos made the smart move. But I instinctively disagree and think he should’ve skipped it. I’d love to hear what others think.

Maybe other readers feel this way when they read about the Mexicantown in August Snow’s Detroit, or about Ballard/Bosch’s LA, the racial tensions in the LAPD that Trevor Finnegan navigates, the gang-culture in Eve Ronin’s LACSD, or the changes in the Edinburgh police that Rebus has witnessed (and felt)—but the society/politics that Borgos shows hit close to home. The former are interesting to read about, but Borgos hits close to home (C.J. Box does, too). Lincoln County, NV could easily be 20-30 minutes south of my house, rather than the 8+ hours it really is. Borgos reflects the attitudes of the area so well—it feels easy at a distance to take issue with the gangs Ronin faces, but there’s a way for locals to understand both sides of something like the roundup that I just can’t with the others. I know and trust people on every side of that issue, and sympathize with them. For every hint that Borgos gives you about his (or Beck’s) opinion—he provides one that might disprove it. I fully expect readers from Scotland or New York to roll their eyes at one group or another that Borgos shows us. But I can’t—they’re my neighbors, are married to my coworkers, and share a pew with me on Sundays. I love how well Borgos does that. A good Crime Novel talks about society without getting on a soapbox, and Borgos excels at it.

Setting that aside, let’s focus on the experience of reading The Blue HorseYour heart will be in your throat in at least two occasions, you will be horrified at man’s inhumanity at least once (it’s comparable to the opening of The Bitter Past), you’ll feel sadness, relief, and even joy throughout. I wasn’t looking for another Western-set mystery series to become addicted to, but Bruce Borgos has made me a die-hard anyway. Jump on the bandwagon!! We’ll make room.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley—thanks to both for this.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Dogged Pursuit About?

Andy Carpenter has recently left the Prosecutor’s Office to become a defense lawyer. He’s rented an office, helped one client, and…well, that’s it. His wife is leaning on him to take a job as a corporate lawyer (and her father can get him such a position), but his heart isn’t in it.

He has decided it’s past time for him to get a dog after years of wanting one—so he goes to a shelter, falls head over heels with one, and adopts her. The shelter tells him that his new dog (Carpenter fans know Tara very well at his point) has bonded with the dog she shared a run with. So he offers to adopt her, too. That can’t happen because her owner is in jail awaiting trial. They assure him that if he can get a release from the owner, he can take the dog.

Carpenter fans know at this point that this will be Andy’s first client. People new to the series will probably know this, too. Rosenfelt isn’t playing his cards close to his chest here.

And, hey, what do you know? That’s exactly what happens. The trick is that Andy’s new client is charged with multiple murders—that of his old friend and boss who fired him two weeks previously, and the two people he was giving a ride home to (so they wouldn’t drive after drinking at a corporate party).

The circumstantial case is pretty strong—almost too strong. No one that Andy talks to at his client’s old company could believe he’d be capable of such a thing. And he really seems to care about his dog. Which is enough for Andy to dive in.

He just needs evidence on his side, an investigator to do some work for him, and a clue about how to defend this particular client. But that’ll come, right?

The Prequel-ness

I was surprised when I saw this was a prequel. I don’t know that I ever stopped and wondered, “How did Andy get started in the business?” Particularly as early in his career that book one, Open and Shut, isn’t that far into his career and really serves just as well as an origin story.

That said…this is a really good novel, a solid prequel, and a treat for fans of the series. Let’s take a quick glance at some of the series regulars we meet here:

• Tara. You don't have an Andy Carpenter book without his best friend. Their meeting goes beyond a meet-cute, and watching their relationship blossom is great. Honestly, the rest of this list isn't necessary, as long as Rosenfelt nailed this one, and it's no surprise that he did.
• Sam. Sam gets a little more "screen time" here than he typically does. This is a-ok with me, Sam's great. We get some seeds planted for a lot of what we see from this accountant/hacker in the future. What we don't get—and this is the biggest problem with this book—is the song talking. I get that he and Andy have grown out of it by later books (as odd as it is to think of Andy maturing). I miss it, but I can cope (as well as grumble about it). But they're not there yet. Something that so characterizes their relationship in the first few books should be here now.
• Laurie. Andy meets and hires Laurie here, a wonderful decision on his part. It's totally platonic, Rosenfelt shows us that Andy is a stand-up guy on that front (as he continues to be). Given where their relationship ends up, I have to give Rosenfelt a lot of credit for keeping it professional. Laurie struggles some (as I think she continues to do for quite a bit) with working for the defense—not as much as say, Harry Bosch does (although she wasn't working for the PD as long as Bosch did). And that's good to see, but her adaptability and smarts are on full display.
• Pete. Pete and Andy aren't as friendly as they will one day be. It's actually nice to see them approach bonding, and the beginning of Andy picking up Pete's tab.
• Nelson Carpenter. We don't get to see a lot of Andy's father before his death, so it was really nice to see the healthy relationship here. It's hard not to like this guy, and you can see why he was such a legend in the legal community in the area.
• Edna. Andy hasn't hired—much less met—Edna at this point, but she's mentioned to him a few times as someone he should hire. Reading what Andy is told about her, and what we know about her, is one of the best chuckle-generators of this novel.
• Nicole. This has to be the trickiest one in the book—the relationship is doomed, we all know this. But neither Andy nor Nicole is ready for it to end. Rosenfelt has to show the crumbling, without showing the last straws—as those straws are still to come. And man...I liked Nicole. I enjoyed seeing her bond with Tara. I liked seeing her interact with Andy; she seems like a pretty good match for him.

Marcus

In a couple of the more recent books, I’ve wondered if Marcus is losing a bit of what made him such a fun character for the readers because we’ve learned more about him. Is the mystique gone? Is he on the verge of becoming just another member of Andy’s circle?

That question gets set on the back burner for a while—phew—because in this prequel, Marcus is all mystique. Nothing but mystique and mystery.

So, what did I think about Dogged Pursuit?

Okay, let’s set aside all the fun of the prequel stuff. How’s the mystery, the case, the resolution?

Those are just what you want. Andy’s not the cocky, flashy trial lawyer he will become. But you can see it on the horizon. He’s nervous—in and out of the courtroom. He’s not prepared to meet with some of the truly nasty characters he needs to—or the threat they can represent.

There are plenty of twists and a revelation or two at the end that are just satisfying.

There’s not a huge conspiracy with international implications afoot. There’s some criminal activity around the murders that Andy runs across—but it’s not at the heart of the book.

There are some truly good lines (particularly involving Andy’s cowardice and lack of ability to defend himself—always a good place for Rosenfelt to return to). The momentum carries you right along, right up to the surprises at the end.

Throw in Andy and Tara’s relationship? You’ve got a solid book.

I strongly recommend this book to people who’ve read Andy Carpenter in the past (even if you’ve taken a break for whatever reason). If people have seen my glowing posts in the back and haven’t wanted to dive into a series of 30 mid-stream, this is a great place to jump on board. If people have never seen a thing I’ve written about this series before—this is a great place to jump on board, too. Really, there’s no one that I wouldn’t recommend this book to. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I think you will, too.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley—thanks to both for this. I apologize for the tardiness.

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s The Medusa Protocol About?

I’d written about half of this section, and wasn’t quite satisfied with it, and took a quick glance at the Publisher’s Description and realized that 1. I was echoing it in an unnerving way, and 2. It was better than i could deliver. So, I’ll borrow it and save myself from plagiarism accusations:

When Astrid, known in her assassin days as Azrael, stopped showing up to Assassins Anonymous, the group assumed her past had caught up with her. Only her sponsor Mark, formerly the deadliest killer in the world, holds out hope that she’s okay. Then, during a meeting, the group gets a sign, or rather, a pizza delivery. Is there another psychopath out there who actually likes olives on their pizza, or is Astrid trying to send Mark a message?

Meanwhile, Astrid wakes up in the cell of a black site prison, on a remote island. A doctor subjects her to mysterious experiments, plumbing the depths of her memory and looking for a vital clue from her past. She’ll do anything to escape, except…killing anyone. Hmm. Turns out it’s not easy to blow this joint without blowing anything, or anyone up.

Looking for Astrid

The group at the meeting splits into two groups—some head for safety, just in case someone’s coming for someone in addition to Astrid. Mark and Booker take the sign of the disgusting pizza as a signal to go looking for Astrid.

This is where you get your thirst for adventure slaked. They take a globe-trekking route while hunting for clues, pick up an ally or two along the way, go up against some pretty lethal guys—and really lethal snakes.

They do this with aplomb, nerve, and some really bad jokes.

Astrid’s Story

Meanwhile, Astrid faces two challenges—figuring out where she is, why she’s there, and how to make the best of the situation until she can find a weakness to exploit and get out of there. None of that will be easy.

But also, whatever this doctor is doing to her causes her to relive some of the bigger moments in her life—things she’s never really put behind her, but she has to look at them anew, and maybe a bit more intensely than she usually does.

The stakes are high (higher than she realizes), and without support, she has to rely on what she’s picked up from the meetings and her own grit to make it through each day.

Sobriety

While Assassins Anonymous showed the meetings, Mark hitting rock bottom, and choices to pursue this group’s particular expression of sobriety, The Medusa Protocol focuses on taking responsibility for your actions, making amends, and maintaining one’s sobriety. While none of the 12 Steps seem particularly easy, these things seem like harder work to me—and it’s good to see that reflected honestly.

(There’s some other things along these lines, but we can talk about that after you’ve read this book.)

The decision to stay sober—especially in the circumstances these characters find themselves, fighting for their lives against people who don’t have any problem taking a life, when a lifetime of reflexes tells them to do something else—takes a monumental effort. It takes monumental effort for more “traditional” 12-Step program attendees, too. But this makes for more exciting reading—it should, however, remind the reader what their friends/acquaintances go through on a daily basis.

I really admire Hart for this focus in these books, and hope these keep coming if only for it.

So, what did I think about The Medusa Protocol?

There’s part of me that wants to copy and paste most of what I said about Assassins Anonymous last year here. There’s also part of me that wishes I’d re-read or listened to it before this—not because I need the refresher, I just had fun with it. Yet…I think this is a better novel. It’s not quite as fun—Astrid’s POV is too prevalent for that and her sense of humor isn’t what Mark’s is (this is a good thing)—but the story is more emotionally developed, Astrid’s trauma is deeper-seated, and that comes through in the flashbacks (obviously).

Also, the Big Bad of the first book is a pretty standard kind of bad guy for the genre. The person responsible for Astrid’s plight, on the other hand, is just evil. Like a gut-twisting, I don’t want to think there are people like this in the world, kind of evil—sadly, it’s probably the most realistic part of this book.

I’m afraid I might give the impression that this book is so heavy on the trauma, the emotions, the recovery struggles, and so on that it’s not a Thriller. Sorry if I did. This is a rollicking, rocking Thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat with the kind of action you expect in a Thriller about a group of former (and current) assassins. If you liked the action, the humor, the pacing, and all the thriller aspects of the last book, don’t fear—it’s still there. It’s just the percentages of the book devoted to each are a little different. Mark is still a prominent character, and you can’t get away from his sarcasm, his humor, and his efficiency in a fight scene. That goes for the other people in the program, too. And when Astrid gets to do her thing, either in the present or in flashback—I’m telling you, it’s good stuff.

I had a blast with this, enjoying the opportunity to reconnect with characters like Mark, Astrid, Valencia, Booker, and so on. The one new face (at least) that will recur? Oh, I’m looking forward to getting to know them a lot more. The new characters we meet that we definitely won’t be seeing again? They’re as good as you want them to be.

Oh, and the titular Medusa Protocol itself? That was really cool.

There’s no reason not to pick this up if you’re in the mood for a thriller that embraces and yet puts a twist on the conventions. Would it help to have read Assassins Anonymous first? Yeah, but you’ll get in the groove pretty quickly if you haven’t.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Putnam Books via NetGalley—thanks to both for this. Sorry that it’s up late.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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“You know this is how you’re going to get yourself killed, right? Something stupid like this?”

“I hope not.”

“I’m serious. It’s when you least suspect it, Walt.”

What’s Return to Sender About?

For the previous twenty books, we’ve learned a lot about Martha, Walt’s late wife. We learn a little more about her here—she had a cousin who is now the Postal Inspector for Wyoming. Sure, this doesn’t give us a lot of insight into her as a person—but it does allow this cousin, Mike Thurmin, to call upon Walt for a favor.

A few months ago, a postal worker who carries mail on the longest route in the U.S., 307 miles, disappeared from the face of the Earth. Law enforcement has written it off as an adult willingly leaving her home, her boyfriend has sold off pretty much everything she left behind, but her supervisor/friend isn’t satisfied. And that lack of satisfaction worked its way up to Thurman—who roped Walt into looking for her.

It’s possible, if not likely, that Blair McGowan’s boyfriend is behind her disappearance (he’s certainly unpleasant enough that you can see why many people would speculate about it); she’s an activist, and it’s possible she’s irked someone powerful; there’s a lot that can happen in 307 miles; or the aliens she claimed that abducted her a few years ago came back and picked her up again. Walt’s pretty sure it’s something else, but he has to look into things.

This book pretty much has three acts—let’s take a quick look at them.

The Search for Blair McGowan

In this part, we get the lay of the land and meet the essential characters. Walt tries to go undercover as a postal carrier brought in to cover for Blair temporarily (at least). While doing so, he makes some attempts to investigate—many of which lead people to believe he’s not a postal carrier.

Still, Walt and Dog have some interesting encounters with people in and around the Red Desert of Wyoming. There’s a little bit of consultation with Vic over the phone, and she (and a few others) repeatedly remind Walt to get to Cheyenne for a reception that is important to Cady.

The Women in Walt’s Life

Vic, Cady, Ruby, and Lola feature prominently in the second act (although we don’t get to really see Lola)—with a quick chat or two with Lucian and Henry. It’s all about the change in Wyoming government—a new governor and a prospective promotion for the greatest legal mind of our time.

That promotion to A.G. is complicated by her father’s position in the state—both as a sheriff of one county and his prominence in the law enforcement community.

It breaks up the search for McGowan, it moves some storylines forward, but it largely feels out of place in this book. Still, it was good to see these things move forward a little (and we can assume it will continue to do so).

The Next Search for Blair McGowan

That dealt with, the search for Blair picks back up in earnest. There’ve been a few developments while Walt was in Cheyenne, but Walt has reason to question them—and a greater determination to get to teh bottom of things.

This Act takes up the majority of the book, and we learn a lot more about almost everyone we were introduced to in the first Act. There’s a lot of action, some fun new characters are introduced, and Walt is pushed to the limits physically and maybe mentally.

We really have to go back a few books for me to enjoy things as much as I enjoyed this portion of the book, really. I’m thinking Daughter of the Morning Star or Next to Last Stand. The first two parts felt more like Johnson was getting warmed up, and then things really kicked into gear when Walt came back.

Dog

Dog rarely gets to shine in this series—he’s largely just a presence to receive a pat or two, to scarf down some food, and maybe to intimidate someone. But when he does get the spotlight—as he does a few times in Return to Sender—it’s a lot of fun. He’s almost too good to be true, but honestly—who cares? Johnson keeps it pretty grounded (much more so than the ghost of Virgil that might pop up here and there).

For a lot of this book, it’s Walt and Dog against the world—and there are few dogs that can carry that weight.

Oh, yeah, that…

There’s some movement on the part from First Frost about the disappearance of Ruth One Heart. But that’s pretty much all I can cover.

So, what did I think about Return to Sender?

I watched my family members enjoying themselves and then asked. “Lucian, how did you know it was time to hang up your star?”

“You came along.”

“No, seriously.”

“l am being serious.” He stopped and turned to look at me. “When I saw the county would be in good hands, I stepped down and never bad a second thought.”

“I don’t think I have that luxury. Saizarbitoria isn’t ready, and the voters won’t elect Vic.”

He smiled. “Maybe if you gag her.”

Walt’s retirement has been discussed a lot recently, and it seems like it’ll come up more (up until he actually puts in his papers).

Now, I was fully entertained—but also frustrated by Johnson—in the first two Acts. But I have few quibbles or frustrations with the rest. I do wonder about Walt’s ability to do everything physically that he did—but what’s the point of being able to suspend disbelief if you don’t do it occasionally? And there’s much to be said for the combination of adrenaline, necessity, and stubbornness.

Walt vs. nature; Walt vs. big odds; Walt’s determination to do the right thing even when he’s on his own. These are all hallmarks of the best of this series. We got them all, with some great character moments for friends old and new.

What’s not to like? This would work as a jumping-on point for the series (Johnson says every book should work like that, but I beg to differ). For fans? It’s a must read.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s I See You’ve Called in Dead About?

One night after a disastrous blind date (oh, and the word disastrous seems inadequate), obituary writer Bud Stanley gets drunk and accidentally publishes his own obituary. This earns him a suspension (once you get to the part where it’s revealed why he can’t be fired, you’ll roll).

During this suspension, he’s inspired to attend the funerals of strangers. He drags his close friend with him to these, and the two of them gain some new perspectives, new insights, etc.

I should add—before the drunken mistake, during the date itself, is when I decided I liked Bud and couldn’t wait to spend seven hours and change with him.

It’s, of course, after he published the greatly exaggerated reports of his own death that Bud finally has the opportunity to learn how to live. Will he take advantage of it?

Is He Maybe Too Perfect?

I’m not talking about Bud here. No one is going to spend more than a half a paragraph before they start finding flaws with him (love the guy…but man, is he a work in progress). But his landlord/friend, Tim, just might be too perfect.

He’s kind. He’s generous. He’s wise. He’s…well, really, you’re going to have to look long and hard for a problem with the character. And that, of course, is hard to swallow for a primary character in a work of fiction. As in life, so in fiction, pobody’s nerfect.

But…and here’s the thing that applies to a lot of Mary/Marty Sues (and I don’t think Tim is one, but he might be their first cousin)—he’s so fun that you get over it. He works as Bud’s Jiminy Cricket as well as the guy he can joke around with. It’s likely that Bud just doesn’t give us a lot of Tim’s flaws in his narration, because he doesn’t see them.

Friendship

Which leads us to one thing (there are others, but this dominates the novel) that Bud seems to be pretty good at, friendship. Sure, frequently being a selfish jackwagon, he’s not great at being a friend—but the bonds he’s made are strong enough that they can take it.

There’s Tim, Bud’s office-mate (a strange friendship, but one that’s deeper than one might think), the friendship between Bud and his editor/boss, and then a sweet friendship with a lonely and eccentric little boy* who lives nearby. Bud may not have figured out how to successfully adult, but he’s assembled a great group of friends to help him navigate through it.

I’ve read/listened to a lot of people (in fiction/non-fiction) talk about how close male friendship has really taken a hit in the current culture—it’s not emphasized, it’s not modeled, and almost never discussed after a certain age. Take or leave that argument, it’s rare enough to see a decent portrayal. Bud has four of them—of various strengths and circumstances. But all are wonderful to watch.

* That kid (his name escapes me, and that bothers me) deserves a book of his own. I need someone like Wesley King, Victoria Willimason, or R.J. Palacio to buy the rights.

What did I think about the narration?

Well, there were a couple of location names that I wondered if Hopkins was pronouncing correctly (he probably was). But beyond that, he nailed the work. He got the humor, he got the heart, he got the…strange mental place that Bud spent most of the book in.

I don’t believe I’ve heard him in action before, but I’d like to.

So, what did I think about I See You’ve Called in Dead?

I assumed this would be a fun read from the premise. I wasn’t prepared for something that would make me care so much.

I did think the humor around the millennial HR employee felt overplayed, and that Kenney should’ve dropped it (or skipped it entirely). There might have been one or two other jokes that he could’ve skipped—but on the whole? Some of the best comedy I’ve encountered this year—and some of the dumbest, too. Bud, Tim, and Tuan (his office-mate) don’t seem to think there’s a joke to dumb to make. I don’t disagree, but I figure I should warn you. They also aren’t afraid of being awfully clever in their jokes as well.

There’s an extended bit in a Greek funeral that Tim and Bud attend, for example, that will make you roll your eyes—and then you’ll end up really loving as it continues.

I haven’t talked about the strange friendship/romance at all between Bud and the woman who starts him attending the funerals of strangers. It’s the kind of quirky thing that filmmakers used to give Zach Braff, Michael Cera, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the like. But it rarely feels forced, and she’s definitely not manic. I don’t think her storyline is nearly as well-done as the others, but it’s satisfying enough that I’m not going to complain.

And of course—we need to talk about death and life. Bud and his circle spend a lot of time witnessing death and grief—and how it looks for various people. And from that, they all take different lessons about death and what can—and should—come before. Sometimes it feels a little heavy-handed, or rather, it feels like it’s going to be—you can feel the “special episode” atmosphere building. But it typically is delivered subtly and almost seamlessly. Kenney does it the right way.

This is a funny, wise, and heartfelt book—affirming, challenging, and downright entertaining. What’s not to like?

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s the Deal with The Great Gatsby: Alphabetised Centennial Edition?

i could (should?) save myself a bunch of time and just point you to The Publisher’s Explanation of the book and its background. Seriously, skip most of what I write here and just read it.

But because I feel compelled to say something about this unique offering, I’m going to plow on.

Inspired by Concrete Poetry (which is something I don’t think I’d heard of until I read the above from Fahrenheit Press) and the centennial of The Great Gatsby, Chris McVeigh has taken the classic, and as you should assume from the subtitle, alphabetized it.

As McVeigh writes in the introduction:

…this alphabetised edition of The Great Gatsby is not a puzzle to be solved, or a parody to provoke. It is rather, a re-seeing of language in the raw – a confrontation with the building blocks of a story we think we know.

Removed from their narrative scaffolding, Gatsby’s words fall into new patterns, unexpected rhythms, and visual clusters. “Daisy” “dream” and “death” no longer emerge from plot, but jostle for position in a flattened, democratic field. The result is a text not about the American Dream, but made of it—its’ language laid bare, its’ seductions and emptiness exposed with surgical neutrality.

What would T.G. Eckleberg have to say?

Who knows, but those giant eyes of his would probably enjoy taking this in.

You really don’t even have to read the words, you can just open any page and take in the visual impact, the shapes that emerge from just bare words—limited punctuation (mostly apostrophes), no paragraphs, just a word-space-word-space-word sequence for 197 pages.

It’s striking, mesmerizing, and can even evoke an emotional response somehow.

So, what did I think about The Great Gatsby: Alphabetised Centennial Edition?

I honestly don’t know. But I can say I’ve thought about it a lot since getting it.

McVeigh asks:

Is story found only in sequence? Can meaning survive fragmentation? Might new meanings emerge—accidental, ambient, and poetic—from the ruins of arrangement?

At this moment, my answers are: Yes. Possibly? (pronounced with a heavy question mark) Yes, just don’t ask me what any of them are.

I’ve picked this up and read through a few pages several times in the week or so since I got this, and each time I start to think I’m getting something. Like Dirk Gentley said, I felt like I could “grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.” But I’ve fallen short each time, but I’m going to keep trying.

But this is not a book for everyone, I should stress. For example, I showed this to my wife, who I thought might appreciate the idea. She looked through it and gave me one of those looks and asked, “You spent money on this?”

Yes, I did. Happily so—and am still glad I did. Not just for the novelty (which probably drove the purchase, to be frank), but because it’s giving me the opportunity to ask those questions I started this section with. This might not be much of a review, but I think it’s the heartiest endorsement I could give of the project.

I spent money on this, you should consider doing the same.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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Caveat Lector

I’ve yet to write a word of this post, but I’m going to tell you now that I’m going to end up spoiling some things from the first book—there’s just no way to talk about this book without it. I will try to keep them vague if I can’t avoid them, but they will be there.

But also, why are you reading this post if you haven’t read the first book? Read The Price of Power and I predict you’ll move on to the rest reflexively (as many of “the rest” are out when you finish, that is).

Still, be careful what you read from here.

What’s A Graveyard for Heroes About?

The first book was very focused—well, as much as you can be with 4 characters/storylines. You saw the impending (or not so impending) collapse of the nation/confederation in the background (to one degree or another) of three of the storylines, but the reader’s focus was rarely on that—it was these people getting to know them and their immediate circle. Through them you started to understand the world, its cultures, its history.

In the closing chapters of the book, the first visible domino of the collapse falls over.

In Graveyard, we keep our focus on these characters—but we also see the ongoing collapse, the ongoing treason (and the treason within that movement), and how it’s affecting not just the characters we got to know in The Price of Power, but also in others—faces and names new and old.

The story grows grander, our perspective enlarges—and assuming that the pre-Price status quo was as good as it could be, this civilization is in trouble from many sides.

*There are several reasons to believe the system could be better—as every system could be and every character we got to know recognized. But the stability, order, and painfully slow opportunities for reform were there.

The Missing Character?

Of the four characters/groups of characters that were the focus in the first book, one seemed to be almost missing. Not entirely, but so close that it’d be easy to miss.

Unless of course, their name/appearance has changed. I’ve spent a good amount of time thinking about this, and am pretty sure I’ve made up my mind about what I think. (at the same time, I’m ready for Michel to show me how I missed something).

Regardless, it’s fun to chew on.

Thephus

When we saw him last, his fate seemed uncertain. Frankly, I’m even less sure about what’s going on with him now. It’s as frustrating as it is satisfying to see Michel not giving us all the answers.

While I liked the guy—and felt bad for him—from the time we met him. My respect for him as a person has grown—he’s a well-conceived and complex character. Not just complex, he’s pretty confusing, too. Moreso to himself than anyone else. I wonder who will figure him out first—the reader or Thephus himself?

Just because his storyline bothers me and leaves me with more questions at the end of every one of his chapters doesn’t mean I think him any less. On the contrary, I think that sentence applies to every single chapter he’s been featured in since his introduction.

So much is going to make sense to us when we do get answers—and if all we’re doing now is piling up the questions, how much more satisfying will it be? Also, the part of this world that Thephus and those like him inhabit is more than intriguing.

So, what did I think about A Graveyard for Heroes?

This is me speculating here, as my precognition abilities are on the blink right now. But I’m guessing that you can make the case for Books 1 and 2 of Dreams of Dust and Steel serve as a massive prequel for an epic trilogy. To borrow a phrase from the back cover, “The pieces are set. The gameboard is chosen.” And now…things are going to really get going.

I can only imagine that as grim as things look here for our heroes…but also, our villains…by the end of book three, they’ll all wish that they were back in these events. But man…there’s not a lot of positive in this book—at least not plotwise.

There’s a whole lot of positive things to say about the writing, storytelling, and characters. So much so that I know I’ve left off things I’ve told myself “You gotta mention this.” For example, there’s a treat for people who miss Tyrion Lannister’s personality.

And just because I said prequel—I am not suggesting that these books are skippable. They’re not—you’d be robbing yourself of so much. There’s a character we meet in this book, for example, on the worst day of her life. She quickly became one of my favorites of the series. I reached out to Michel and was assured that we’d see her again—but based on what we saw here, there’s nothing inherent in her story that demands it. He could’ve closed the door on her and moved on—and it’d have been worth it just to wsee hat we got here. (I’d go into this deeper in a spoiler-rich conversation if anyone is interested).

My point is, the book is full of things that like that—the overall plot and seeing what happens with the characters we already know are the big ticket items. But this world and how Michel is telling its story is so rich, so full of moments that will stay with you, that even if these first to novels are “merely” setting it up for the bigger stuff to come—you want to read them.

This is a fantasy novel, and like most of them, this features some very important fight scenes, as well as a few battle scenes. Frankly, I find the smaller combat scenes more satisfying—and I usually do, that’s probably more of a personal taste thing. The larger battle scenes were really well done, and were largely haunting. The one-on-one fights/small group vs. small group/one-on-small group fights were much more satisfying (and somewhat haunting, too). They had me in much more suspense than the others. I audibly reacted to the last one focusing on Ishoa—I think you could see that particular point in her arc coming (either in this book or not), but actually seeing it made me cheer and pump my fist.

I may have shouted at my ereader for what the last page held—especially once I realized it was the last page, and not simply the end of a chapter.

What I’m saying is that once Michel stopped setting up his dominoes and started the reactions, you’re going to care. You’re going to be reeling. You’re going to wonder—”just where is he taking this?” while not caring that much because the ride is so fun.

I don’t remember the last time I was this invested in a Fantasy series. I suggest you all hop on board.

What’s Dark Neon & Dirt About?

I’ve tried 6 different versions of this, and have ended up saying something I regret each time. Let’s see if I can nail it this time. I’m thinking of a recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 child who escaped Vietnam right after the fall of Saigon, who learned to defuse bombs to serve in Iraq, and is now one of LA’s most successful thieves
• 1 LAPD lieutenant whose driving interest (not quite an obsession, but you never know) is finding out this thief’s identity and apprehending him. I’m not sure if he cares about the order. His other interests? Best if you don’t know
• 1 member of the FBI’s Art Crime Team who decided that opening a gallery in France seemed like a more lucrative way to spend her time
• A generous amount of LA Noir to season

Directions

1. Combine the robber, cop, and seasoning, mix well.
2. Slowly pour in the gallerist.
3. Bring to rolling boil over a sweaty LA heat.
4. Serve hot.

Heat

If Trang isn’t one of Michael Mann’s biggest fans, he’s sure acting like it. Or at least the narrative voice of this book is. I was to wrapped up in things to count, but there were a number of direct references and allusions to Heat. Enough that there’s no way that the reader is not supposed to pay attention to as many as you can catch.

That said—despite what I expected after the first couple of references—beyond it being about a fairly successful thief being chased by a detective, and the cat-and-mouse between them and the biggest score in the thief’s career, there’s very little overlap.

I’m pretty sure if you enjoyed Heat that this is going to be right up your alley. But that’s true of people who enjoyed Winslow’s Crime 101, or any good cop-and-robbers story.

So, what did I think about Dark Neon & Dirt?

I want to say a lot about this book, but I’m afraid I’ll spill more than you want me to, prospective reader. Although…even saying that there’s something to spill is sort of accomplishing that anyway. I’m just not going to win here.

This grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I rarely—if ever—knew just where he was taking the story or the characters. And even if I was right about something, it felt more like a lucky guess than me understanding what Trang’s plan was. That’s from the first scene to the last—and all stops in between.

It’s hard to elaborate on this, but let me make a couple of notes on character. Once you put down the novel for the last time, I expect you’ll take a couple of minutes and re-evaluate almost every choice made by the majority of the characters. You’ll also find yourself appreciating the way that every character felt like a new twist on a tried-and-true favorite type. You find yourself getting annoyed with, if not actively disliking, characters who would be the protagonists/heroes of pretty much every other crime novel you can think of. Most of the rest will generate a good deal of ambivalent feelings for you (eventually, in the moment, you’ll be pulling for their success).

Honestly, I’m still revising my thoughts on a couple of characters as I type this up.

One thing you won’t revise is how these people think and talk—especially talk. You all know how much I’m a sucker for good dialogue, and Trang did not disappoint. Especially Lt. Monroe, something about his lines endeared him to me.

I mentioned Winslow above, and this is just the kind of story he’d tell—Trang doesn’t have Winslow’s style (yet), but his voice and story-telling choices are similar. I can also see this as an outline that Elmore Leonard would work from. For a debut novel, it’s hard to ask for more than that.

Within a chaper or two, I pretty much felt like Trang came over and sat down too close to me on some bench, so I had to slide over a bit before introducing himself and telling me that I needed to make some room on my shelves between Tolkein and Tropper because he intended on filling it over the next few years.

Trang’s got the chops—I cannot wait to see what comes next. I strongly encourage crime readers (particularly those with an affinity for novels that live in the gray areas) to pick this up, while I go reorganize my shelves.

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this ARC by the author a day or two before I was going to order it, so it really didn’t affect my opinion of it–he just saved me a few bucks. (and I paid him back by not posting this on time, he really didn’t come out good in this deal).