Tag Archives: Review

Book Reviews – Catching Up

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As I said in my last post, I’ve got a back log. I’m going to go through these pretty quickly here with a few exceptions. If you’re connected to me on Goodreads, you’ve gotten most of this already.

First – Blood in the Water (Destroyermen #11) – this is going to get the review it should have months ago. I hope to link to that review here when it gets posted over at MilSciFi.

Since then I have read a bunch of other things, in no particular order:

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle – This was a reading choice from Watch the Skies and I’m really glad to have read it. I had seen the animation but never read the book itself. It was a fun book that I could share with my daughter, then re-watch the animation. Enjoyable all around if you haven’t read it.

Wool – by Hugh Howey – This was an interesting idea and a good read. I’m glad I read it. I don’t know if I’m going to continue the series, but I’m happy to have read the story. IF you enjoyed this story I think you’d really like Maria V. Snyder’s book *Inside* – really good stuff.

Time Traders by Andre Norton – I like to go back and check out classic stuff when I can. I think this came from the Baen free library (GO and check that out if you haven’t yet). A lot of the descriptions and the world political situation is dated, but it’s still worth checking out. Really, really well written.

Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos – I know a lot of folks have a lot of good things to say about this book. It seemed very OK to me. I wasn’t as excited as others seem to be. Solid military science fiction.

Master Sergeant by Mel Odom – IF the book above was “OK” this one landed in the same category, but not for the same reasons. It had a lot of world building and a lot of characters… and a lot of holes and questionable things in the world building. I think there was a lot of potential here that just missed the target.

Armada by Ernest Cline – I know that Ready Player One was aimed directly at me and I loved it. How could I resist reading this one? I couldn’t. You know what? It was predictable and not as flashy and new as some might have wanted it to be – and I still ate it up. I even think you could get away with calling this one military science fiction. IF you liked his first book, check this one out too.

Shadowed Souls (anthology) Edited by Jim Butcher – This is the newest of this list. It’s got a Jim Butcher story in it from his Dresden universe (Molly Story). It was really dark. Dark. Then I read the rest of the stories. Wow. There is some really good stuff in there. Only one story caused me trouble – I’m not going to call it out here. There are some who know and have met me in person. I’ve expressed my feelings for the particular author before and won’t do it again here. This is a worthy collection, go and check it out.

The Lost Heir by Andi O’connor – Watch the Skies had the author in for a visit and it was a great discussion. This is another I could share with my daughter.

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley – This was a neat story idea and had a lot of really interesting world building in it. I enjoyed it.

Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge by John Ringo and Larry Correia – I like what Mr. Correia has built in his monster hunter series. I am not a fan of what Mr. Ringo did in the sand box. I was really disappointed and I don’t suspect I’m going for the next one. We’ll see.

Enter the Janitor by Josh Vogt – This was fun. Your secret monster stopping agency is… janitors. I’m not going to attempt to describe it or compare it. If you want some light fare, this is just what you’re looking for.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman – I’m glad I went back and checked out this classic. If you’re into military science fiction this is certainly one you should look up. I will admit parts were difficult for me to get through with very small parts feeling a little dated – but the ideas were certainly flowing in there. Definitely a good read.

The Chaplain’s War by Brad R. Torgersen – I had a lot of struggles with this one, but I read it a while ago now. The specifics are fuzzy. As I got toward the end of the book there were a few things that felt like they got hammered in there because the end was coming and they needed to be in. It was OK. If you’re into military science fiction it’s worth checking out because it does have some interesting points of comparison.

Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger – I liked it. It had a lot of potential and I don’t think it lived up to that potential. The cast of characters felt forced. Mixing alcohol as magic could have gone a lot of ways and it didn’t seem to go any of them. I haven’t tried any of the recipes in the book – and I’m not sure if I’ll get the magic if I do.

Halloween Magic, Mystery and the Macabre ed. by Paula Guran – I totally missed the boat on this one. I should have gotten the review out there before the holiday. Good mood pieces and I particularly recommend ‘The Halloween Men’ by Maria V. Snyder. Really neat idea – what if Halloween was the only day you were allowed to go without a mask?

Trampling in the Land of Woe by William Galaini – This one gets a separate and special review all by itself (I knew you’d read this far looking for it William).

I’ve got a couple more that are more recent, so I’ll go back to my regular format for those. More reviews coming soon!

Book Reviews – the backlog

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I like to hear what others think of books they’ve read or would recommend to me. This is the best way for me to find new things to read. I also try to share my thoughts so others can check out the things I read and enjoy. I actually also post reviews of military science fiction over at MilSciFi.com. It’s exciting that I can do that for folks.

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I have a personal philosophy about my reviews. It’s important to start by stating the fact that I am a fan first. Yes, I help to publish a monthly fanzine. It’s also true that I’m an author and artist when I can squeeze that in along with my day job. It’s important to state these things because I make every effort to be honest and fair with my reviews. If I like something, I’ll tell you. If I don’t like something, I’ll try to figure out what it is exactly that bothers me, but I’m going to say I don’t like it. I don’t intend criticism to be personal about any author. I know how hard it is to make it work when you’re writing a novel.

I intend to stick with the five star rating system. I’ve always considered stars to be very limited, but I can’t really come up with a better system on my own. I’ll make them work. I am a terrible grader, in that I don’t consider average to be a horrible thing. I don’t just give five star ratings away. I consider five stars to be something rarely achievable. I also believe a book has to have gone really wrong to end up in the one star category. I can only recall two I’ve read that have landed at a single star. Getting it really right is tough, but it’s just as challenging to get it really wrong.

An example is probably best here. I would give The Hobbit five stars. The writing style struck a chord with me. The story is one that stands up to a reread despite the fact that I read it the first time when I was nine or ten. I’ve gone back and read the book more than once. The depth of world building shows through the writing without becoming a bludgeon. I feel that is a standard for the full five star rating. It moved me. It changed something in my outlook and really made me think. I haven’t put any others up to that level yet. I say “yet” not because I haven’t read other excellent and moving books, but because I’m not going to rate backwards in time. I will only rate/review a book should I read it *again*. While I consider The Good Earth another five star book, I’m not going to put something like that out for consideration until I read it again.

Having said all that about stars, I will also be upfront about any book (or books) where my own work shows up. Pretty easy to say that a book of my own, or an anthology containing a story of mine would get a five star rating from me. You should know that up front if I expect you to care about my reviews. I’ve seen others that give everything they read a four or five star rating. I don’t give those reviews much weight. I don’t expect you would either.

That’s my non legal disclaimer. I’m a fan. I try to be fair about what I read. I can’t wait to see the next cool story headed my way.

I was supposed to review a book for MilSciFi called Destroyer Men. I got a free copy of the book and dug in. That was April. It’s now December and the phrase “what are you waiting for, Christmas?” springs to mind. I totally stalled while reading that book. It didn’t seem right to review other books when I was supposed to be doing that for a web site that was not mine and they’d given me a copy of the book and how could I bump these others…

I hit something of a mental road block. I normally post my personal reviews here and on Goodreads as I read, but I put a couple off. The couple became a few. The few became everything I’ve read since May. I should have been posting them one at a time, but now they’ve become this giant task all piled up and waiting. I’m going to cheat. I’m going to make one post here in the near future and just list them all at once. It’s the only way I’m going to catch up.

If you happen to be on Goodreads, look me up. I might post longer stuff there – maybe not – but it’s worth making the connection anyway.

Have you read anything good lately?

All Quiet – Philcon 2016

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It has once again been a week since I returned from Philcon and I could almost just re-post last year’s review. I went back and read the post convention review I did last year before I started in on this one. This review and that will be remarkably similar.

There were differences and they were notable, but the portion that continues to worry me is the attendance. It was dead there. I mean to the point where I wondered if the convention was actually still open a couple of times. I can only believe this desperately low attendance drove some of the other factors. I know the sales numbers were crushingly low for a couple of the folks in the vendor’s area. There looked like a lot of no-shows in there. The art show was slim pickings, including a couple of no-shows. The artist guest of honor had 4 or 5 sections and beyond that there were only a handful of artists on display. I won’t disparage the quality – they were and are fine artists, it just seemed to be very small. The freebie and flyers area in front of the vendor room wasn’t full – and there’s ALWAYS somebody looking to get word of mouth out there that way. I continue to worry for this con, but they seem to survive.

My schedule was decent for the weekend. None of the panels had huge attendance. Lots of empty seats. My favorite panel was the first one on the list – the best of military science fiction. I was really looking forward to being on that panel with Barry Longyear, but alas he was unable to attend… no-shows are starting to feel like a theme here too. Anyway – if you haven’t ever checked out his work, see if you can dig up a copy of “It Came From Schenectady”. The forward of the book makes me laugh every time I read it. It’s from the early 1980s and still works. That’s just the forward. The stories are wonderful. There’s some really good stuff in there.

camefromschenectady

The programming was good. It was in fact better and more timely than the past 2 conventions I’ve been invited too. There was a dud of a panel in there that I consider a tremendous missed opportunity, but that had everything to do with the moderator and nothing to do with the topic itself. All in all I think I held my own. I have made panel suggestions for next year and I think the panels will continue to be strong.

I didn’t stay in the con hotel this year. It’s the first time I’ve stayed off site for a con. It worked and was a really good thing to save the expense of the hotel. What else it did was pretty much eliminate any shenanigans or chances for weird encounters late at night in the hotel. No pizza, no elevator roulette. Just quiet really.

I actually feel like that’s as much review as I need. There just wasn’t much. I hope to go back again next year – and I hope a lot of folks join me.

Saturday Night

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You would think, given free time and a lack of other responsibilities that I’d dive in and get a lot of things done. You would be wrong.

Saturday my wife and daughter were out camping with the scout troop. I had no other things planned. I had every intention of getting a lot done…

Yeah, about that. You see, what happened was the movie theater. I like to go and see movies on the big screen from time to time. I make every effort to go at odd times so that I avoid crowds and (potentially) obnoxious people. So at 3 in the afternoon I went to see The Accountant.

the-accountant

I went into the movie with no real expectations. I didn’t really know what it was about, and completely enjoyed the film. I don’t want to spoil any part of it because it’s new, but I will tell you that it was intense and violent. I saw what I’m sure would be considered a plot twist coming from the very start of the film, but that didn’t stop my enjoyment. I have an unanswered question remaining at the end – and it’s not a bad thing. I don’t expect there to be another one, so I’ll have to wait for somebody else to see it so we can talk about what that nagging little thing is.

After that I headed to the house for something to eat. I thought, “Hey, I should watch something while I eat. No need to worry about what it is since the kiddo’s not sitting here with me. Maybe I’ll try out Luke Cage…”

luke-cage-cropped

I hadn’t watched or read any of the build up to this show. I didn’t watch any of the trailers. I realize it probably makes me a heretic to any number of folks out there – particularly the comic book crowd – but I only watched about 4 or 5 episodes of Daredevil and dropped Jessica Jones after the first one. Just not into them. So I figured I’d check out the first episode of Cage, be done and move on with things.

Once again, about that… Luke Cage is a really good series so far. It’s Sunday morning and I’m more than half way through the entire series. I admit I am hooked. I am working on what the difference is between this and Daredevil. I can’t yet quantify what it is. Luke Cage is really good. Not that Daredevil isn’t, and that’s what’s confusing me. Acting, production value, special effects are all on a similar level. Much like The Accountant, Cage is violent. So is Daredevil. There are shootings, broken bones and wrecked buildings. It also has interesting characters who seem to grow as you learn about them. I am still wondering why one works for me and the other doesn’t. IF you’ve got access to Netflix you should get on there and check it out. Just try the first one.

So my Saturday was, in a word, violent. Punching, shooting, breaking and all manner of mayhem. How was yours?

Suicide Squad

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As sometimes happens, I had today off. In an excellent coincidence this was also opening weekend for Suicide Squad. Once I was done in the real world (taking the kiddo to the dentist) I scooted on over to the theater. The hype caught me with this one – I was at the 10 am show – and there were far more folks there on a weekday morning at 10 than I thought there would be. I was excited. This was going to be good. (Minor spoilers ahead)

About twenty minutes of trailers dulled my excitement. Some I’d seen, some I hadn’t and a few I totally didn’t care about. There was a weird mix of films on that list too. There was one that was about a 17 year old girl that doesn’t fit in, then Doctor Strange (obvious choice for comic fans), then a Chinese film staring Matt Damon of all people. It was weird. When the logo came up at the start of the film I was afraid it was another trailer.

The folks in Hollywood make amazing two minute films. The problem is, and likely has been for some time, that the movie couldn’t match the hype. People love the characters. People love the music that was used in the trailer. OH, the trailer. Splashy, neon amazing looking trailer. As usual, the folks cutting that two minute movie were spot on. How cool. Look at it in all its glory. Awesome. It’s the longer version that needed the work.

IF you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen a fair chunk of the good stuff already. I hate to say it, but the rest of the film was mildly interesting, but if you’ve seen all the trailers you’ve seen the good stuff. You’ve even seen some stuff that didn’t make the cut for the final film I think. It’s difficult to remember. The whole thing was a bit disjointed.

The flow of the story wasn’t there. This was a link movie or a set up movie or something that wasn’t as good on its own as it would have been with other films surrounding it. Like Avengers going first, then having Thor and Captain America and Iron man get individual films later (or not at all). The first half hour of the movie at least was all back story and set up. Literally flash backs as you go over character profiles from a top secret folder. Each bit was good, but they were just lined up and trotted out one at a time. Then all those people are dumped into a war picture that turns into a comic book hero film… sort of. There’s a primary mission but a second primary mission that allows the first one to happen – or something. I’m not sure. There was cool music that matched each scene but seemed like a patchwork when hung together.

I think that’s it. This movie is a quilt. There are little square patches that are really cool. Somebody took all those square patches and sewed them together to make a big quilt. Once they did that they took Batman and trimmed the whole thing around the edges.

She owned every scene she was in-

She owned every scene she was in-

I’m not saying this movie was bad because it wasn’t. I actually really loved Harley (Margot Robbie) in this film. Every scene she was in was totally hers. I thought Diablo had real potential too, but there wasn’t much screen time for him. The rest of them were there and were good. Will Smith is himself at this point. He’s a good actor but all I ever see is him in whatever role he’s in. He gets the most screen time. He’s good. I disliked the people I was supposed to dislike. I liked and rooted for the people I was supposed to root for. It worked out in the end – I guess?

Yes, stay for one more scene in the end credits but you only get one. Yes, this is DC attempting to match what Mavel has done with building a series of connected films. Yes, it’s a bit of a mess, but it was still fun. IF you don’t want to jumble in with the crowds this weekend, the next week or two should be just fine.

Time Traders

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Time Traders (Time Traders / Ross Murdock, #1-2)Time Traders by Andre Norton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is absolutely worth your time to go and grab this one.

I picked up the Baen Free Library version when I was in between other titles and was just drawn into this one. Fantastic fun idea – Time Agents. There are certain aspects of this book that date it, both in world view from the time (America’s greatest enemy) and in the descriptions of certain technology that was alien to the main characters. At one point in the book a set of headphones are described. I knew what they were, but the way they were described gave me a vision of some very old (from my point of view) headphones. I’m sure those would have been very cutting edge at the time. That is one of the dangers or drawbacks to describing any “super future” technology.

Despite all those things I was still in on the adventure. I could absolutely see this as a television series.

View all my reviews

Last Unicorn

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The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1)The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What I really wanted was the text of the book. What I ended up with was the graphic novel.

I find it a little irksome, but for the cost I’m just going to let it go. I eventually found the actual book and not a treatise on it or a graphic representation of it – the actual words. I read it and really, really enjoyed it.

I’d seen the film before I read the book and I watched the film again after I read the book. Despite the behind the screens issues of rights and payments (that I really don’t know all that much about, just that they exist and that things didn’t seem to be working in the author’s favor) I think this animated film stays closer to the text of the original book than any other I adaptation I can think of.

This is a genuine fairy tale. I have actually given my copy to my daughter and had her watch the movie as well. It’s well worth the effort to pick this one up and check out why it’s influenced so many folks over the years.

View all my reviews

Firefight

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I have fallen behind on my reviews – so I will be launching a few off here this week. IF you’re connected to me on Goodreads you’ll have seen all of these in the update feed!

Firefight (Reckoners, #2)Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don’t recall the actual date I finished reading this book. It was certainly in April, but I haven’t been able to sit and write up my thoughts on it until now.

I really enjoyed the book. It was a fast read. It built on the world from Steelheart and just kept plunging ahead. I totally bought into the main character and was along for the ride. I jumped from this book directly to the next one to wrap up the series.

IF you haven’t read Steelheart, go back and start there.

View all my reviews

Balticon 50

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There it went.

I have tried to give myself a little time to get past the immediate reaction and allow for more thought. The problem with that is news of a convention gets stale rather quickly. I’ve been going to Balticon for a while, but not as long as quite a few folks. In fact I had a conversation with a man this past weekend who has attended all 50 of the conventions so far. It’s an impressive number.

For me, it was an impressive convention celebrating the 50th anniversary, but probably one of the worst for me personally. That makes it sound worse than it really was. Perhaps it was the level of expectation going in? I’ve got that sort of thing going with books and movies, maybe it was the same thing for the convention. If I go into a movie or a book with crazy high expectations – those expectations are almost never met so it feels like a disappointment, even it the work in question was actually quite good. IF I go with low expectations and get something crappy, I’m good. My expectations were met. If I go with low expectations and get something excellent… you get the picture. I’ve seen a number of folks on social media and other blogs say they had “wonderful”, “awesome” and “fantastic” conventions. My reaction wasn’t as positive.

I have had a lot of great cons over the years. I’ve really loved being a participant and not just an attendee at conventions. Balticon is the one that I consider my “home convention” and is the one I always give preference to. This year had real issues for me. Some of those things were directly related to the convention, some of them were all about me and some of them were outside the realm of things the con could control (and it’s not fair to blame them for those). I was also somebody that friends brought issues to (they know I’ve joined BSFS), presumably so that word would travel with somebody. That made it a struggle. When you’re the staunch defender, what happens when you don’t want to defend anymore? I got really, really tired of trying to help and defend things that I didn’t find defensible.

The hotel was new this year. That was important – the space was needed for a record number of guests. It also made for lots of people not knowing where anything was, long lines at the elevators, confusion about parking and frustration over added expense. Some of that was just the unavoidable nature of change. Some of that was trying to settle in to a new location. Some of that was people not communicating well and having their expectations not met. I could have worked with all that. I expected it.

I know some of the people involved and I know the intent was good. Programming was an unmitigated disaster from my point of view. Double booked rooms, double booked panelists, changes, deletions and random additions that weren’t communicated well just made a hash of things for me. I’m going to emphasize that again – for me. I am the D list person here and I understand that I’m not going to get priority or even a lot of attention. I got nothing for programming. Nothing. When I asked about this the response was a very snappy “well what do you want?” I want these things figured out before Saturday morning of a convention that starts on Friday for starters – and a little less attitude to go with the response. I get the stress. I work cons too. Snapping at me isn’t going to help anyone. It will in fact hurt the process and cause responses that aren’t necessarily deserved. I just stopped trying to fix it right then. There’s nothing I could do that would have made the situation better and anything I said in anger would not help. I stopped defending. I stopped volunteering to help. I walked away and just did my own thing the rest of the weekend.

I was not the only one in a situation like this. For me – a total ‘D’ lister – it’s not such a big deal. I’m sure I’ll get over it. I’ve already received an invitation to another convention asking me about my thoughts for programming. I’m going to hope for better, or at least in advance, there. The problem is I’ve heard from other people that should be the backbone of the convention – the folks you want to return again and again because they’ve got a solid following and some excellent knowledge to share – that they won’t be back. They reached their saturation point with the frustration and problems and have decided to just walk away as well. I was actually saddened by this. Conventions are where I get to hang out with these folks. Some I might not see otherwise. Most of all, I’m concerned for the next convention, and the next one after that. There was, rightfully, a lot of attention paid to the big names that were there, all the big names that were brought back. Those folks got a lot of attention and drew a lot of convention goers, but at what expense? I fear the damage done. Perhaps I just haven’t gone through this from the participant side of the fence before.

I don’t want this to to turn into some kind of doom and gloom sort of thing. There were a lot of fun things that did happen at the convention. There were great times, laughs and fun mixed with the frustration. I was super glad to have helped out with the Liar’s Panel again this year. I was one of the runners that dashed around the audience collecting up the donations for charity. There’s actually a photo and a little more detail over at Mark’s Journal. Raising a few hundred bucks for charity is a great thing and the panelists were really funny.

I also watched the Mr. Poor Choices III comedy show. I howled. It was fun and funny. The show was totally stolen (from my vantage point) by the sign language interpreters. How do you sign “the nut mangler gym shorts” exactly? Their expressions were wonderful. I went and thanked them after the show. It was great fun.

I got to connect with a lot of folks this past weekend. I think that was really what made it all survivable for me. I had dinner with folks I don’t get to see often enough, drinks with others that I was thrilled to sit and chat with and even a teeny amount of time in the game room (even though I can’t hang with the Power Grid guys and totally forgot my t-shirt – sorry John, I’ll get it right eventually).

I expect with time that I’ll gloss over 50 and other Balticons will be better for me. I really want some of the folks I talked to this past weekend to make some good connections. I’m hopeful that some of the connecting I did over the weekend will lead to future projects. I’m also hopeful that folks that said they were done would be persuaded to return. I am hopeful, and if I work hard and am lucky enough maybe I’ll be one of the folks brought back by special invitation for number 75.

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