The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow

   2019; 371 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Magical-Realism; Fantasy; Coming-of-Age.  Laurels: nominated for the Hugo Award (2020) – Best Novel, Nebula Award (2019) – Best Novel, Locus Award (2019) – Best First Novel, and at least seven others (you can see the list in Wikipedia).   Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    By any measure, young Miss January Scaller is living a privileged life.  As the ward of William Locke she gets to grow up in a mansion and learn the genteel way of social life.  Sometimes she even sees the world by accompanying Mr. Locke on his business trips.  Once they went to London!

 

    Yet hers is also a lonely life.  Her mother died soon after she was born, and January has no memories of her.  Her father is still alive, but she rarely sees him and even then, it’s only for a brief amount of time.  He’s constantly undertaking lengthy expeditions all over the world on behalf of Mr. Locke, searching for rare artifacts that Locke then either sells to other rich people or displays in some of the museum-like rooms at his mansion.  Frankly, it seems like glorified graverobbing to January.

 

    A life of privilege also means not having any friends.  Oh, there’s Samuel, who’s about her age, but he’s poor, and all he does is deliver groceries from his family’s store to the Locke mansion.  Sometimes he waves, but that’s about it.  Mr. Locke keeps January under close watch.

 

    January yearns for more freedom and some excitement in her life.  Something weird.  Like that time when she was seven years old and traveling in Kentucky with Mr. Locke and stepped through an old doorframe sitting abandoned in a field.  And was suddenly somewhere else.

 

    And wherever that “somewhere else” was, it definitely wasn’t in Kentucky anymore.

 

What’s To Like...

    Alix E. Harrow sets The Ten Thousand Doors of January in the latter half of the 1800’s and the first decade of the 1900’s, with occasional jumps to the 6900’s for reasons that would be spoilers to reveal.  Locke mansion is in Vermont, but Ninley, Kentucky plays an important role as well.  The initial storyline is told in the first-person POV (January’s), but starting around page 50, a second storyline is introduced.  It’s told in the third-person POV (for the most part anyway), which is how you can keep the two plotlines straight.

 

    It’s not a spoiler to reveal that the titular “Doors” (and according to January that term should correctly be capitalized), are portals, but we’ll leave it to the reader and January to figure out the where, when, how, and why of their usage.  The book’s story is a clever mix of intrigue, quest, fantasy, and coming-of-age genres, with a dash of romance and science fiction thrown in.

 

    Some of the divisions in the book are labeled “chapters”, some are labeled by the name of the Door that is featured therein, and a couple are labeled in what I’d call “thesis” fashion.  It isn’t as confusing as it sounds.  There are twelve of the “Door” chapters, so rest assured, you’re treated to lots of portal-hopping.

 

    I liked the literary nods to the various popular novels of January’s time, and the fact that most people read them as dime novels and/or penny dreadfuls.  I thought the “feel” of London at the opening of the 20^th century was nicely done, ditto for life at that time if you had the misfortune to be involuntarily committed to an insane asylum.  And the mention of  “mangles” as part of an old-fashioned laundry dryer brought back childhood memories; back then I called them “rollers”

 

     The ending addresses the “quest” aspect of the story.  It’s a reasonably happy resolution, but it also left a lump in my throat.  It allows room for a sequel, but doesn’t necessitate one, and I don’t believe Alix Harrow’s following (and only other) book, The Once and Future Witches, has any tie-ins to this one.  Still, in light of the great success of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, I’m hoping the author opts to set another novel in this world.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Temerarious (adj.) : reckless; rash.

Others: Feckless (adj.); Fricatives (n., pl.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 4,168 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.07*/5, based on 59,810 ratings and 10,927 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    He leaned toward me, hands crossed atop his cane.  “We’ll talk more soon, my dear.  Are you free tomorrow night?  I’d hate to be interrupted again.”

    I licked my slowly warming lips, tried to sound braver than I felt.  “Don’t–don’t you have to be invited in?”

    He laughed.  “Oh, my dear, don’t believe everything you read in the story papers.  You people are always trying to invent reasons for things.  Monsters only come for bad children, for loose women, for impious men.  The truth is that the powerful come for the weak, whenever and wherever they like.  Always have, always will.”  (pg. 160)

 

    If you’re some stranger who stumbled over this book by chance–−perhaps rotting in some foreign garbage pile or locked in a dusty traveling trunk or published by some small, misguided press and shelved mistakenly under Fiction – I hope to every god you have the guts to do what needs doing.  I hope you will find the cracks in the world and wedge them wider, so the light of other suns shines through; I hope you will keep the world unruly, messy, full of strange magics; I hope you will run through every open Door and tell stories when you return.  (pg. 364)

 

What a shameful thing, that a Scholar of the City of Nin should become a story-eater.  (pg. 227 )

    For me The Ten Thousand Doors of January was a near-perfect effort, so the following quibbles are miniscule.

 

    I struggled a bit at first to figure out what was going on and where the storyline was headed.  But there was a backstory and some worldbuilding to do, and once Alix Harrow got those out of the way, things came nicely into focus.  I was also slow to pick up on the significance of some of the names, and they play a crucial part of connecting the two main plotlines.  Finally, and worst of all, the dog dies.

 

    I suspect all this was deliberate on the author’s part; she treats the readers as adults and expects them to pay attention.  All the plotlines gradually come together, and it was a treat to watch the author deftly accomplish this, particularly in her debut novel.

 

    The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a fantastic book, full deserving of all the literary awards nominations it garnered.  It's a standalone novel and is suitable for all readers, YA or adult, male or female.  Yes, there are couple of cusswords, but nothing that little Susie and Timmy haven't heard before, and that is the extent of the R-rated stuff.

 

    9½ Stars.  What impressed me most of all about The Ten Thousand Doors of January was the freshness of its storyline.  Fantasy tales tend to almost always fall into one of two categories (or both):  a.) a kingdom needs to be saved, or b.) some Ultimate Evil needs to be vanquished.  Neither happens here.

Mr. Swirlee - Mike Faricy

   2011; 297 pages.  Book 2 (out of 26) in the “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Pulp Thriller; Crime Thriller; Murder-Mystery.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Somebody just tried to kill Mr. Swirlee!

 

    Well, at least he’s convinced of that, and wants Private Investigator Dev Haskell to figure out who it was.  Whoever it was rammed Mr. Swirlee’s car with their own, then fled the scene when the murder attempt failed.    However, Dev is not so sure it wasn’t just a hit-and-run fender-bender.  But hey, a job’s a job, so he dutifully looks into it.

 

    There’s certainly no shortage of people who think Weldon Swirlmann, Mr. Swirlee’s real name, is a royal butthead.  He’s a ruthless businessman and has a virtual monopoly on the neighborhood ice cream truck business for most of St. Paul, Minnesota.  But finding a motive is a lot harder; people may dislike Mr. Swirlmann, but nobody seems likely to gain financially by offing him.

 

    Perhaps it was Mr. Swirlee’s small-time business competition, “The Giant Scoop Ice Cream Company”.  Maybe one or both of the two cute sisters who try to keep their meager fleet of ice cream trucks running is the culprit.  But when their business burns down, it kind of eliminates them as suspects, and Dev has to admit that misfortunes hitting two ice dream truck companies at almost the same time seems like more than a coincidence.  

 

    So you better find a suspect soon, Dev.  Mr. Swirlee doesn’t buy into your hit-and-run theory, and he’s one of those guys who believes that if you’re a PI and you don’t come up with a perpetrator, you don’t get paid.

 

What’s To Like...

    Mr Swirlee is a fast, easy read with interesting characters and lots of action, sleuthing, and intrigue throughout the story.  It is Book Two in Mike Faricy’s Dev Haskell – Private Investigator series.  Book One, Russian Roulette, is the only other one I’ve read so far, and is reviewed here.  The author writes in “storytelling” style, aka “plot-driven”, with an emphasis on keeping the plotlines developing at a rapid pace without slowing things down with stuff like in-depth character studies. 

 

    Unsurprisingly, the initial, straightforward plotline (was it a hit-and-run or attempted murder?) quickly becomes a lot more complex.  Potential suspects keep turning up dead, Mr Swirlee’s ice cream trucks seem to be moonlighting at night, and after due consideration, the St. Paul police declare Dev to be a "person-of-interest" because his car stinks.

 

    Dev Haskell makes for a great anti-hero.  He drinks a lot and can’t look at any girl he meets without thinking about taking her to bed.  Some reviewers find this off-putting, but it reminded me of 50’s-era pulp crime fiction.  There are a couple of nice “whodunit” plot twists along the way to keep you on your toes, and with 72 chapters covering 297 pages, there’s always a convenient place to stop reading for the night.

 

    The ending is both hard-boiled and a bit weird.  It doesn’t address the “whodunit” aspect of the story so much as the “how are we going to resolve this” slant.  Not all of the plot threads get tied up, yet the tale somehow achieves a “finished” feel to it.  Mr. Swirlee is a standalone novel as well as part of a 26-book series.  The author notes that the books don’t need to be read in order, and based on the two I’ve read so far, I agree.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.9/5 based on 475 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.62/5 based on 953 ratings and 101 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Detective Manning, Dev Haskell.”

    “I can see that.”

    “Any progress on Bernie Sneen?”

    “I really don’t care to comment about an ongoing investigation.”

    “I might have something for you.”

    “Such as?”

    “You interested in trading a little information?”

    “Are you interested in being held without bail?”  (loc. 5239)

 

    “So how’d it go?”

    “I don’t know.  I guess I sort of expected him to slap me on the back and say, ‘Thanks, we’ll take it from here.’  Instead, he told me it would be best for the authorities to proceed and let justice take its course.”

    “He actually said that, the justice part?”

    “Yep.”

    “You know, I just think it might be a good idea if a lot of people see you in a public place tonight.”

    “What?”

    “Alibi.”  (loc. 7023)

 

Kindle Details…

    Mr. Swirlee sells for $3.99 at Amazon, as do the other 25 books in this series.  But you can buy the first seven books bundled together for a mere $9.99, which is what I opted for.  You can pick up the Books 8-14 bundle for the same price.  Mike Faricy also has a 5-volume series called “Hotshot”, which I’ve yet to read, with those books priced in the $0.99 or $3.99 range.

 

“You know, you seem to be developing an incredible knack of associating with people who fall prey to violent deaths.”  (loc. 7034 )

    There are some quibbles, most of which I also had with Book One.

 

    First of all, there’s cussing aplenty.  Chapter One alone has eight instances of it, and there are 71 more chapters similarly cuss-filled.  If that’s too excessive for you, you'll be happy to know that Mike Faricy’s Hotshot series is labeled “Humorous Cozy Mystery Thriller”, and might be more to your tastes.

 

    Also, the “whodunit” angles of the assorted slayings are once again not fully tied up.  Oh, you get some idea of who the perpetrators are, but there is no “Perry Mason moment” where the killer is presented with irrefutable evidence and makes a full, self-damning confession.  Then again, those courtroom confessions never did seem believable to me, and to be fair, Mike Faricy calls Mr. Swirlee both a Mystery, (which demands a whodunit resolution); and a Thriller (which only requires that the hero live to sleuth another day).  Perhaps I need to read this series for the thrills, not the murder-solving.

 

    8 Stars.  Same as I gave Russian Roulette.  Subtract ½ Star if you prefer cozy mysteries to gritty ones.  Add ½ Star if you don't care if the murderer isn't revealed, as long as the good guys save the day.

Out of the Soylent Planet - Robert Kroese

   2017; 242 pages.  Full Title: Out of the Soylent Planet (A Rex Nihilo Adventure).  Book 0 (out of 4) in the “Starship Grifters” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; Spoof.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Rex Nihilo and Sasha.  A wheeling-dealing con artist and an incapable-of-lying android.  A pair of cosmic connivers.  The Galactic Malarchy’s maladroit malady.  And the two main characters in Robert Kroese’s hilarious “Starship Grifters” series.

 

    But inquiring minds want to know: when, where, and how did they first meet up?  When you encounter them in Book One (reviewed here), they’re already a two-man, um, well… one-human-one-robot… dynamic duo, gallivanting around the universe in search of moneymaking opportunities and gullible marks.  Well, that’s what Rex is doing anyway; Sasha job seems mostly to be to talk Rex out of going through with his hastily-conceived and poorly-executed scams.

 

    Now at last we are given the answers.  Out of the Soylent Planet is the prequel to this series, even though it is chronologically the third book, publishing-wise.  So slip on your space suit, hop into your hovercar, and don’t forget to pack your lazeweapon of choice.

 

    We’re going adventuring with Rex and Sasha!

 

What’s To Like...

    There’s no drop-off in quality in Out of the Soylent Planet just because it’s a prequel; there’s just as much wit, slapstick spoofery, and  birskly-paced action as in the first two books.  The story is short, just 202 pages covered by 27 chapters, but there's also a 40-page bonus short story, The Chicolini Incident, tacked on, and it’s just as much fun to read as the main tale.

 

    The story is once again told in the first-person POV by Sasha.  Other than her and Rex, I recognized only one other recurring character: the Malarchian bad guy Heinous Vlaak, although it’s been a couple of years since I read the first two books in this series.  Happily, there are a bunch of new folks to meet and greet: some baddies, such as Bergoon the Grebatt and Andronicus Hamm; some goodies, such as MASHER-7719 (aka “Bill”) and my favorite newcomer, a shambler named Stubby Joe, who’s the green beastie you see of the book’s cover.

 

    I was impressed that the old Broadway play “A Streetcar Named Desire” could be worked into the story; ditto for the BeeGees disco hit “Stayin’ Alive”.  There are a couple nods to Sci-Fi movies; the book’s title clues you in to one of them.  And the acronyms used are both clever and droll, as are the assortment of critters encountered.

 

    You’ll experience the sublime joy of eating oodles and oodles of creamed corn, and learn that the best job to have on Jorfu is that of a "Soylent Wrangler".  The second-best job is being a Quality Assurance supervisor, a career near and dear to my heart.  And for pun enthusiasts, there is an unforgettable and lengthily-contrived one near the end of the story.

 

      The ending is sufficiently clever, as Rex saves the day with one of his many spur-of-the-moment schemes.  He and Sasha escape their troubles and blast off to further adventures, leaving a couple of grudge-holding baddies in their wake, screaming for revenge.

 

    The Chicolini Incident is also worth your time, with lots of humor to keep you turning the pages.  Rex attempts a multiple-phase arms deal scam, and the usual mayhem and unexpected twists arise.  In his foreword, Robert Kroese warns that The Chicolini Incident is guilty of a cliffhanger ending, and explains why, but I thought the tale ended at a logical place.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Sophistry (n.) : The use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intent of deceiving.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 96 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.11/5 based on 294 ratings and 42 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Now many of you have probably heard that you’re going to be literally ground up and made into SLOP,” Sloppy continued.  “Let me assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.  Setting aside the occasional industrial accident, there is simply no possibility you’ll be ground up and made into SLOP as long as you remain a productive Ubiqorp employee.  And when your productive output falls below a minimum threshold, you’ll be painlessly euthanized, pulverized and added to the soil additive mixture in our plantations.”

    “Well, I feel better,” said Rex.  (loc. 1955)

 

    “I am in love with Stubby Joe,” Bill announced.  “I am sorry, Mistress Ono.  I do not believe things are going to work out between us.”

    I was too stunned to respond.  Rex said what we were all thinking.  “You realize you’re a robot and Stubby Joe is a talking plant, right?”

    “Love transcends such categories,” Bill said, taking one of Stubby Joe’s tentacles in his giant, pincer-like hand.  (loc. 3525)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now Out of the Soylent Planet costs $4.99 at Amazon.  The other books in the series all sell for $4.99 apiece.  Robert Kroese has more than a dozen other e-novels, some in other series, some standalones, and ranging in price from $2.99 to $13.99; as well as several short stories for $0.99.

 

“Have you ever spent three days in a wuffle field, watching for skorf-rats trying to run off with your squishbobbles?”  (loc. 175 )

    There’s not much to quibble about in Out of the Soylent Planet.  The primary plotline – Rex and Sasha’s attempts to escape from a slave planet, might seem somewhat modest, but the main purpose of the book is to present a plausible backstory for our two protagonists, and in that regard it succeeds nicely.

 

    There’s a smidgen of mild cussing, which is the norm for this series, and a miniscule dab of romance, albeit interspecies-to-the-extreme in nature, which you can get a glimpse of in the second excerpt, above.

 

    Finally, one of the running gags throughout the book is Rex’s persistent mangling of Sasha’s name.  Surprisingly, this clears up about ¾ through the story, only to start up once more near the end.  I thought there was some significance to this – like Rex beginning to accept Sasha as an equal - but if so, it wasn’t consistent since it didn’t last.  Oh well, let’s chalk that up to me overthinking things.

    But none of this nitpicking is significant.  Out of the Soylent Planet was a fast, fun read for me, and my only regret is that there's only one more book in the series, The Wrath of Cons, that I haven't read.  It came out in October 2018, and since Robert Kroese hasn't published any more Rex Nihilo adventures since then, I'm going to assume this is a completed series.

 

    8 Stars.  On a personal note, I chuckled out loud about a company mentioned early on by Rex called “Gro-Mor”, apparently a galactic agricultural company, since Rex mentions that they employ irrigation bots.  A long time ago, the company I worked for did business with a company called Gro-Mor (with one minor spelling variation), also in an agrochemical capacity, and it was spooky to see them pop up again here.

Come As You Are - The Story of Nirvana - Michael Azerrad

   1993 (except the last chapter); 358 pages.  Full Title: Come As you Are – The Story of Nirvana.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Music; Biography; Grunge.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Nirvana was a three-man band from the greater Seattle area consisting of Kurt Cobain (lead singer & guitarist), Krist Novoselic (bassist), and, after five or six others early on, Dave Grohl (drummer).

 

    Nirvana is arguably the poster-child for the alt-rock subgenre “Grunge”, which first sprang up in the late 80’s and 90’s in the Seattle area, fusing together elements of heavy metal, pop, and punk-rock.  Nirvana is certainly not the first band to be labeled “grunge”, but it’s fair to say that they were the ones who propelled it forward from a local phenomenon into the mainstream music market via their incredibly popular album Nevermind, 

 

    Inherently, Rock-&-Roll needs to go through periodic revitalization in order to keep it fresh, vibrant and worthy of each new teenage fanbase's attention.  Punk had done this a half-dozen years earlier, providing an “in-your-face” alternative to the bland, rock-pop songs marketed by record companies for their mass appeal to listeners of all ages.  But now commercial success had tamed the punk rockers, and it was grunge’s time to give voice to the next generation of music-lovers looking for something new, raw, and edgy.

 

    Nirvana’s rise in the grunge scene was meteoric, but also sadly short-lived, ending abruptly in 1994 with Kurt Cobain’s suicide.  Come As You Are is their biography, as told by the respected music journalist Michael Azerrad.

 

What’s To Like...

    In preparation for his book Come As you Are, Michael Azerrad spent more than 25 hours interviewing Kurt Cobain, starting in February 1993.  The book was published the following October.  There were 18 chapters, the title of each one being a short quote from that chapter.  The book closed on a tenuous-yet-hopeful note, then Kurt committed suicide a half year later, on April 5, 1994, forcing Azerrad to add a nineteenth chapter.  I was struck by just how many suicide “clues” (Azerrad rightly calls them “announcements”) Kurt gives during the interviews, although of course I had the advantage of knowing how it would all turn out.

 

    As the title states, this is a story of Nirvana, not just Kurt Cobain.  Michael Azerrad also interviewed Krist and Dave, plus several ex-members of the band.  The result is an even treatment of some of the more-sensitive band-related material.  When Kurt laments that he had to fire one of the former drummers, said drummer remembers it differently – he says he quit.  Azerrad details intra-member band tensions the same way, which results in some enlightening insights.  Kurt may grouse that he has to do all the songwriting, but Krist and Dave point out that Kurt never asked for their input.  Courtney Love’s role in the rise and fall of Nirvana is similarly revealing.

 

    The book is a trivia buff’s delight.  You’ll read how Nirvana once got kicked out of their own record release party and learn that not one Nirvana song ends with a fade-out; why the author calls Frances Farmer (who?!) “the Cobains’ patron martyr”, that the name “Cobain” is a corruption of the name “Coburn”, and that people who live in Kurt’s hometown of Aberdeen are called “Aberdonians”.    Michael Azerrad also gives brief reviews of every track on every Nirvana studio album (plus the demo tapes), explaining the meaning of the lyrics (when there is one), and how each song, album title, and cover art, came to be.  Scattered throughout the book are some great photos (taken mostly while on tour) and some of Kurt’s sketches.

 

    Michael Azerrad namedrops a slew of other bands – some local, some “grungy”, and some Nirvana's touring partners, and I loved that.  Kurt adored some of these, such as Sonic Youth, but openly mocked others, such as fellow grunge bands Pearl Jam, and Guns N’ Roses, particularly Axl Rose.  I was surprised to learn that Nirvana in the early days covered songs from diverse genres, including CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising”, Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”, and even Cher’s “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves”.  Equally astounding was the fact that Tori Amos once did a piano version cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 233 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.05*/5, based on 8,346 ratings and 190 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Finally, the band settled on Nirvana, a Hindu and Buddhist concept which Webster’s defines as “the extinction of desire, passion, illusion and the empirical self and attainment of rest, truth and unchanging being.”  (,,,)

    “I wanted a name that was kind of beautiful or nice and pretty instead of a mean, raunchy punk tock name like the Angry Samoans,” says Kurt.  “I wanted to have something different.”  These days Kurt isn’t so crazy about the name anymore.  “It’s too esoteric and serious,” he says.  And later on, he’d have to pay another band fifty thousand dollars for a name he didn’t even care for that much.  (loc. 1157)

 

    One night, Kurt and Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill had gone out drinking and then went on a graffiti spree, spray painting Olympia with “revolutionary” and feminist slogans (including the ever-popular “GOD IS GAY”).  When they got back to Kurt’s apartment, they continued talking about teen revolution and writing graffiti on Kurt’s walls.  Hanna wrote the words “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit.”  “I took that as a compliment,” says Kurt.  “I thought that was a reaction to the conversation we were having but it really meant that I smelled like the deodorant.  I didn’t know that the deodorant spray existed until months after the single came out.”  (loc. 3448)

 

Kindle Details…

    Come As you Are presently sells for $14.99 at Amazon.  Michael Azerrad has two other e-books for you, both in the “rock music” genre: Our Band Could Be Your Life for $2.99 (which is a fantastic price), and Rock Critic Law for $8.99.  There are various biographies of Kurt Cobain and/or Nirvana by other authors, most of which seem to be in the $2.99-$11.99 price range.

 

 

“All in all, we sound like the Knack and the Bay City Rollers being molested by Black Flag and Black Sabbath.”  (loc. 3007 )

    The tone of Come As you Are is at times gritty and events - both good and bad - are presented in a matter-of-fact fashion.  For me, this approach heightened the book’s believability.  As expected, there is a ton of, and an incredible variety of drug-&-alcohol use/abuse.  The mood turns somber when it details Kurt's assertion that his shooting up heroin was okay because it relieved his stomach pains, something that even Michael Azerrad is skeptical of.  Things get even sadder when Kurt and Courtney are both addicted to heroin and going in and out of rehab while trying to raise their child.

 

    There’s a fair amount of cussing, although not as much as I expected in a book filled with direct quotes from a grunge band's personnel.  I counted 17 instances in the first 20% of the book.

 

    The ending (the post-suicide chapter) recaps the events that transpired in the months after the book’s first publication up to Kurt’s suicide on the fifth of April, then jumps to the details of a public vigil (“memorial service”) held later that month.  But you’ll find very little about the suicide itself.  I suspect that the 25 hours of interviewing forged a close bond between the author and Kurt, and having to research and write about the suicide would’ve been just too painful.

 

    Full disclosure: I knew very little about Nirvana’s music (other than “Smells Like Teen Spirit”), and certainly nothing about the band’s history and any of its members other than Kurt.  I'm also leery of labeling any biography book I read (and even more so, any autobiography) “non-fiction” because usually it consists of some famous person, or his biographer, telling his version of events from a biased perspective of self-interest.  Here, Michael Azerrad also gives you the “other sides" of the story, and that impressed me.  Overall, I found Come As You Are to be both enlightening and believable.

 

    8½ Stars.  We’ll close with Nirvana trivia question:

    Q.: How many (full-length) studio albums did Nirvana put out over the course of their career?  (the answer is in the comments)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling

   2003; 870 pages.  Book 5 (out of 7) in the “Harry Potter” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Fantasy; YA; Adventure.  Laurels: Winner - 2004 Oppenheim Toy Portfolio’s “Gold Medal”; Winner – 2003 American Library Association’s “Best Book for Young Adults” award.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Once again, Harry Potter can’t wait for school to begin once again at Hogwarts.  That’s mostly because once again he’s spent the summer with the Dursleys, his aunt, uncle, and cousin, all of whom are Muggles, and all of whom are irritated by his presence.

 

    Harry’s also in a prolonged funk because it seems like all his wizardly friends, fellow students and professors have for some reason stopped communicating with him.  It’s almost as if they’re deliberately keeping him in the dark about what’s going on.

 

    That could be life-threatening for Harry.  The evil Lord Voldemort got loose last year, and Harry barely survived his encounter with him.  It would be helpful to know what foul deeds Voldemort is currently up to, and what the wizards are doing to restrain him.

 

    But maybe you don’t want to know, Harry.  Yes, you're stuck for the summer in the non-magical world of Muggles, but at least that’s someplace where evil minions don’t tread.

 

    Until now.

 

What’s To Like...

    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix continues two trends in J.K. Rowling's mega-popular series: the books keep getting longer and the tone keeps getting darker.  I view both of those as plusses, not minuses.  The paperback version I read clocked in at 870 pages, a hefty tome for the recommended reading age of 8-12 years (grades 4-7), which, for the record, makes it the longest book in the series.  And tone-wise, just about anything that can go wrong for Harry does so.

 

    There’s a slew of plot threads to keep readers turning the pages.  Some of these are: a.) Harry finds himself facing expulsion from both Quidditch in particular and Hogwarts overall, b.) Hagrid has gone missing, c.) Mrs. Figg, Mrs. Weasley, and Aunt Petunia are all acting a bit strange, d.) the Ministry of Magic is sending someone to evaluate every professor at Hogwarts, even Dumbledore, and not even Snape has a secure job, e.) why can Harry (and several others) see ghost creatures, f.) more importantly, why is he in such a crappy mood, even after he’s back at Hogwarts, and most importantly, g.) what’s Voldemort got up his sleeve?

 

    There are some fresh faces to add to an already lengthy Cast of Characters.  Most of the members of the Order of the Phoenix were new to me including the fascinating Nymphadora Tonks.  New student Luna “Loony” Lovegood is a great add to Harry’s circle of friends, and Cho Chang infuses just the right touch of a prospective romance to 15-year-old Harry’s life.

 

    The vocabulary is delightfully “English” (prats, gits, hosepipes, berks, skiving, etc.), but the punctuation and spelling are in “American”, which is the ideal combination for American readers.  It’s always fun to learn new phrases and words used across the pond, three of which are listed below.  I think we Yanks need to start using “Wotcher” in our daily lingo.

 

    As usual, there are a bunch of new beasties, spells, and gadgets for the reader to marvel at.  We won’t list all of them here, but my favorites in each category were: thestrals, disillusionment, and skiving snackboxes.  I finally figured out who Padfoot and Prongs were; years ago I had some blog acquaintances who had adopted those names.

 

    Everything builds to an exciting and memorable climax, with lots of wizards and witches casting lots of spells and counter-spells at each other.  The ending is spread out over three chapters:  one for the fighting, one for explanations, and one for an epilogue.  The plans of the baddies are thwarted, but most of them will live to fight another day.  The good guys will regroup and mourn their losses.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Taking the mickey (v., phrase) : affectionately teasing of making fun of someone.

Others: Wotcher (British greeting, slang); “Chuck us another Frog” (I never did figure out what this meant).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.8*/5, based on 21,936 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.50*/5, based on 2,603,071 ratings and 44,161 reviews.

 

Things that sound dirty, but aren’t…

“Wand still in your jeans?  Both buttocks still on?  Okay, let’s go.”

 

Excerpts...

    “Excellent,” said Lupin, looking up as Tonks and Harry entered.  “We’ve got about a minute, I think.  We should probably get out into the garden so we’re ready.  Harry, I’ve left a letter telling your aunt and uncle not to worry-“

    “They won’t,” said Harry.

    “That you’re safe-“

    “That’ll just depress them.”

    “-and you’ll see them next summer.”

    “Do I have to?”  (pg. 54)

 

    Even by Harry’s low standards of Divination, the exam went very badly.  He might as well have tried to see moving pictures in the desk-top as in the stubbornly blank crystal ball; he lost his head completely during tea-leaf reading, saying it looked to him as though Professor Marchbanks would shortly be meeting a round, dark, soggy stranger, and rounded off the whole fiasco by mixing up the life and head lines on her palm and informing her that she ought to have died the previous Tuesday.  (pg. 717)

 

“You can laugh! (…) But people used to believe there were no such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!”  (pg. 262)

    Those Amazon and Goodreads ratings listed above for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix are simply phenomenal, but I nevertheless found a couple nits to pick, albeit nothing of importance.

 

    If you avidly await the annual Quidditch matches at Hogwarts, you might be disappointed here.  Gryffindor’s initial game is presented in glorious detail, but all the others get kind of glossed over.

 

    I was a bit surprised how little the titular Order of the Phoenix impacted the story.  Yes, they supply some “magical muscle” for the final battle, but the faculty at Hogwarts could’ve done the same thing.  However, I suspect that they will play a bigger role in the next two books in the series.

 

    Finally, I failed to note any new puns introduced.  A couple of oldies, such as “Diagon Alley” and the “Pensieve”, crop up again, but if there were any new ones, I missed them.

 

    But I pick at nits.  Overall, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a fine addition to the series, and if you don’t believe me, check out those more than 44,000+ reviews that people have thus far left at Goodreads.

 

    9 Stars.  There was a three-year gap between the previous book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (reviewed here) and Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix.  Do you think that any readers might have gone through “Harry Potter withdrawals” during this lull?  Well, when this book was finally published, it sold five million copies in the first 24 hours.  Wowza.