T-Rexes & Tax Law - Rachel Ford

   2019; 217 pages.  Book 1 (out of 9) in the “Time Travelling Taxman” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Time Travel Sci-Fi; Multiverses; Humorous Science Fiction.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

 

    Meet Alfred Favero, Senior Analyst for the IRS.  He may or may not be the best agent they have, but he certainly is the most zealous one.  Some might also describe him as conceited, but they’re probably just jealous.

 

    Alfred holds a special scorn for people who cheat on their taxes, and he’s just been assigned an important case: to hunt down the executives of a company called Futureprise, which specializes in some murkily-defined sort of speculative venture.  Whatever they’re into, it doesn’t matter, the IRS suspects them of underreporting their taxes, and now the whole company – from CEO to bottle-washers, has mysteriously packed up and left town.

 

    The prime IRS target is Futureprise’s CEO and founder David Garrity, and Alfred is willing to go to the ends of the Earth to find him and bring him to justice.

 

    That’s mighty noble of you, Alfred, but the more apropos question is: are you willing to go to the beginning of Time to bring him in?

 

What’s To Like...

    T-Rexes & Tax Law is an ambitious effort to combine several of my favorite Science Fiction subgenres, namely Time-Travel, Multiverses, Anti-Heroes, and Humor; then tossing in the Tax-Cheat angle, which results in a really unique storyline.

 

    I liked that Alfred is quite a butthead to start out with.  The banter between him and his fellow IRS agent and IT specialist, Nancy Abbot, is witty and entertaining.  It was fun to watch how Alfred’s demeanor mellows and matures in the presence of Nancy.  Could he possibly be ever-so-slightly falling in love?  I also enjoyed the fact that the David Garrity and his Futureprise employees are not simply portrayed as “black hats”.  There are some understandable reasons for their sudden disappearance.

 

    As the book’s title and cover image indicate, dinosaurs show up, including the mightiest of them all, T-Rex.  He’s joined by some pterosaurs, hadrosaurs, and a particularly pesky plesiosaur; and all these were indeed present in the Cretaceous Period, which is where our time-traveling agents are dumped, some 67 million years ago.

 

    The Multiverse slant is ambitious as well.  Most sci-fi novels assiduously avoid any chrono-hopping paradoxes (what if I go back in time and shoot my parents before I was born?); but Rachel Ford revels in them.  Humor in a work of fiction is always a personal taste, but I liked the way it was done here.

 

    If you hate having to keep track of dozens of characters in a storyline, then T-Rexes and Tax Law is your kind of book.  The only folks to keep close watch on are our two IRS protagonists, the CEO of Futureprise, and the company driver, Josh, a hunk about whom Nancy and Alfred have differing opinions.

 

    The ending is okay, but nothing special.  It resolves the primary Multiverse conundrum, but it’s not very tense and leaves all sorts of facets unresolved, such as the superior weaponry of beings from other dimensions.  But there’s another eight books in this series to address all that.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Disapprobation (n.) : strong disapproval, typically on moral grounds.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 129 ratings and 83 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.91*/5, based on 231 ratings and 67 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Alfred’s sleep became uneasy, and he started and twitched, drawing away from the water.  But the spray continued.

    Finally, he woke.  He was not at sea, or the victim of churning waters.  On the contrary, his situation was far, far worse.  He was propped in a chair, with a great, drooling reptile standing over him, slobbering on his face and arms.

    Piercing shrieks split the early morning stillness.  Later, he was glad that the campus was deserted; those screams, he was sure, would have been audible from one end of the oasis to the other.  (loc. 297)

 

    “What I’m saying is, Alfred, you heard the words, but you didn’t listen to my point.  You just responded.  You didn’t think about what I was saying.  You just – you always – want to be right.”

    “But…I usually am,” he said.  It sounded conceited, but he didn’t mean it that way.  On balance, he was right more often than he was wrong; and it seemed as a general rule simpler and safer to operate on the assumption that, in a conflict situation, he was in the right.

    She was incredulous.  “Do you hear yourself?”  (loc. 610)

 

Kindle Details…

    T-Rexes & Tax Law currently costs $0.99 at Amazon.  The other eight books in the series are all priced at $3.99 each.  Rachel Ford has several more series for your reading enjoyment, plus a few standalone novels.  Those e-books run anywhere from $2.99 to $6.49, with most of them costing $4.99.

 

 

If a Mars rover and Humvee had a love child, this, he thought, is what it would look like.  (loc. 783)

    There are some other issues besides the already-mentioned ho-hum ending in T-Rexes & Tax Law.  In brief:

 

    Dinosaurs may be present, but they don’t play a big part in the storyline.  The T-Rex scares our heroes, and the plesiosaur rocks the boat, but that’s about it.  Late in the story, a bunch of them dwelling in our present-day world get rounded-up and time-deported, and all that easy task is worth is a passing mention.

 

    The book is plagued by “spellchecker” typos, such as Garrity’s/Garritys, wroth/wrath, and at least five cases of hanger/hangar.  Commas were also frequently misused.

 

    The cussing is not excessive, but more than I’d expect if the target audience is YA.  I counted 12 instances in the first 25% of the book, including two f-bombs.

 

    Finally, the storyline itself is not compelling.  We start off with a Time-Traveling tale sprinkled with lots of Humor.  Then the humor tails off, and Multiverses pretty much push the Time-Traveling out of the spotlight.  The ending felt rushed, and I was left wondering if any proofreading, beta-reading, and/or polishing was done before publishing this.

 

    6½ Stars.  Despite the technical flaws, T-Rexes & Tax Law still held my interest and kept me turning the pages.  I think that says something about Rachel Ford’s writing skills.

Hollow City - Ransom Riggs

   2014; 428 pages.  Book 2 (out of 6) in the “Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : YA; Dark Fantasy; Time-Travel; Coming of Age.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    They are a motley crew.  Ten English children – peculiars, all of them – plus one damaged peregrine falcon are now fleeing for their lives, with deadly wights and hollowgasts in close pursuit.

 

    Oh, and there’s also one American kid with them – Jacob Portman.  He can not only see hollowgasts (something nobody else – both normal and peculiars – can do), he can sense their presence before they come into view.  That makes him very handy to have around.

 

    The falcon is a peculiar as well, a “ymbryne” to be precise, and she's none other than the children’s headmistress herself, Miss Peregrine.  Ymbrynes have the ability to shapeshift into birds and, more importantly, control and manipulate time itself.

 

    Unfortunately, ymbrynes can only do their time tricks while in human form, and at present, Miss Peregrine is stuck in her bird shape due to a broken wing.

 

    Hmm.  It looks like Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is about to become as dead as a dozen dodo birds.

 

What’s To Like...

    For the most part, Hollow City is set in and around London in 1940, which means during World War 2 when the Germans were bombing the daylights out of England on a daily basis.  It is the second book in Ransom Riggs’ incredibly popular “Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children” series, and timewise, immediately follows the events that closed out Book One.  Surprisingly, only three days elapse between the start and finish of Hollow City.

 

    The book chronicles three interrelated plotlines: a.) getting Miss Peregrine’s wing fixed so she can change back into a human; b.) locating another ymbryne, since they’re the only ones who can heal Miss Peregrine; and c.) freeing all the other ymbrynes that are currently held captive by the evil wights.  These are daunting tasks for a bunch of kids, peculiar or not.

 

    As was true in the first book, Ransom Riggs incorporates a whole bunch of bizarre, vintage photographs into the story.  You’d think photoshopping was involved but they were taken long before the computer age, and I trust the author when he swears that they weren’t doctored in any way.  I was happy to see that these pics were included in the e-book version (I read Book One in the paperback format), and can attest that they were easily expandable and in sharp focus.    

 

    There’s a handy “Cast of Characters” in the front of the book, showing most of the peculiar children plus some associates of Jason’s.  Included are photos for each of the peculiars, along with a list of what “gift” each one has.  I frequently consulted this section to look up which peculiar could do what.

 

    There are a couple of time-jumps in Hollow City, and also a coming-of-age aspect.  Jacob experiences his first kiss, his first romance, and his first set of relationship issues.  The “Armageddon chickens” were neat, so were the gypsies, and the character named Addison is a great addition to the series, and hopefully a recurring one.

 

    The book is written in the first-person POV (Jacob’s).  There are 13 chapters covering the 397 pages of the story, which averages out to about 30 pages a chapter, but that includes a lot of space taken up by the photographs.  The cover image ties into the storyline; you can read more details about it in the second excerpt below.  The ending is suitably exciting, has a twist in it that I never saw coming, stops at a logical place and sets up Book 3.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 7,075 ratings and 3,934 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.05*/5, based on 220,005 ratings and 18,007 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I think we’re being punished.”

    “For what?” said Emma.  “We’ve been perfect angels.  Well, most of us.”

    “The sins of past lives, maybe.  I don’t know.”

    “Peculiars don’t have past lives,” said Millard.  “We live them all at once.”  (loc. 690)

 

    It made no sense that Sam’s body was functioning in any capacity.  Stranger still, her wound wasn’t even bleeding, and there was no gore or bits of entrails hanging out of it, like I knew to expect from horror movies.  Instead, Sam looked like a paper doll that had been attacked with a giant hole-punch.

    (…) “Excuse me,” [Enoch] said, crowding into their personal space, “but could you please explain how it is that you’re alive?”

    “It’s nothing serious,” Sam said.  “Although my dress may not survive.”

    “Nothing serious?!” Enoch said.  “I can see clear through you!”

    “It does smart a little,” she admitted, “but it’ll fill in in a day or so.  Things like this always do."  (loc. 3534)

 

Kindle Details…

    Hollow City presently sells for $9.99 at Amazon.   Books 1, 3, and 4 are also $9.99, while Book 5 is $8.99 and Book 6 is $11.99.  The first two e-books are also available in Graphic Novel format, and there is a “Companion Book” titled Tales of the Peculiar, which is an anthology containing 11 short stories set in the Peculiar world.  These three options are all priced at $9.99 apiece.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Huskers (n., plural) : persons who perform music or other entertainment in the street or public places for monetary donations.

 

“I love sad stories,” said Enoch.  “Especially ones where princesses get eaten by dragons and everyone dies in the end.”  (loc. 1086)

    There are some things to quibble about in Hollow City, but no show-stoppers.  There is only a smidgen of cussing (I counted a mere nine instances in the whole book, none of which were f-bombs) and don’t recall any R-rated acts.

 

    The pacing felt somewhat slow.  Wights and hollows are constantly hot on our heroes’ trail, yet we spend a fair amount of time hanging out at a menagerie, then with the gypsies, then later at a deep-freeze.

 

    We cross paths with a number of other peculiars, but a lot of them get developed, only to fade away.  The part about Cuthbert’s head seems totally extraneous.  But I think this is inevitable,  and due to Ransom Riggs diligently working as many weird photos into the story as he can.  I’m certainly glad he did so.

 

    The ending, although exciting, doesn’t tie up any of the three main plotlines.  When you compare where our band of adventurers are at the end of Book Two to where they were at the end of Book One, there’s not a lot of progress.  I wouldn’t call Hollow City a standalone story and recommend that you read the books in this series in order.

 

    8 Stars.  There are about 30 pages of “Extras” at the end of the e-book, consisting of: 1.) Photo Credits, 2.) Acknowledgements, 3.) A Conversation with Ransom Riggs, 4.) an excerpt from Book 3.  The “Conversation” is well worth reading, as it gives insight into the approach Ransom Riggs used to write Hollow City.  He also reveals some of the bizarre photographs used in the next book.  For me, they were effective teasers.

The Human Division - John Scalzi

   2013; 493 pages.  Book 5 (out of 6) in the “Old Man’s War” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Military Sci-Fi; Science Fiction.  Overall Rating: 6*/10.

 

    One of the Colonial Union’s (“CU”) spaceships has disappeared!

 

    Okay, that’s not totally unheard-of.  The galaxy is a humongous place, with lots of civilizations and lots of commerce, so it’s not surprising that there are lots of space pirates preying on far-flung commercial freighters, easily avoiding the too-few patrolling military vessels.

 

   But this spaceship was different: it was carrying a top-tier CU Ambassador to a top-secret rendezvous with an alien race called the Utche to open negotiations concerning mutual defense.  The CU ship arrived first, and while waiting for the Utche, suddenly vanished!

 

    Of course, it’s also possible they were ambushed by some unknown enemy and vaporized into nothingness.  We better send a replacement ship, with a replacement ambassador there right away.  It’s vital that we commence developing that treaty with the Utche.

 

    And while we’re in the neighborhood, let’s do a search for the missing ship’s “black box”.  If we find one, it’ll be a sign that someone obliterated the ship with a loss of all hands aboard.  And then we'll have to figure out who did such a dastardly deed.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Human Division is the fifth, and penultimate, book in John Scalzi’s space opera series, “Old Man’s War”.  Its main focus is the galactic rivalry between the Colonial Union, mostly humanoids, and the Conclave, a vast confederation of several hundred alien races, almost all of them non-humanoids.  Surprisingly, at least for those who aren’t reading the series in order, Earth has yet to commit either of the two alliances, ever since finding out that the CU had been using them as a "breeding planet" for a very long time.

 

    Due to the book’s structure (more on this later), there are a whole bunch of characters to meet and greet, but the six main ones are Wilson and Schmidt, Coloma and Abumwe, and Egan and Rigney.  I found the friendly banter among all of them immensely entertaining.  The character development of both the major and minor players is excellent, and thanks to the diverse makeup of the Conclave, we are introduced to more than a dozen fascinating extraterrestrial species, albeit often in just a cursory manner.

 

    The two main plotlines are: a.) who is manipulating the enmity between the Conclave and the Colonial Union, and why?; and b.) will the Earth and the Colonial Union kiss and make up?  The book’s title alludes to the latter plotline.

 

    I liked the “talking baseball” dialogue used to determine if certain suspects were indeed Earthlings as they claimed.  I chuckled at what tripped them up – they thought the Chicago Cubs had yet to win a World Series after more than a century of frustration.  In Scalzi’s timeline, the Cubs had triumphed two years earlier, thus tripping up the suspects.  In actuality, although the “Cubs curse” was still in effect when Scalzi wrote The Human Division in 2013, they won it all in 2016, which invalidates this portion of Scalzi’s story.

 

    The ending is suitably tense and exciting, but also disappointing in that it leaves both main plotlines unresolved.  Further, the overarching storyline about life-and-death in the “Old Man’s War” future, hasn’t been advanced one bit.  I agree with other reviewers, The Human Division is really just an anthology containing 15 short stories, all set in this galactic world that Scalzi created.  The book’s title should be something like “Tales of the Colonial Union”.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Idiosyncratic (adj.) : peculiar; individual; distinctive.

Others: Legerdemain (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,517 ratings and 668 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.08*/5, based on 30,280 ratings and 1,653 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I’m ruminating on my life, and karma,” Wilson said.  “And what I must have done in a previous life to deserve being spit on by an alien species as part of a diplomatic ceremony.”

    “It’s because the Farnutian culture is so tied to the sea,” Schmidt said.  “Exchanging the waters of their homeland is a symbolic way to say our fates are now tied together.”

    “It’s also an excellent way to spread the Farnutian equivalent of smallpox,” Wilson said.

    “That’s why we got shots,” Schmidt said.  (pg. 12)

 

    “We just got our new mission assigned to us.”

    “Really,” Wilson said.  “Does this one involve me being held hostage?  Or possibly being blown up in order to find a mole in the Department of State?  Because I’ve already done those.”

    “I’m the first to acknowledge that the last couple of missions we’ve had have not ended on what are traditionally considered high notes,” Schmidt said.  Wilson smirked.  “But I think this one may get us back on the winning track.  You know of the Icheloe?”

    “Never heard of them,” Wilson said.

    “Nice people,” Schmidt said.  “Look a little like a bear mated with a tick, but we can’t all be beautiful.”  (pg. 220)

 

“How do we feel about ghosts?” (…) “I prefer my dead to stay dead.”  (pg. 348)

    Other than the major issue of the “anthology” aspect of The Human Division, which we've already discussed, the quibbles are minor.  The writing is clean - just 7 cusswords in the first 10% of the book and no R-rated situations that I recall.

 

    Some of the episodes – specifically numbers 2, 10, and 11 – are really tangential to the main storyline.  Episode 10 is particularly irrelevant, chronicling Hart Schmidt’s going home to spend the holiday “Harvest Day” with his family.

 

    There are a couple typos – soliders/soldiers (pg. 86) and It it/If it (pg. 444) which is embarrassing for a publishing-house-issued paperback.  But we’re talking about Tor Books here, and their proofreaders have a long history of shoddy editing.

 

    It was nice to see General Gau show up as a recurring character, but sadly, neither John Perry nor Zoe make even a cameo appearance.  And lastly and leastly: the goat dies.

 

    6 Stars.  I get the feeling that The Human Division was a literary experiment by John Scalzi.  If so, then for me as well as a number of other reviewers, it fell flat.  Plotlines go unresolved, dozens of pages are wasted on tangential stories, and there’s not even any continuity from one episode to the next.  What saves this book, however, is John Scalzi’s writing and storytelling skills – the guy is one heck of a gifted author.  I have one more book to go in this series; here's hoping it isn't subject to any writing tomfoolery.

An Empire of Geese and Hats - Alan Daley

   2021; 246 pages.  Full Title: An Empire of Geese and Hats: A Tale from the Someplace Else.  Book 1 (out of only 1 so far) in the “Tales from the Someplace Else” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Dimension-Hopping; Humorous Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    Being a high school History teacher might sound boring to some, but for Morton Plonsky it's a satisfying career.  He tries to be warm and friendly with the mass of students that flows through Rutherford B. Hayes High School, and has a reputation among them for being a “nice” teacher.

 

    Right now, in between classes, Morton is thinking about one of his star students, Ashley Smith.  She’s probably the most intelligent student he’s ever taught, raises her hand a lot in class, but has some rather disturbing views, such as thinking Hitler was too passive in his leadership.

 

    Well look who just appeared in the doorway; if it isn’t Ashley herself.  She probably wants to make one last point about the spirited discussion about FDR they had in class today.  Nope, it's something a bit more sinister.  She pulls a knife out and stabs Morton in the neck.  Then brings out a second knife and stabs herself right in the eye.

    I don’t think either of them are going to make their afternoon classes.

 

What’s To Like...

    The action starts right away in An Empire of Geese and Hats, and chronicles the humorous misadventures of Morton Plonsky as he undergoes a forced midlife career change from humdrum high school teacher to emperor of, well, Someplace Else.  The tale's divided into two sections: “On Arrival and Ascension” (first 12 chapters) and “Decisions and Downfall” (last 8 chapters), which already tells you it’s going to be a “rise and fall” type of storyline.

 

    Morton is my kind of hero – confused, reluctant, capable of making wrong choices, and mostly wanting to just return to his old boring life again.  He’s got a couple of sidekicks to assist him in his kingdom-ruling, among them an ex-emperor, a telepathic automaton, and a 472-year-old deadly assassin who obviously could easily be mistaken for a student.

 

    There are two main groups in “Someplace Else” that Morton has to deal with: a bunch of “goosemen” who fly though the air on sturdy “war geese” and live in the forests, and a bunch of humans who wear their hats religiously and live in Emperor City.  Morton’s destiny is to rule the latter, at least until someone else assassinates him and inherits his responsibilities.

 

    I liked the innovative way Alan Daley handles the dimension-hopping.  It entails the use of an “inter-dimensional dagger”, and I’ll let you read the book to see how that works.  The “placidifier” was also a neat gizmo, and the philosophical concepts of “tribldalt” and “scroom” were quite catchy.

 

    There’s a nice variety of otherworldly beings to supplement the hatters, goosemen, and inter-dimensionals; including Gooblians, tree gators, doom apes, t-bots, and a giant talking cherry pie.  The overall tone is light-hearted, but there are some subtle insights woven in as well, such as how to get two sides embroiled in a generations-long war to stop fighting each other.  That's something our present-day world sorely needs to learn.

 

    The ending is a satisfying resolution of Morton’s tale, even if it’s not particularly twisty or exciting.  The epilogue gives a glimpse of the coming sequel, which apparently will involve camels.  See below for more details.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 15 ratings and 7 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.25/5 based on 8 ratings and 1 review.

 

 

Excerpts...

    “Morton, this is real.  This is your new home.  You will find it much like your old home once you adjust to a few small differences.”

    A goose the size of an automobile passed overhead.  A man wearing a hooked spear rode atop.

    “That’s a war goose.  They are really like geese from your world, except larger, more intelligent, bred for combat strength…” she said, trailing off.  (loc.124)

 

    Morton set down Tranquility and sat.  At the table’s center was a cherry pie the size of a truck tire.  It was exceptionally constructed, with a rich, red filling peeking out between ornate layers of crisscrossing crust.

    “Is this…is this Pi?” Morton said, his tone one of utter confusion.

    “It doesn’t look like any creature I’ve yet seen,” Tranquility said.

    “It looks like a pie.  A big pie.  This is food where I come from.  Are they worshipping an inter-dimensional dessert?  Maybe they’re stupider than we thought?”  (loc. 868)

 

Kindle Details…

    An Empire of Geese and Hats goes for $2.99 at Amazon right now.   To date, this appears to be Alan Daley’s only publication, although rumor has it there’s a sequel in the works, with the enigmatic title: Plague Stage Capitalism.

 

“I was recently murdered.  It puts life and death into a new perspective.”  (loc. 175)

    An Empire of Geese and Hats has some weaknesses, the most notable of which is a huge array of typos and grammar gaffes.  There were dozens of spellchecker errors, to the point of where it became distracting.  The most salient one was peaked/peeked which crops up at least five times.  Punctuation mistakes were also common, especially the lack of commas in dialogue when mentioning the person being directly spoken to.  The lack of adjectival hyphens (book worm/bookworm) was also a recurring problem.

 

    There were a couple continuity issues, such as when the character Jamburger is told “You’ll be Empress soon enough.”  Point in fact, she was already empress by then.  And I never did see any reason for the character Tranquility being referred to in both singular and plural terms.  All that did was to make things confusing.

 

    There was an excessive amount of cussing (24 instances in the first 10%), and a bunch of references to adult situations, such as “crusty prick”, “vagina-like entry points”, and “fellate his wrist laser”, which made me wonder who the target audience is.  There’s too much sex-and-cussing for this to be a YA read, but a “goosemen-vs-hatters” scenario may sound too juvenile for many adult readers.

 

    6 Stars.  Despite those drawbacks, I found An Empire of Geese and Hats to be a fun and fascinating read.  Another round of proofreading can eliminate all those typos, grammar goofs, and continuity issues.  Excessive R-rated verbiage is common in indie author efforts, but it can be remedied through polishing and improved writing.  The world-building concept here is refreshingly original, and the clever mixing of flying goosemen, mad hatters, and a reluctant Chosen One makes this the start of a series that could be really good.

The Judas Strain - James Rollins

   2007; 668 pages.  Book 4 (out of 16) in the Sigma Force series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Action-Adventure; Save The World.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Off the Sumatran coast, an oceanographic team, trying to figure out why eighty dolphins recently beached themselves on nearby Java, suddenly finds the sea around them has turned milky.  It dawns on the scientists that this could be a sign of a plague starting to emerge, but they realize this just a little bit too slowly.

 

    In Venice, certain people are willing to pay a large amount of money for a small Egyptian obelisk currently residing in a Vatican vault.  Sadly, for the local petty thief who swipes it for them, they’re also willing to kill for it.

 

    In Washington DC, the black-ops organization, Sigma Force, has just become aware that they may be suffering internal security leaks.  It falls to Director Painter Crowe to go mole-hunting, and we’re not talking about the four-footed variety.

 

    Director Crowe elects to have Sigma Force investigate the  Sumatran and Venetian incidents as well.  The manpower available for this is limited, but it should be sufficient as long as things don’t get out of hand at any of the three locations.

 

    But what happens, though, if things get out of hand at all three locations?

 

What’s To Like...

    In The Judas Strain, Sigma Force once again finds itself pitted against the shadowy, ultra-evil, ultra-effective bad guys known as “The Guild”.  The book follows the three storylines listed above, the main one being the threat of a worldwide plague, but somehow, this jumping from one storyline to another does not get confusing and allows James Rollins to spin a tale that has oodles of action and no slow spots.

 

    We visit a bunch of exotic settings throughout Asia and Europe, and James Rollins makes it feel like you’re right there alongside our heroes.  There’s a neat “is it natural or supernatural” aspect to the quest, a riddle-solving scavenger hunt, and of course, a “save-the-world” challenge to overcome, plus a tie-in to the historical past, in this case, Marco Polo's journey to the Far East and back again.  Sigma Force team members Monk and Kowalski both play major roles here; they’re probably my favorite characters in this series, due to their wit and snarkiness.

 

    A number of language snippets get worked into the text; so we treated to a smattering of Malaysian (including “Iblis” which is apparently a cussword), Hindi (Namaste!), Italian, Turkish, and Cambodian.  The book’s title is what the newly-emerging plague is dubbed.  I liked the brief mention of “durian” fruit; I had an opportunity to taste one on a business trip to the Far East long ago.  Tuk-tuks are also present; I encountered those on the same trip.

 

    The ending is exciting, over-the-top (which is okay in an Action-Adventure tale), and replete with convenient timing and clever twists.  The plague threat is dealt with and the Guild’s evil plans are thwarted.  One plot thread remains open – Monk’s whereabouts – but since I’m not reading this series in order, I know how that turns out.  The final scene in the book left a lump in my throat.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 1,397 ratings and 578 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.16/5 based on 31,535 ratings and 1,332 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Inside the ant, the fluke controls the insect’s nerve centers, changes its behavior.  Specifically, whenever the sun sets, the fluke compels the ant to climb a blade of grass, lock its mandible, and wait to be eaten by a grazing cow.  If not eaten, the ant returns to its nest at sunrise—only to repeat the same thing again the next night.  The fluke literally drives the ant like its own little car.”  (pg. 256)

 

    “Is that soft-shell crab?” he asked, leaning closer for a whiff.  The skewer speared something meaty with jointed legs, blackened and curled by fire.

    The woman nodded her head vigorously, smiling broadly at his interest.  She spoke rapidly in Khmer.

    Seichan stepped to Kowalski’s side, placing a hand on his shoulder.  “It’s fried tarantula. Very popular for breakfast in Cambodia.”

    Kowalski shuddered and backed away.  “Thanks.  I’ll stick with an Egg McMuffin.”  (pg. 531)

 

“Why do people keep trying to blow me up?”  (pg. 624)

    There are a couple nits to pick.  I noted two typos in the book: aid/aide and course/coarse.  That would be quite good for a self-published effort by an Indie author, but hey, this was a mass-market paperback.

 

    There’s a moderate amount of cussing (18 in the first 20%), including at least one f-bomb.  That’s acceptable for a gritty thriller like this, and that was about it for R-rated stuff.  Also, I’ve been trying to avoid pandemic-themed novels during this Covid crisis, and it really should've dawned on me that the book's title is plague-related.  Lastly, and leastly, the tiger shark dies.  Yeah, they’re not as cute and cuddly as a kitten, but still...

 

    Overall, I found this book to be a long, quick, easy-to-follow page-turning read.  I expect any Sigma Force book to keep me entertained with lots of thrills and spills, and that’s exactly what The Judas Strain did.

 

    8 Stars.  Be sure to read the “Author’s Note” at the very end of the book.  In it, James Rollins goes over the Marco Polo, Angelic Script, Plagues, Fauna, Cannibals & Pirates, Angkor, and Bacteria aspects of the story, revealing which parts are real and which are fictional.  Hint: almost all of it is factual.

Wicked Plants - Amy Stewart

   2009; 256 pages.  Full Title: Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Plants; Non-Fiction; Medical Reference.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Hey, let’s get in touch with our hunter-gatherer side by going on a hike in the woods!

 

    It’ll be fun to commune with Mother Nature.  If we spot any berries on bushes along the way, we can give them a taste.  I hear the bright red ones are the best.  And wild berries can’t be harmful, since the bushes produce them to attract insects.  And the berries will pair well with any mushrooms we come across.

 

    We can take Fido and Rover along; they can chase sticks we throw and chew on them.  We can brew our own tea too.  I don’t know what a sassafras tree looks like, so we can just boil the leaves of any old tree and see what kind of taste develops.

 

    It would be really neat if we find some cactus plants as well.  I doubt they will turn out to be peyote, but we can always hope for some kind of hallucinatory plant that no one else has discovered yet.

 

    And just to be safe, I’ve brought along a handy reference book: Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart.  It’ll help us identify all the potentially-edible plants we come across, even though she seems to have one-word answer for all of our proposed tastings.

 

    DON’T!

 

What’s To Like...

    Wicked Plants is first and foremost a reference book, so (most of) the entries are listed in alphabetical order.  Amy Stewart gives 63 “things to be avoided” in the book.  A majority of them are individual plants, but there are also some “group” listings, with catchy titles such as “This Houseplant Could Be Your Last”, “Deadly Dinner”, and “Weeds of Mass Destruction”.

 

    The entries fall into one of seven categories, namely: Deadly, Illegal, Intoxicating, Dangerous, Painful, Destructive, and Offensive.  The “Deadly” category is by far the biggest.  Some of my favorite entries were: Deadly Nightshade, Coca, Marijuana, The Devil’s Bartender, Jimson Weed, and Killer Algae.

 

    I liked the format Amy Stewart uses:

Category

Plant Name (English)

Plant Name (Latin)

Introduction

Family, Habitat, Native To, Common Names

Main Text, including things like Usage Information, Chemistry, After-Effects

“Meet the Relatives”

 

    The book is laden with trivia.  I learned why you shouldn’t use potatoes if their skin has turned green (see below); and all how cyanobacteria spreads (aka “Blue-Green Algae”), which just happens to be a major plot thread in the next book I’m reading.  I enjoyed the section on the Venus Fly Trap (we had these in the hills where I grew up) and was surprised to learn that Bermuda Grass is highly allergenic.

 

    I found the “Illegal” and “Intoxicating” categories fascinating.  We get to read about Sigmund Freud’s delight after trying Cocaine; how Jimson Weed got its name; the mind-altering properties of Psylocybin (aka “magic mushroom, and yes, spellchecker spells it "psilocybin", but the author doesn't), and the properties of Khat, an important word to know in Scrabble because of its alternate spelling “qat”.  Sadly, the druggy-sounding “Cannabis Vodka” turned out to be rather disappointing.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 1,704 ratings and 514 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.80/5 based on 9,061 ratings and 1,235 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    POTATO.  Solanum tuberosum.  This member of the dreaded nightshade family contains a poison called solanine, which can bring on burning and gastrointestinal symptoms and even coma and death in rare cases.  Cooking a potato will kill most of the solanine in it, but if a potato has been exposed to the light long enough for its skin to turn green, that may be a sign of increased levels of solanine.  (loc. 512)

 

    British soldiers arrived to quell one of the first uprisings at the fledgling [Jamestown] colony, and the settlers remembered the toxic plant and slipped datura leaves into the soldiers’ food.

    The British soldiers did not die, but they did go crazy for eleven days, temporarily giving the colonists the upper hand.  According to an early historian, “One would blow a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows [grimaces] at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions.”  (loc. 770)

 

Kindle Details…

    Wicked Plants sells for $9.04 at Amazon.  The other two books in this set, The Drunken Botanist and Wicked Bugs, are priced at $10.82 and $9.99, respectively.  Amy Stewart has also penned a 7-book mystery series called “A Kopp Sisters Novel”; they go for $9.99 apiece.

 

The best advice for avoiding the nettle family is to resist the temptation to stroke an unfamiliar fuzzy or hairy leaf.  (loc. 821)

    It’s hard to nitpick about anything in Wicked Plants.  I only noted one typo (“southe stern” instead of “south eastern”), and I’m pretty sure that’s the printer’s fault.  There's a “screen expand” link for each entry, but the only thing it expands is the name of the plant.  I have a feeling it was meant to do more.

 

    Pliny the Elder is credited with claiming that “strains of henbane ‘trouble the braine’”, but I doubt he chose the old English spelling since he was writing in Latin.  But probably the source of this quote, which isn’t listed, was a medieval scribe.

 

    Really, my only disappointment is that “Hawaiian Baby Woodrose Seeds” are not included in the book.  I had an experience with them many decades ago, and they certainly qualify for the “Intoxicating” or “Painful” category, although in checking Wikipedia, they apparently haven't been declared “Illegal”.

 

    9 Stars.  The subtitle (“The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother”) refers to something called “White Snakeroot”, which, since it begins with the letter “w”, occurs late in the book, and really did kill Nancy Hanks Lincoln.