2005;
255 pages. New Author? : No. Full
Title : Wild Ducks Flying Backward, The Short Writings of Tom Robbins. Genre : Selected Writings. Overall Rating : 9*/10.
What
happens when you take the Novel out of a Novelist? Wild Ducks Flying
Backward examines Tom Robbins in that light via a slew of
short-but-diverse pieces he’s written over the course of nearly 40 years (1967-2005)
for a variety of magazines, newspapers, etc.
What
you get is a different shade of Robbins.
It’s more vivid, especially when’s he’s hyping the local (Seattle area) culture; and more complex when he’s reviewing a
celebrity. It’s also brighter when he’s
tossing a poem at you; and lighter when he’s composing a song or a ditty for
his young son.
What’s To Like...
The
writings aren’t in chronological order; they’re grouped into the following
sections :
Travel Articles (pg. 7)
Tributes (pg. 55)
Stories, Poems, and Lyrics (pg.
125)
Musings and Critiques (pg.
175)
Responses (pg. 225)
There’s a handy Table of Contents, so you can easily locate a
personal favorite. Tom Robbins’
travels, tastes, opinions, and creations cover a broad spectrum. If you run into a topic that doesn’t tickle
your fancy, be of good cheer – the next article will be on something completely
different.
FWIW, my favorite sections were the “Poems” and the “Responses”. But this is like picking your favorite
M&M color – all the sections were tasty.
My favorite articles were The Doors (55);
Leonard Cohen (77); Write About One
of your Favorite Things (225); Till
Lunch Do Us Part (188); and My Heart
is not a Poodle (153). He even includes three great pieces of Haiku,
a verse form that is easy to do, but almost impossible to do well.
But
it is Tom Robbins’ fabulous writing style and masterful vocabulary that will
have you gasping in awe. Without a
storyline to rein things in, he can let his literary artistry flow. The subject may bore you; the wordplay
wizardry will not. Every page dazzles.
Kewlest New Word...
Vagitus (n.)
: the crying of a newborn baby.
Excerpts...
Few who ever heard it forget her voice- which
sounds as if it’s been strained through Bacall and Bogey’s honeymoon sheets and
then hosed down with plum brandy. Or her
laugh – which sounds as if it’s being squeezed out of a kangaroo bladder by a
musical aborigine. (pg.
119)
To pragmatists, the letter Z is nothing more than a phonetically symbolic glyph, a minor sign
easily learned, readily assimilated, and occasionally deployed in the course of
a literate life. To cynics, Z is just an S with a stick up its butt.
Well, true enough, any word worth repeating
is greater than the sum of its parts; and the particular word-part Z – angular, whereas S is curvaceous – can, from a certain
perspective, appear anally wired (although Z
is far too sophisticated to throw up its arms like Y and act as if it had just been goosed). (pg. 225)
“The shore of Puget Sound is where electric guitars cut their teeth
and old haiku go to die.” (pg.
235)
There
were some slow spots. The tributes on
people I know were fascinating, but when it was someone I was unfamiliar with,
I lost interest. Ditto for some of the
Seattle artist blurbs – the critiques are detailed, but one gets the feeling
that there were pictures of the artists' works to go along with the original articles. In fairness, my curiosity was
piqued enough to google-image said artists.
I found Leo Kenney to be fantastic; Morris Louis to be so-so.
There
also were times – especially in the literary critiques – when Robbins’ writing
just went Whoosh!
right over my head. But I still enjoyed
the wordsmanship, and Robbins can hardly be faulted for not dumbing down his
literary intricacies to my level.
So
here’s an exercise to try. Select a
letter of the alphabet, and write a 2-page essay on it. When you’re done, compare it to Tom Robbins’
ode to the letter Z, the beginning of which is given in the second excerpt,
above.
See what I mean about him being a wordmeister sans pareil?
All
in all, Wild
Ducks Flying Backward demonstrates that Tom Robbins can pen a
stellar piece in just about any writing field he chooses. 9 Stars. Add
a half-star
if you live in the Seattle area; subtract one star if what you really read Tom Robbins for
is his crazy storytelling.
2011;
277 pages. New Author? : Yes. Genre : Military Science Fiction;
Action-Intrigue. Book 1 of the Evan Gabriel Trilogy. Overall Rating : 8½*/10.
It’s
2176 AD, and Evan Gabriel has been drummed out of the NAF Navy, the fall guy
for a bungled operation on Eden. Now
he’s being offered a full restoration of rank and honor – all he has to do is carry
out one extremely sensitive black-ops mission.
The mission seems noble enough – destroy an illicit drug-manufacturing
operation on an alien planet. But since
the same higher-ups who set him up before are now orchestrating this endeavor,
something smells fishy.
But
the rewards – both to Gabriel personally and to society in general – are worth
the risk. And if a spanner gets thrown into
the works, it will just have to be dealt with.
What’s To Like...
Steve
Umstead builds three fascinating worlds for the reader. There’s “post Dark Days” Earth (it was hit by an asteroid); Mars (once the cat’s meow, but now a backwater .
. .er. . . backdust hole-in-the-ground);
and Poliahu (an ice-bound, mineral-rich
planet a couple wormholes away).
Amazon labels this “Military Science Fiction”, and that seems
appropriate. It also has some “hard
Science Fiction” tendencies, but Umstead avoids getting overly technical (think Tom
Clancy) and overly scientific (think James Hogan).
The pace is crisp, and there’s plenty of action and intrigue. The book is a standalone, despite being part
of a series. There are enough plot
twists to keep your attention, and some nice, subtle touches, such as naming
one of the cities on Mars “Bradbury”. There are a couple snippets of Spanish and
Mandarin Chinese, and those are always a plus with me.
The characters are developed nicely, at least the good guys. Some of them don’t make it to the end of the
book, but probably not the ones you'd predict. The baddies are a tad stereotypical, yet comprise
a formidable and resourceful foe for our heroes.
Excerpts...
“Son,
is there a problem?”
“No, sir, not really, uh,” the tech
stammered. “It’s just that, well, one of
my subordinates said he saw a meteor come down nearby an hour ago. I mean, it’s probably nothing,” he said,
shrugging. “And he was out late last
night, so. . .”
“Where?” the chairman asked, cutting him
off.
“Where?
Uh, well I guess he was playing cards at Rita’s, where everyone goes
late at night. It’s the place near. . .”
“No,” the chairman said sharply. “Where did he see the meteor come down?” (loc. 1745)
They stood just over four feet tall,
bipedal, reminding Takahashi of a light-haired gorilla, but thinner, almost
emaciated. He chalked that up to the
lack of natural resources and food on the frozen planet. It was a wonder anything used to temperate
climates could have survived as long as they had. Then again, he thought, millions of them hadn’t. (loc. 2562)
Kindle Details...
Gabriel’s
Redemption sells for $3.49 at Amazon. The other two books in the trilogy, Gabriel’s Return and Gabriel’s
Revenge, are also available and sell for $3.99. There is also a short (91 pages) “prequel”, Gabriel : Zero Point, which is free
for the Kindle, but frankly, you don’t need to read it to enjoy this book.
“Eden again, it all goes back to Eden.”
(loc. 362)
The storytelling style is unique in that
you’re told fairly early the “what” and “who” of the intrigue. The fun then becomes trying to figure out the
“how”.
It’s weird, but it works.
The quibbles are few. Steve
Umstead supplies a helpful timeline, but puts it in the back of the book. Yes,
it’s listed and linked-to in the Table of Contents, but Kindle readers generally
just open to the first page of Chapter One, so most (including me) will be unaware it’s
there. Why not put it as a
quasi-prologue?
The other quibble is the stereotyping of a fat person as a vile and
disgusting character. Maybe that’s a
literary device (he’s
obese, so we don’t have to explain that he’s repulsive), but just once
I’d like to meet a character who can’t keep food and drink out of his hands,
yet who nevertheless saves the day.
But these are motes of dust on an otherwise shining piece of Science
Fiction. I found Gabriel's Redemption delightfully captivating,
and look forward to the rest of the books in the series. 8½ Stars.
2012;
315 pages. New Author? : Yes. Genre : Humor; Intrigue; Spoof. Overall Rating : 6½*/10.
What’s
that sticking out of the feed in the huge Butler Ag Co-Op grain elevator in
the remote little town of Hypothermia, Minnesota? Why, it’s a radio antenna. Attached to a 1962 Chevy Impala. With four fully-inflated tires and a full tank of gas. And in mint condition, no less. How the heck did it get in there?
Ah,
but Butler Ag management is more interested in the human angle of the story, so
they dispatch Bob (photographer) and Lenny (writer) to Hypothermia to
interview the manager of the grain elevator, Bert Ozaka, who made the discovery.
It’s
going to be a boring trip to the boring boondocks to swap some boring words
with a boring employee. That’s what Bob
and Lenny think, anyway. Boy, are they
in for a surprise.
What’s To Like...
With
a great title like Z is for Xenophobe, you
know this is going to be a spoof. There’s
plenty of action and Terry Faust keeps the pace going at a fast clip. The humor reminds me of Terry Pratchett,
although Faust’s biting wit is a bit more specific, and therefore edgier. If you’re a tea-bagger, you probably want to
skip this book.
The
plotline tends to run in circles – various good guys get captured, then escape,
then are captured again, then escape again.
But Faust uses it as a device to gradually introduce us to a
bunch of fascinating characters – some human, some extraterrestrial. The main characters are adequately developed,
even if several of them are flora, not fauna.
Overall,
Z is for Xenophobe is an entertaining
read that kept me turning the pages, both for the humor and for the storyline.
Excerpts...
Had
an interstellar Zen monk traveled fifty-two light-years from Earth and stumbled
across this sudden appearance, this something from nothing, this singular
singularity, he might have wondered to himself: If a wormhole portal opens twenty miles off the dark side of a moon of
Veggia, and no one is there to hear it, would it still make a sound? The monk’s question would be pointless not
only because sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum, but because someone was there –
two someones. (loc.
90)
Bert took another moment to expel his anger
and turned to Bob, “You couldn’t be like your friend and let well enough alone,
could you?”
“Friend?”
“Lenny, your coworker you boob! The jerk back in the hospital. You couldn’t be like Lenny?”
“Not without a frontal lobotomy.” (loc. 6141)
Kindle Details...
Z is
for Xenophobe sells for $4.99 at Amazon. The Amazon blurb indicates Terry Faust is
working on the sequel, Y is for Wiseguy.
“Holy weeding mung! We in deep compost.”
(loc. 107)
For all its positives, Z is for Xenophobe has one gaping weakness – it has no ending. None. Nada. Things just stop at a midpoint in another
capture-&-escape loop. You can’t
even call it a cliffhanger ending, since the rescuer pops up at the very end, although
the rescuing itself won’t come until Book 2.
For me, this was a show-stopper.
A reader has the right to expect a completed story. True, it may still be part of a series with a
greater plotline, but there still ought to be some sort of wrapping-up of the
immediate issue(s) at the end of every book.
It’s a ploy, of course. The
author wants you to buy the next book as well.
But the reader has to ask himself – will each book in the series have a
similar non-ending? Do we then wait
another year before being teased yet again?
The sad thing is, ZIFX doesn’t need
this sort of cheap trick. The storyline
and Terry Faust’s writing skills are both sufficiently captivating. And there are lots of other ways to keep the
readers thirsting for the sequel. The
issues at Hypothermia could’ve been resolved, but with Sigrid and Norvil
escaping to outer space. Gotnick and
M’Lack could show up in the epilogue, as a teaser for Book 2. Another wormhole could open, with
who-knows-what coming through. You get
the idea.
Alas, I can’t help but fear this is a literary Groundhog Day – an
endless, repeating plot-loop until someone – either the reader or the writer –
gets bored and bails. And that’s too
bad, because the universe and storyline
that Terry Faust has created here have vast potential as a series.
6½ Stars.
Add two
stars if non-existent or cliffhanger endings don’t bother you in the
least.
1991;
323 pages. New Author? : Yes and No. Book #1 (out of 7 or so) of the series “The
General”. Genre : Science Fiction; Space
Opera. Overall Rating : 8½*/10.
Raj
Whitehall is the Chosen One; the Avatar.
His task : to reunite the planet
Bellevue, and reverse the downward trend of its civilization. The odds are staggering. The enemy has a bigger and better army than
Raj’s ragtag crew. And jealous colleagues –
both military and political – wouldn’t be too unhappy to see Raj fail.
But he’s been chosen by God.
Well, actually it was a computer that wormed into his head. And although it can crunch data and spit out probabilities
with dazzling speed, it too has its limitations. Good luck to you, Raj. Here’s hoping your head doesn’t end up on a
pole.
What’s To Like...
The
setting is on a foreign planet, after the collapse of a pan-galactic
federation. The level of arms is roughly
Civil War era – swords and cannons; rifles and knives. Instead of horses, there are giant dogs to
ride into battle.
According to Wikipedia, David Drake developed the outline for the story,
and S.M. Stirling fleshed it out. The Forge certainly has a Stirling “feel” to
it. The action is fast-paced, and the
warfare is downright brutal. There is
blood and gore, rape and child molestation, and plentiful cussing. And this was all by the good guys. War is hell.
The computer-in-Raj’s-head is nicely done. Raj’s thoughts are in Italics, input from the computer in Bold. This makes it easy
for the reader to follow. The enemy
general, Tewfik, is a formidable foe; one might even say that he’s a more-skilled
commander than Raj. And Suzette, Raj’s wife,
will make you wonder who’s side she's on, and if the smartest one in Raj’s own household is female.
I
had mixed feelings about the treatment of religions. The worship of the computer is ingenious, but
the other religions found here are “real world” – Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam. The first two have only cameo
roles; but the bad guys here are all stereotyped Islamic fanatics. Given the prevalence of anti-Arab hatred in
the world today, one wonders why Stirling felt compelled to “fan the flames”
instead of inventing some otherworldly religions.
Kewlest New Word...
Loggia (n.)
: a gallery or room with one or more open sides, esp. one that forms part of a
house and has one side open to the garden.
Excerpts...
The trees left a narrow slit of moonlight down the crown
of the dirt road; the men of the 5th advanced up the sides by
sections, alternating right and left.
There was surprisingly little noise, but then these were hunters, after all; part of a boy’s training back home was to
be sent out with a rifle and one round, with a beating and no supper if he came
back without game. (pg. 104)
“They’ve got better engineers, we’ve got better mechanics
. . . I’m glad it’s Jamal in charge, though.”
“Why?” Gerrin asked, glancing up from a
whispered consultation with Kaltin Gruder.
“Tewfik’s a saber general, feint, feint,
off with your head. Jamal . . . I’ve
studied his campaigns in the east, and down against the Zanj. He uses the hammer-hammer method; walk up to
someone and start whipping on them with your hammer. If it breaks, you send back to stores for a
bigger hammer.” (pg. 265)
“Revenge tastes better as
dessert than appetizer.” (pg.
273)
The
two main battles are sketched out via maps in the back of the book. If you’re into war-gaming (moving a thousand little
individually-painted figures around a giant battleground arrayed upon a table),
then you’ll love the maps.
I didn’t need them – Stirling’s recounting of the battles is clear
and well-done. And I’m not a war-gamer,
although I have stood and watched the activity at my local D&D store.
There is one major weakness to The
Forge - the proofreading. It is
atrocious, and that’s putting it nicely.
I thought I was reading a self-published Kindle effort. Lead/Led; rein/reign; compell/compel;
excell/excel; (Spellcheck
is fighting me on these); plauge/plague; spurrs/spurs;
weasles/weasels; panneled/paneled; anymore/any more; seige/siege; troup/troupe;
survivers/survivors; lept/leapt; spunged/sponged; “cleanly” used as an
adjective. And the biggest one of all,
the planet Bellevue misspelled as “Bellview” on the back cover. Holy Slop-Job, Baen Books. I thought being picked up by a publishing
company meant professional editing.
8½ Stars. Subtract two stars if the horrors of war offend you; add one-half star
if, unlike me, you’re not a grammar Nazi.
2012;
270 pages. New Author? : Yes. Genre : It varies. Overall Rating : 4½*/10.
Poor
Mother Wingfield has been killed. In a
locked, closed room. One of her eyes was
gouged out. There are no
other wounds on her. And no murder weapon.
Thomas
Dekker would like to find out who did it and how it was done. But his interest is purely academic. He’s a playwright, and wants to use the case
as the plotline in his next play.
Maybe then he’ll achieve the lofty status – and income – of his
contemporary rivals, Christopher Marlowe and Will Shakespeare.
But not everybody is thrilled with his nosing around. Someone powerful wants to see his body floating in the
Thames.
What’s To Like...
The
setting – greater London in 1592 – is well-crafted. George Rees provides plenty of details to
make you feel at home with the then-&-there.
The theater portions felt quite real.
The likelihood of being jailed, put in the stocks, or hanged seemed
excessive, but I can’t say it’s inaccurate.
The prominence of the plague is certainly correct.
The main characters are developed nicely. The secondary ones - and there are a slew of
them - are detailed enough to make each one unique. There is some entertaining wit and humor
sprinkled in, along with some romance.
The breeches-less encounter with a
bull is a riot. But this is not a cozy;
there are adult situations and the F-word appears a number of times.
Unfortunately,
An Eye of Death has some vexing
problems. To wit :
Formatting Issues.
Even by Kindle standards, this was bad.
Quotation marks appearing haphazardly in a dialogue, sometimes one
apostrophe ('),
sometimes two (“). Random insertion of Shakespeare in places he
obviously wasn’t. And a plethora of the
esoteric “œ”, which almost always forebode the ensuing passage would be incomprehensible.
Genre-Hopping. The book's cover touts it as a Murder-Mystery, but only the very beginning
qualifies. It quickly turns into Historical
Fiction, which I found to be its finest phase.
Then it switches to Intrigue, followed by Action-Adventure. It finishes up being a Puzzle novel, as
our hero finally solves the closed-room enigma.
Continuity Issues. A
natural consequence of the genre-hopping.
At one point, a severed head rolls out on stage, but if an investigation
followed, the reader isn't given the details. Towards the end of the book, the
scene shifts to France for a prolonged battle sequence which has absolutely
no bearing on the plotline. Dekker’s
“solution” to the puzzle was unconvincing, and to me personally it suggested
suicide (albeit
a grisly one) rather than murder.
Ending. The
tension never builds, so the ending falls flat.
The political tide shifts in England, and all the intrigue
evaporates. Frankly, I was perplexed at
Dekker’s attitude towards the murder-puzzle.
He had only an academic interest.
Why not just contrive a solution himself, and avoid all the personal peril?
Kewlest New Word...
Cynosure (n.)
: a person or thing that is the
center of attention or attraction.
Excerpts...
If
snow be white, why then...”
“her breasts are dun,” completed Emilia getting into
the coach and sitting opposite me. She
had sent her maid on an errand. “You
read poetry, I see.”
“I write it too,” I replied with as
careless an air as I could muster.
“Ah, a poet. That fits with the being chased by
bailiffs. Poetry and poverty go together
like sweetmeats and toothache.” (loc.
248)
One evening in the Cross Keys I was eking
out my tankard of ale with sips that an abstentious flea would have regarded as
small while just such a pedant harangued the company about the book he was
writing on English pronunciation: “God has blessed us with a beautiful
language; after Greek, Latin and Hebrew, of course; a long way after. Where was I?”
“Just leaving,” suggested a man hopefully. (loc. 4727)
Kindle Details...
An
Eye Of Death sells for $2.99 at Amazon. ANAICT, George Rees does not have any other
books available there..
“People can do without plays, but they’ll always need shoes.”
(loc. 2616)
The above-mentioned issues made for a slow
read. The amazing thing is, flawed though An
Eye Of Death is, it could’ve been a very good read. Formatting issues aside, the author and the
book both have great promise, particularly if the storyline confines itself to
a single, predetermined genre. I’d vote
for Historical Fiction.
The other option is to turn this into an Alternate History novel. Lord knows, that genre can use some fresh
blood. Harry Turtledove’s Ruled Britannia (reviewed here) utilizes a related
theme (the
Spanish Armada conquers England), but there’s plenty of room here
for a different tack. The Earl of Essex
displaces the Queen. Sir Walter Raleigh
displaces the Queen. Dekker displaces
Shakespeare and Marlowe. The plague
decimates the English population, leaving it vulnerable to an invasion by (insert
nationality here – Spanish, French, Dutch, Papal, Scottish, etc.)
forces.
4½ Stars. Buy the right software; choose a genre and
stick with it; find some beta-readers (or hang the current ones); and recognize that
half of an author's time and effort is going to involve polishing and rewriting the first
draft.
1997;
449 pages. New Author? : No. Genre : Humor, Florida Crime Noir. Overall Rating : 8½*/10.
Lucky
JoLayne Lucks. She’s just won the state Lotto,
and it’s worth 28 million dollars. Actually, only
14 million, since there were two winning tickets. But hey, that’s still plenty of money for each
of them. It’s too bad the people with the
other winning ticket don’t see it that way.
Unlucky
Tom Krome. His newspaper has sent him to
interview JoLayne, and write a soft, feel-good article. The kind he hates. To boot, his wife refuses to give him a
divorce, and his mistress of two weeks is leaving him.
Go
ahead and make the trip, Tom. Madcap mayhem
lies a-waitin’.
What’s To Like...
If
it’s a book by Carl Hiaasen, you know it will be set in Florida, have interesting and
wacko characters, violence, romance, and above all zany humor. Lucky You
is no exception.
There are a slew of plotlines, involving everything from the lottery
tickets to miracle rackets, turtles, shopping malls, militias, and more. The pace is quick, and the action roams up and down the length of Florida. Some of the themes Hiaasen
examines are hilarious – a NATO invasion of the USA, the face of Jesus in an
oil-spill on the road, and the Zen of being a Hooters waitress.
But
Hiaasen also blends in some more serious themes – interracial relationships, water
management in Florida, and xenophobic tea-baggers (written several years before tea-baggers
arose).
The two protagonists – Tom and JoLayne – both have a streak of anti-hero
in them – especially when it comes to stable relationships. And the baddies may be all bad, but there’s
also a smidgen of charm in their paranoid stupidity.
In addition to the violence, there are drugs and alcohol; so don’t read
this if you’re a prude about these things.
Ditto if you happen to be a xenophobic tea-bagger, you won't like this book at all.
As
is always true with Hiaasen novels – this is a standalone story, with all the
plot threads and themes being resolved nicely at the end. The tale may be low-brow, but the writing is
topnotch.
Excerpts...
“I’ve got shitty news: Tom Krome’s dead.”
“No.”
“Looks that way. The arson guys found a body in the house.”
“No!” Sinclair insisted. “It’s not possible.”
“Burned beyond recognition.”
“But Tom went to Miami with the lottery
woman!”
“Who told you that?”
“The man with the turtles.”
“I see,” said the managing editor. “What about the man with the giraffes – what did
he say? And the bearded lady with
penguins – did you ask her?” (pg.
194)
Shiner remembered what Bodean
Gazzer had said about seat belts being part of the government’s secret plot to “neutralize
the citizenry.” If you’re wearing seat
belts, Bode had explained, it’ll be harder to jump out of the car and escape,
once the NATO helicopters start landing on the highways. That’s the whole reason they made the seat
belt law, Bode had said, to make sure millions of Americans would be strapped
down and helpless when the global attack was launched. (pg. 229)
“There wasn’t much
difference, when you got down to the core morality of it, between Mickey Mouse
and a fiberglass Madonna.” (pg.
13)
Lucky You was my fourth Carl Hiaasen book, and thus far, the
one I've most enjoyed. I’m not
sure if I’m slowly getting acclimated to his style of storytelling, or if his
books are “hit-or-miss”, and the last two have been “hits”. I think in this case, it was because some of
the themes – racial bigotry, gun nuts, and religious fraud – resonate with me.
It’s got to be hard to keep coming up with
fresh stories when your self-imposed geographic limitations are the borders of
Florida, but Hiaasen seems to be up to the task. 8½ Stars.
