Brightside - Mark Tullius

   2012; 304 pages.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Brightside” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Dystopian Fiction; Psychic Suspense.  Overall Rating: 7½*/10.

 

    They call us Thought Thieves.

 

    The more common word is “telepaths”.  There’s a fair number of us living quietly among you normal people.  Mostly, we’re just trying to avoid revealing to you that we can read your thoughts.  Because if the authorities find that out, they will immediately take the thought-thief into custody.

 

    My name’s Joe Nolan.  I’m one of those detainees.  My own father turned me in.  Can you believe that?!  The Boots (that’s what we call the thugs that snatch us away) grabbed me and took me to a place called “Brightside”, somewhere way up in the mountains.  The shrinks there will neutralize my thought-thieving brain and gradually reprogram me.   I’ll be a happy resident here.

 

    If I don’t kill myself first.

 

What’s To Like...

    Brightside is a dystopian thriller that imagines a world where a portion of its humans can hear the thoughts of others.  It reminded me of a very old Outer Limits TV episode, set IIRC on an outer-space mining operation, where a mutant suddenly becomes telepathic, much to the chagrin of his fellow miners.  Google-image “Outer Limits” for pictures from this episode.

 

    I liked the limitations that Mark Tullius puts on this “gift”.  Not everyone is blessed/cursed with being able to listen in on others’ thoughts.  The range of telepathy is limited; at one point our protagonist is amazed that a fellow thought-thief can “hear” thoughts from as far as 50 feet away.  Also, there are ways to mask or nullify one’s thoughts so that they can’t be read.  It’s an important resource that even thought-thieves need to survive.

 

    The story is told from the first-person POV: Joe’s.  Two telepaths can use both speech and thoughts to communicate with each other.  Mark Tullius puts all thoughts in italics, which makes it easy for the reader to follow along.  I liked the nod to Dune via the quip “Fear is the Mindkiller”.

 

    The ending is exciting, nail-biting, with several neat plot twists thrown in to keep you on your toes.  The storyline stops at a logical point.  All the plot threads do not get tied up, but I’m certain that Book Two, Beyond Brightside, will pick up and continue the narrative.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 3.8*/5, based on 307 ratings and 122 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.52*/5, based on 350 ratings and 63 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Brightside required us to work.  It wasn’t for the money.  The government funded most everything.  But Brightside needed us to keep busy, to feel productive.  They started the jobs program after the first month.  Too many Brightsiders had jumped off the mountain, took the easy way out.

    Quotas kept us from living in our heads.

    Busy people don’t kill themselves.  That was the idea, at least.  (loc. 416)

 

    Listen.”  She closed her eyes.  “What am I thinking?”

    I zeroed in, but heard nothing.  No mantra, no hum, just silence, like Danny.

    “You’re too far,” I said.

    Rachel pressed herself against me.  I listened.  Still nothing.

    She stepped back, curtseyed.  “I learned it in The Cabin.  That’s why they let me out.  Nothing but a blank slate.”

    “How?”

    “Something about the pills.  I can just shut it off now.”  (loc. 3567)

 

Kindle Details…

    At present, Brightside sells for $3.99 at Amazon, as does its sequel, Beyond Brightside.  Mark Tullius is also the author of a 20-volume “Interactive Adventure” series called Try Not to Die, with the entries priced at either $3.99 or $5.99.

 

They call our town Brightside because, as they like to remind us, things could be worse.  (loc. 96)

    I counted 62 instances of profanity in the first 20% of Brightside, which extrapolates out to a projected total of 310 cusswords.  There were also three rolls-in-the-hay and a couple references to “adult situations”.  True, any dystopian fiction will inherently be bleak and brutal, but this was excessive.

 

    The typos were few: straightjacket/straitjacket; BMW’s/BMWs; duffle/duffel and girl’s/girls.  I thought barbequing was also misspelled, but it turns our that’s correct.  My biggest gripe, along with the excessive use of profanity, was the lack of page numbers and the lack of “time remaining” for each chapter. 

 

    Some reviewers thought the story’s tone was too dark.  Well, it is, but wouldn’t one expect this when reading dystopian fiction?  Paradoxically, the fact that readers were bothered by that means the author did an effective job of world-building.

 

    I think the main aim of Brightside was to show the reader what a terrifying world it would be if a portion of the population were telepathic.  Both the normal humans and the thought-thieves live in constant fear of being exterminated by the other faction.  Mark Tullius does a great job of creating a frightening world and I am eager to see how the storyline progresses in a second book.

 

    7½ Stars.

Hope For the Best - Jodi Taylor

 

   2019; 461 pages.  Book 10 (out of 14) in the “Chronicles of St. Mary’s” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Fantasy; Historical Fiction.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    Madeleine “Max” Maxwell has been traded to the Time Police!

 

    Well okay, technically she’s been “seconded” to the Time Police, meaning St. Mary’s loaning Max to them for a while.  It’s sort of a goodwill gesture, aimed at improving the relationship between the two organizations.

 

    One of the weird things is that the Time Police office is based in the future, so Max gets to time-travel forward every time she goes to work.  How utterly kewl is that?!  But the bigger perk for Max is that she gets to be with her son, Matthew, who is being kept at the Time Police headquarters (“TPHQ”), protected by the Time Police from the evil bad guy, Clive Ronan.

 

    Looking after Matthew is not an easy job; see the second excerpt below.

 

What’s To Like...

    I enjoyed Max’s career move in Hope for the Best.  It seemed a nice way for Jodi Taylor to introduce the reader to her new “Time Police” series, the first book of which came out about five months after this one.

 

    It was interesting to watch Max and Captain Ellis learn to work as partners.  Their first adventure involves traveling to 16^th-century London to deal with a Temporal Anomaly.  The Time Police are there to “repair” the digression, even if that means using force.  St. Mary’s is there to record history.  Those differing motivations do not always mesh smoothly.

 

    Delightfully, there’s lots of time-jumping.  I counted ten chrono-hops, and that’s not including return jumps to St. Mary’s and/or TPHQ.  As usual, the book’s cover image gives a glimpse at two of those trips.  The smokestacks shown at the top are of the Battersea Power Station, as any fan of Pink Floyd’s “Animals” album will recognize.  We’ll let you wonder why the bottom image is simply a nest of eggs.

 

    It’s not a spoiler to reveal that two of my favorite characters in this series, Adrian and Mikey, play prominent roles in the storyline.  Grint the Grunt was also an interesting character, as were Hillary and Donald.  I chuckled at the mention of the sport of cheese-rolling on Cooper’s Hill, and liked learning why “Time is like a bluebell wood”.

 

    The ending is tense, twisty, and totally unexpected.  History is restored to its proper order, although not everybody at St. Mary’s, Max in particular, is happy about it.  The Time Police and St. Mary’s have a better understanding of each other, although I’d hardly call them bosom buddies.  Hope For the Best is both a part of a series and a standalone novel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 5,408 ratings and 383 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.32*/5, based on 7,706 ratings and 584 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    I knelt up to see better.

    Ellis pulled me down.  “Stay down.”

    “I can’t.  It’s my job.  I’m the historian.  I study historical events.  You’re the Time Police.  Go and count your crayons.”

    Someone behind me wondered aloud why they let me live.

    “I’ve no idea,” said Ellis.  “Perhaps she’ll come in handy one day.”

    “And if not?”  Was it my imagination or was there a hopeful note there?

    “Then you can kill her.”  (pg. 126)

 

    “Will you come and see me off?”

    “Of course.  Every wife always wants to know when her husband’s safely out of the picture.”

    “And I gather you’re on the move, too.”

    “Yes.  Because of what’s happening at St. Mary’s, Dr. Bairstow’s moved the schedule forwards.  I’m going back to TPHQ.”

    “Give my love to Matthew.  How’s he doing?”

    “He broke the Time Map.”

    “The boy’s a vandal.  He gets more like his mother every day.”

    “And then showed them how to put it right.”

    “The boy’s a genius.  He gets more like his father every day.”  (pg. 278)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Firkling (v.) : searching; rummaging.

Others: Jellabiyas (n.).

 

I was well and truly up the River of Excrement and my canoe had no visible means of propulsion.  (pg. 352)

    The profanity is pretty sparse in Hope for the Best; I noticed just 11 instances in the first 20% of the book; all of which of the “milder” ilk.  Max pays a visit to a sex club late in the story, but it’s a rather tame experience.  I didn’t note any typos; so kudos to whoever the editor was.

 

    The series is written in British, not American; so there are a few weird words and spellings for us Yankee readers, including draughty, ploughed, ageing, and storeys.  I’m used to hoovering by now, but the abovementioned firkling stumped me.  Jellabiya is an Arabic term.

 

    That’s the nit-pickiest I can be with Hope for the Best.  It’s another fine time-travel tale with lots of wit, humor, thrills-&-spills, family drama, and, maybe best of all, historical fiction blended in.  I've yet to see any drop-off in the quality of the books in this series.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point our heroes come riding in on what is described as “TWOC’d horses”.  Say what?  That acronym stumped me, so I googled it.  It turns out TWOC stands for “Taken Without Owner’s Consent”. Now you know.

Verses For the Dead - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

   2018; 328 pages.  Book 18 (out of 22) in the “Agent Pendergast” series.  New Author? : No, and No.  Genres : Police Procedural; Thriller; Serial Killers.   Overall Rating: 8½/10.

 

    It’s a brand new day for Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast of the FBI.  For starters, he’s got a new boss, Walter Pickett, who admires Pendergast’s “successful investigation rate” but hates his attitude towards heeding authorities and working with others.

 

    So it’s no surprise that Pendergast also finds he’s been assigned to a new area: Miami, Florida.  Say goodbye to the Big Apple, Aloysius.  Say hello to The Sunshine State.

 

    That means Pendergast gets to work with a new partner, a Native American named A.B. Coldmoon.  Don’t ask him what the “A.B.” stands for; those are white man’s appellations.

 

    Oh well, it could be worse.  Some psycho killer could start slashing the throats of Miamians, cutting out their hearts, and leaving them on other graves.

 

    And also leave excerpts from classical works of literature, aka “Verses for the Dead”.

 

What’s To Like...

    I enjoyed the setting change for Verses For the Dead, even if it did mean meeting a whole slew of new characters and remembering which ones were Miami PD and which ones were Miami FBI.  Agent Coldmoon is developed into a worthy assistant for the quirky Pendergast.  Instead of being cast as a bumbling rookie, he impresses Aloysius with his investigative technique and shrewd deductions.

 

    As always, the case rapidly becomes more complex.  There are clues aplenty, but how do they fit together?  Road trips are taken, and bodies are exhumed.  Is the killer right-handed or left-handed?  Are some of the deaths suicides?  Why does Agent Coldmoon have a “malodorous chemical refinery” (Pendergast’s description, not mine) smell about him?

 

  Verses For the Dead is both a Medical Thriller and a Police Procedural, both of which  are among my favorite literary genres.  It was a treat to also learn a few phrases in Latin, Spanish, and even in Coldmoon’s native Lakota tongue, including “Atanikili” and “Philamayaye”.  Thank goodness for Google.

 

    The ending is delightfully 50-pages long, well thought-out, and filled with twists, thrills and nail-biting fights.  In other words, it’s vintage Preston & Child.  It’s also quite complicated, and the last two of the fifty chapters involve Pendergast answering the questions a Miami Herald reporter had, and which had puzzled me as well.  Verses For the Dead is both a standalone novel and part of a series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 10,948 ratings and 1,069 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.22*/5, based on 18,296 ratings and 1,605 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Empyrean (n.) : heaven; especially the highest part of heaven.

Others: Diener (n.); Iconoclast (n.); Persiflage (n.).

 

Excerpts...

    Something even louder than the music blasted one of her eardrums; she looked over to see a skinny, goateed guy in a post-punk outfit yelling at her.

    She turned to him. “What?”

    “I said, are you a parking ticket?” he yelled back.

    “Parking ticket?  What are you talking about?”

    “Because you’ve got fine written all over you!”  He laughed wildly, eyes wide.  (pg. 85)

 

    “Coffee, partner?”

    Another, longer pause.  Then Pendergast accepted the cup; took a small, tentative sip.  “The floral bouquet of poison sumac blooms first on the palate,” he announced.  “Followed by notes of diesel oil and a long finish of battery acid.”  And he handed the cup back.

    “Exactly the way I like it,” said Coldmoon, closing his eyes contentedly and downing the lukewarm beverage in a single gulp.  (pg. 251)

 

“Of all the would-be witnesses out last night, not one mentioned seeing a blood-spattered man carrying a hatchet and a human heart.”  (pg. 101)

    The profanity level in Verses For the Dead seemed lighter-than-usual for a Pendergast novel.  I counted just 13 instances in the first 20% of the book, four of which were f-bombs.  Maybe Miamians cuss less than New Yorkers.

 

    One reviewer was disappointed that there was no “is it natural or supernatural” aspect to the story, which is a much-loved Preston & Child trademark literary device.  He has a point, but at least they didn't awkwardly force it into the plotline.  Similarly, some of my favorite New York characters, such as Constance Greene, Vincent D’Agosta, and Proctor, only get a brief mention, but I have a feeling they’ll make a dramatic comeback in the upcoming books.

 

    Enough of the quibbling.  I’ve now read 15 books in this series, and have been hooked on it since Book One, Relic.  The mystery storylines are always unique, well crafted, twisty, and devoid of any slow spots.  The character development is always superb, especially Agent Pendergast.  The endings are always surprising and plot threads always get tied up.  Verses For the Dead is no exception.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  As with any Police Procedural, acronyms are commonplace.  Here OPR and ViCAP are encountered, but their full-length meanings are given.  Not so for TBI, which shows up twice, and which I couldn’t suss out on my own.  It stands for Traumatic Brain Injury.  Now you know.

David and Goliath - Malcolm Gladwell

   2013; 295 pages.  Full Title: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Applied Psychology; Sociology; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    David and Goliath.  Everyone has heard the tale.  It has inspired generations upon generations of readers.  Big, bad Goliath trots out and challenges the Israelites to a one-on-one battle with any champion they choose.  He’s fully armored and is carrying a huge sword.  Out steps puny little David with only a slingshot and five smooth stones.

 

    David plunks Goliath with his first shot, hitting him right in the forehead and stunning him.  David then goes over to the giant, picks up his sword and chops off the giant’s head.  From this we learn to trust in the higher powers, never get discouraged, and bravely do battle against all odds.  Malcolm Gladwell has studied the details of the David and Goliath tale, and admits that there are important lessons to be learned.

 

    But he feels the ones we’ve been taught for generations upon generations are completely wrong.

 

What’s To Like...

    Malcolm Gladwell divides David and Goliath into three parts, each containing three chapters, namely:

    Part 1 : The Advantages of Disadvantages (Chapters 1-3)

    Topics: Girls High School basketball; Classroom size; Choosing a college.

    Part 2 : The Theory of Desirable Difficulty (Chapters 4-6)

    Topics: Dyslexia; the London Blitz; the Civil Right Movement.

    Part 3 : The Limits of Power (Chapters 7-9)

    Topics: Northern Ireland; California’s ‘Three Strike Law’; Vichy France.

 

        Each chapter’s title is that of a person, none of whom I had heard of, whose life embodies the themes of that section.  Gladwell then takes their “lessons learned” and applies them to other, usually more famous, persons and historical events.  Some of those tangential topics will surprise you.  For instance, in Chapter 5, the theme of the London Blitz segues into the fight against Leukemia.

 

    There is also an Introduction, in which Gladwell meticulously examines the David/Goliath affair tale, even suggesting that the latter was afflicted with something called “Acromegaly” (say what?!), which leveled the playing field.  The book closes with an Afterword, which focuses on America’s Vietnam debacle.

 

    I was impressed by the author’s writing skills.  Let’s face it, a story centering on Girls’ High School Basketball sounds like a yawner, ditto for detailing the search for a cure to Leukemia.  But Gladwell somehow turns them into fascinating subjects.  Other interesting sidelights include Lawrence of Arabia, a cameo appearance by Julius Erving, the neuroscience of dyslexia, and the statistical importance of “inverted U-curves”.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 14,018 ratings and 3,706 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.97*/5, based on 188,881 ratings and 11,990 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Suppose you were to total up all the wars over the past two hundred years that occurred between very large and very small countries.  Let’s say that one side has to be at least ten times larger in population and armed might than the other.  How often do you think the bigger side wins?  Most of us would put that number at close to 100 percent.  A tenfold difference in a lot.  But the actual answer may surprise you.  When the political scientist Ivan Arreguin did the calculation a few years ago, what he came up with was 71.5 percent.  Just under a third of the time, the weaker country wins.  (pg. 21)

 

    Birmingham was the most racially divided city in America.  It was known as “Johannesburg of the South.”  When a busload of civil rights activists were on their way to Birmingham, the local police stood by while Klansmen forced their bus to the side of the road and set it afire.  Black people who tried to move into white neighborhoods had their homes dynamited by the city’s local Ku Klux Klansmen so often that Birmingham’s other nickname was Bombingham.  (pg. 168)

 

The smarter your peers, the dumber you feel; the dumber you feel, the more likely you are to drop out of science.  (pg. 85)

    There’s a sprinkling of profanity—I noted 21 instances in the entire of book—in David and Goliath, including four f-bombs and a half-dozen cases of the "n-word" racial epithet.  Most of those occurred in direct quotes of various newsmakers.

 

    Wikipedia mentions that the critical response to David and Goliath was mostly negative.  The criticisms generally accuse Gladwell of skewing the data to fit his arguments. However, that Wikipedia segment closes with a positive review, and also notes that David and Goliath was a bestseller, reaching #4 on a NY Times chart (“Hardcover Non-Fiction”) and #5 on a USA Today chart (“Best-Selling Books”).

 

    Personally, I think the Malcolm Gladwell does a great job of presenting alternate views on various strategies to use when you’re the underdog, the misfit, or the weaker force.  His conclusions are open to debate, but hey, that’s the purpose of this book.  The fact that Gladwell suggests that David beat Goliath because of the giant having an eyesight-affecting medical condition is of course speculative.  Then again, that whole Philistine/Israelite encounter itself is unprovable.

 

    9 Stars.  My favorite chapters were #6, #7, and the Afterword, all of which focus on real life struggles in American history, some of which I lived through.  Your favorites may vary.

The Devil Wears Scrubs - Freida McFadden

   2013; 300 pages.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Dr. Jane McGill” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Medical Humor; On-the-Job Romance; Doctors & Hospitals.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    It’s July 1^st, and Jane McGill’s first day at work!  She’s been hired as a medical intern at County Hospital, in Manhattan, New York.  She’s very excited!

 

    Her days at medical school have ended.  Now she’ll get to put into practice all the things she learned there.  She’ll be surrounded by doctors, nurses, other interns, and all sorts of medical professionals who she can learn from.  This internship will be a life-enriching experience.

 

    True, Jane’s has a lot to learn about the way things are done at County Hospital.  But she has no doubt her boss, Alyssa Morgan will show her the ropes.  And Jane’s a quick learner.

 

    And when this day’s over, she can go back to her apartment-suite and swap stories with her roommate, whoever she is.  Jane hasn’t met her yet.  The payoff in all this is that pretty soon patients and co-workers will be calling her something new.

 

    DOCTOR Jane McGill.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Devil Wears Scrubs is humorous look at the daily grind of working at a hospital.  Freida McFadden is quite qualified to write about such a setting; she’s a practicing physician in the greater Boston area.  Stylistically, this book reminds me of Coffee, Tea or Me, which I read recently (the review is here), and which gives similar treatment to the 1960s career as an airline stewardess.  The title also alludes to movie/book, The Devil Wears Prada, but I’ve neither read nor watched that one.

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV, Jane’s.  We tag along with her as she tries to cope with back-stabbing coworkers, psycho suite-mates, and way too many patients to properly attend to their health.  Each of the 33 chapters closes with a brief summary usually formatted in terms of the time Jane gets off duty that day, the hours she’s been awake, and the percent chance she has of quitting her job.

 

    Silliness abounds, mostly in Jane’s thoughts, of the snarky quips she thinks but prudently avoids saying out loud.  Yet underneath all this, the reader gets glimpses of what it’s like to work in a busy metropolitan hospital.  Working an “on call” shift can mean being there for as long as 30 hours straight.  Some patients are very skilled at faking excruciating pain in order to con an intern into prescribing pain meds such as Percocet for them.  My wife worked in the medical field, and assures me that both the 30-hour shifts and scamming for meds are common occurrences.

 

    If, like me, you don’t work in the medical field, then you’ll find the technical details both entertaining and informative.  I could relate to be echocardiogram scene; I get those twice a year.  But learning why the hospital elevators didn’t go all the way to the top floor where the “call rooms” are was a surprise to me, and to Jane as well.

 

    The storyline stops at a logical place, although there’s not much “building to a climax” involved.  There is a sequel (see below), but there’s a 10-year gap in the storyline between the two books.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 19,920 ratings and 995 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.45*/5, based on 63,920 ratings and 5,157 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    If there’s a seat available, there exists a very clear hierarchy of who may sit.  First, the attending gets to sit.  Then if there’s another seat, the senior resident can sit.  Then if there’s another seat, someone can put their purse there.  Then if there’s another seat, a homeless drug addict who wandered into the building can sit there.  But after the attending, the resident, the purse, and the homeless guy are all settled, any available seats are all mine.  (pg. 37)

 

    “Wow you really like him.  You’re in love.”

    “Oh my God, I am not in love!”  I’m really not.  “I hardly know him.  Actually, he’s kind of a jerk.”

    “No, you’re in love,” Kali insists gleefully.  “You luuurve him!  You lurve him and you want to have like a million of his babies.”

    I cringe.  “Don’t mention having babies.  Please.”

    Kali sighs, suddenly glum.  “You’ve got a cute surgeon and all I’ve got is a diabetic cat.”

    “I think I would take your cat over the surgeon,” I say.  “Really.”

    “Well,” Kali says thoughtfully.  “He is a very sweet cat.”  (pg. 186)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Devil Wears Scrubs e-book goes for $2.99 right now, as does its sequel, The Devil You Know.  Freida McFadden has a bunch of novels in the Medical and/or Psychological Thriller genres, and generally in the $3.99-$7.99 price range.

 

“You’re presenting a patient to me and you didn’t even look at his buttocks?”  (pg. 7)

    There is a moderate amount of cussing in The Devil Wears Scrubs.  I counted 21 instances in the first third of the book, none of which were f-bombs.  I presume this reflects the normal amount of cussing that goes on when working in a hospital environment.  The editing was impressive: I didn’t see any typos, which rarely happens when I read a book. 

 

    There are lots of interesting interactions between Jane and her patients/coworkers, but they don't result in much progression in the plot.  Jane seems to screw up quite often, even after a year on the job, and her relationships with Alyssa and her roommate don’t improved much over time.

 

    As mentioned above, the ending is neither exciting or twisty.  Although both the “Job Training” and “Romance” plot threads are resolved via the Epilogue, Jane’s relationships with Alyssa and Julia are left dangling.  But hey, that’s what sequels are for.

 

    Nevertheless, I enjoyed The Devil Wears Scrubs.  I loved Jane’s snarky wit when contemplating the craziness of working in a hospital, liked the variety in the patients she encounters, and was even amused by the Romance angle of the storyline.  This was my first Freida McFadden book and I gather a majority of her novels are Medical Thrillers.  I intend to make a trip to the bookstore in the near future and purchase a couple of those.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  The low Goodreads rating for this book surprised me.  It seems a lot of the reviewers were horrified at the work conditions and personal goings-on that Jane is subjected to.  And while the medical details herein seem quite accurate, I’m sure Freida McFadden “stretched” some of the character development and wacky events in Jane’s life.  Hey, let's not forget that The Devil Wears Scrubs is filed under “Fiction”.

Soul Music - Terry Pratchett

   1995; 3739 pages.  Book 16 (out of 41) in “Discworld” series.  New Author? : No.  Laurels : #151 in the “Big Read”.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Satire; British Humour.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    The music is magical in Ankh-Morpork.  Especially the tunes being played by a newly-formed group, “The Band With Rocks In”.  It has listeners tapping their feet, snapping their fingers, and swaying with the beat.  What’s next, people fainting in the aisles?

 

    The wizards at the Unseen University are concerned.  The magic emanating from The Band With Rocks In is not one of their incantations.  An investigation is called for.  They’ll soon get to the bottom of things.

 

    Meanwhile, the Grim Reaper himself, Death, has taken a leave of absence.  It falls upon his granddaughter, Susan, to fill in on a temporary basis, even though she has zero experience swinging the scythe.

 

    So in summary, it’s just another normal day on Discworld.  Let’s go see Band With Rocks In down at the local pub tonight.

 

What’s To Like...

    Soul Music is first and foremost Terry Pratchett’s salute to the 20^th century music business.  In a nutshell, he plops it down in Discworld, among its dwarves, trolls, wizards, gods, and magic, and postulates how similar its development would be when compared to our world.

 

    This includes such things as forming a band and recording its music so that you can listen to it anytime, anyplace.  A number of our-world music idols received subtle nods from Pratchett.  For instance, one character is named “Satchelmouth”, which I eventually realized could be condensed to “Satchmo”, jazz favorite Louis Armstrong’s sobriquet.  Similarly, Imp, a bard whose guitar-playing is magical, is referred to as looking a bit “elvish”.  Well, he is short in stature, but there is a second way to interpret that “elvish” comparison.

 

    It is also fascinating to watch the coming-of-age of Susan.  She starts out as a student at a girl’s boarding school, and has a unique talent – she can turn invisible whenever she’s bored.  What a great way to skip boring classes!  But being the step-grandchild of Death forces her to come to grips with the Facts of Death (as opposed to the Facts of Life), and learn to pick up the Scythe, ride grandfather's horse Binky, team up with a rodent called "Death of Rats", and carry her family duties.

 

    Most of the tale takes place in Ankh-Morpork, so a lot of familiar characters show up, including C.M.O.T. Dibbler, the Librarian (ook!), Lord Vetineri, and Corporal Nobbs and Sergeant Colon of the City Watch.  Being a chemist, I also enjoyed the several times that Chemistry is resorted to, including using the compounds Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Chloride, and an rare chemical that my company used to manufacture, Ammonium Sulfide.  Wowza!

 

    As with any Discworld novel, the two main storylines rapidly split into a bunch of secondary ones, which keeps the pacing brisk.  As (almost) always, Terry Pratchett eschews the use of chapters , but that just means you can stop for the night at any paragraph break you encounter.  The ending is more heartwarming than exciting, and ties up all the plot threads tidily.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 6,236 ratings and 432 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.06/5 based on 84,620 ratings and 2,875 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Plangent (adj.) : loud, reverberating, and often melancholy.

 

Excerpts...

    The class was learning about some revolt in which some peasants had wanted to stop being peasants and, since the nobles had won, had stopped being peasants really quickly.  Had they bothered to learn to read and acquire some history books they’d have learned about the uncertain merits of things like scythes and pitchforks when used in a battle against crossbows and broadswords.  (pg. 39)

 

    “He says to tell you,” said Albert wearily, “that a chit of a girl means a small girl.  He thinks you may have misheard me.”

    Susan hunched up in the chair.  Albert pulled up another one and sat down.

    “How old are you?”

    “Sixteen.”

    “Oh my.”  Albert rolled his eyes.  “How long have you been sixteen?”

    “Since I was fifteen, of course.  Are you stupid?”  (pg. 76)

 

“Never give a monkey the key to the banana plantation.”  (pg. 218)

    As is normal for a Discworld novel, there’s only a smidgen of mild cussing in Soul Music.  I counted just six instances in the first third of the book, all of which were eschatological ones, and there are no adult situations to shield juvenile eyes from.

 

    There were two punctuation typos: The/Then and Fit’s/Fits.  I thought there was a spelling typo (surelly/surely), but it turns out that Imp’s accent results in prolonged emphasis on any “L sound” in his speaking.  My only other quibble is that two of my favorite City Watch characters—Sam Vimes and Carrot—didn’t make it into the tale.

 

    That’s all I can nitpick about.  I always have high expectations when starting to read a Discworld book, and once again, Terry Pratchett did not disappoint me.  Only two books from the series remain for me to read (I’m not reading them in order), and it will be a bittersweet day whenever I finish the entire series.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  There may be no chapter divisions, but Terry Pratchett’s trademark Footnotes are still plentiful here.  Also, if you’re new to the Discworld series, there’s a handy Glossary in the back of the book, which closes with a Discworld Trivia Quiz.  Fantastic!

Eye of Cat - Roger Zelazny

   1982; 235 pages.  New Author? : Mostly.  Genres : Native American Mythology; Science Fiction; Navajo Culture.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    The master galactic beast hunter, Billy Blackhorse Singer, has just been offered a job: stop an Stragean assassin who’s on her way to Earth to kill the UN Secretary General.

 

    It sounds easy enough, but this extraterrestrial has some enhancements that will help her in her mission.  Most importantly, she’s a shapeshifter.

 

    Hmmm.  That presents a challenge for Billy.  Humans can’t shapeshift.  He needs a partner who can do that, and remembers capturing an alien creature long ago that showed some shapeshifting tendencies, but no signs of being sentient.  Still, it’s in a cage down at the ILI (Interstellar Life Institute) in nearby San Diego, so why not go check it out?

 

    It'd be great if the beast turns out to be a sentient shapeshifter, but if so, I wonder what other hidden talents it might have.  And what it would take to get it to team up with Billy.

 

What’s To Like...

    Roger Zelazny is the author of several Science Fiction series, but ANAICT Eye of Cat is a standalone tale.  It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Billy successfully recruits the caged creature, who he dubs “Cat”, and who turns out to be both a shapeshifter and a telepath.  But its price for joining up with Billy is a stunner: in addition to being freed from its present cage-in-a-zoo situation, it wants a chance for revenge.  He wants one week to chase down and attempt to kill his erstwhile captor.  Billy.

 

    The main plot thread is a prolonged chase scene: first Billy and Cat contending with the assassin; then with Cat stalking Billy.  It isn’t easy avoiding a stalker who can effortlessly read every thought in your head.  Billy gets some help from a panel of human mentalists, but frankly, they are of limited value.

 

    There is a second, more subtle plot thread which I found to be more intriguing.  Billy is a Navajo, but he has “left the Blessed Way”, meaning he lives and thinks like a white man, and has forgotten his Navajo gods and legends.  It was fascinating to watch him gradually revert to his heritage.

 

    Most of the tale is set in Dinetah, the “Land of the Navajos” located in the Four Corners area of the western US.  Roger Zelazny incorporates a bunch of Navajo words into the text, and I really enjoyed that.  The story takes place in the near future, with strange things such as “float cars”, “Porta-phones”, and “Trip Boxes”.  Yeah, I know, we have Porta-phones now (we call them cell phones), but Eye of Cat was written in 1982.  And those Trip Boxes enable users to teleport, reminding me muchly of the TARDIS in the Doctor Who series.

 

    The ending is not particularly twisty, but suitably resolves the main plot threads.  The storylines are tied up, Billy gets reacquainted with his Navajo roots, and his soul finally finds peace.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 35 ratings and 20 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.64*/5, based on 1,763 ratings and 76 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Chindi (n.) : a spirit, usually malevolent; a ghost.

Others: Yetaalii (n.).

 

Excerpts...

    He thought of the old man’s words and the things of which they reminded him—of the sky creatures and water creatures, of the beings of cloud, mist, rain, pollen and corn which had figured so prominently in his childhood imagination—here in the season when the snakes and the thunder still slept.

    It had been a long while since he had considered his problems in the old terms.  A chindi . . . Real or of the mind—what difference?  Something malicious at his back.  Yes, another way of looking at things . . .   (loc. 245)

 

    “This beast can read thoughts.”

    “So it reads that there’s someone up ahead waiting to kill it.  Doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know that.  And if it keeps following, that’s what could happen.”

    “It can change shape.”

    “It’s still got to move in order to make progress.  That makes it a target.  Billy’s armed now.  It won’t have it as easy as you seem to think.”

    “Then why’d you decide to come?”

    “I don’t like to see any outsider chasing Navajos on our land.”  (loc. 2225)

 

Kindle Details…

    I bought Eye of Cat as part of a two-book bundle of Roger Zelazny sci-fi tales.  The other book is Isle of the Dead.  It appears Amazon no longer offers this bundle in e-book format; but you can buy the paperback version for a mere $59.99.  No, that is not a typo.  Eye of Cat as an unbundled e-book is presently not available at Amazon.

 

“You have been in the minds of too many Californians.  They’re full of pop psychology.”  (loc. 1478)

    There’s just a modicum of profanity in Eye of Cat; I counted only three in the first quarter of the book, all of them variations of damn.  The cussword choices get a bit more varied later on, even including an f-bomb, but on the whole, the expletives remained sparse.

 

    There were a number of typos, but most of these were spacing issues: Hewas, Hehad, Itis, Idropped, and theoldman.  I suspect these slip-ups arose during the e-book bundling conversion stage, and therefore I don't blame the author, who passed away in 1995. 

 

    A variety of literary tropes are sprinkled throughout the text, including flashbacks, deliberately garbled paragraphs and what I presume were newspaper headlines.  I found them to be more distracting than enlightening.  Your take may be different.  In any event, they became sparser as the book progressed.

 

    Overall, I thought Eye of Cat was an ambitious effort by Roger Zelazny that unfortunately falls a bit flat.  I enjoyed the Native American cultural aspects of the book, but the action scenes, although present, were few and far between.  Fortunately, Roger Zelazny’s writing skills do a good job of overshadowing the overly lengthy storyline.  The relatively mediocre Goodreads rating, listed above, reflects this.

 

    6 Stars.  One last thing.  There’s a brief but heartwarming “Dedication” at the beginning of the book that simply reads “For Joe Leaphorn, Jimmy Chee, and Tony Hillerman”.  If you know who these three are, and like their tales, you’ll enjoy Eye of Cat.