Interview With The Vampire - Anne Rice

    1976; 343 pages.  Book 1 (out of 30, or out of 13) in “The Vampire Chronicles” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Gothic Horror; Vampires.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    Suppose you have reached out to a vampire, and he’s agreed to be interviewed by you.  What kind of questions do you ask him?  Here’s some that I’d use.

 

    I’ve heard that vampires are immortal, so how old are you?  Which if the anti-vampire devices really work, and which are just urban myths?  I’m thinking of things like wooden stakes, garlic, a crucifix, etc.  Who, or what, transformed you into a vampire?  Have you turned anyone into a vampire?  Do you really bite people in the neck and drink their blood?  Do you sleep in a coffin during daylight hours?

 

    These questions all get asked, and answered, in Interview With the Vampire.  And when the vampire is several centuries old, some fascinating life stories emerge from those queries.  But perhaps the most important question looks in the other direction.

 

    What are you planning to do with the rest of your vampiric life?

 

What’s To Like...

    Interview With the Vampire, Anne Rice’s breakthrough novel, is divided into four parts, and is written, naturally, in the form of a transcription from an interview recorded on a tape cassette (well, the book was written in the mid-1970s) by an unnamed interviewer and a vampire named Louis.  The book eschews chapters and is divided into four parts.  Briefly:

 

    Part 1 is set in New Orleans and deals with Louis’s “turning” and learning to be a vampire.

    Part 2 describes a trip to eastern Europe to the “roots” of vampirism.

    Part 3 chronicles Louis’s stay in Paris where he learns to socialize with fellow vampires.

    Part 4 finishes up with Louis’s return to New Orleans and his path forward.

 

    This book was my introduction to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series, and thus, I was surprised that the vampire being interviewed was not the more-famous Lestat.  But he does play a prominent part in the story, along with a couple other major characters: Claudia, Madeleine, Armand, and Santiago.  Some of these die along the way, although that’s a somewhat nebulous term with regards to immortal creatures.

 

    Although there are parts of Interview With the Vampire that involve neck-biting, bloodsucking, and other action-driven thrills, it is mainly a character-driven storyline.  Louis, Lestat, and the reader all will ask themselves: how well would I be able to deal with being able to live forever, when it's at the cost of needing a frequent supply of blood as nourishment and knowing that the world around me will change and modernize at an uncomfortable pace whether I want it to or not.

 

    I loved the “feel” of the world in the 1790s.  New Orleans for that time-period came alive for me, so did the portrayal of Transylvania and Paris in that era.  It was fun to take in a play at the Parisian "Theatre des Vampires", and the mention of penny-dreadfuls was a neat detail.

 

    The ending was good, with a nice twist at the interview’s end that I didn’t see coming.  There was a sense of “completeness” to this Louis/Lestat tale, but also an encouragement to “now on to the next episode”.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 8,036 ratings and 1,118 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02/5 based on 584,731 ratings and 15,946 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Tignon (n.) : a piece of cloth worn as a turban headdress by Creole women in Louisiana.

 

Excerpts...

    “But he did believe in possession by the devil.”

    “That is a much more mundane idea,” said the vampire immediately.  “People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil.  I don’t know why.  No, I do indeed know why.  Evil is always possible.  And goodness is eternally difficult.”  (loc. 188)

 

    “And then strange things began to happen, for though she said little and was the chubby, round-fingered child still, I’d find her tucked in the arm of my chair reading the work of Aristotle or Boethius or a new novel just come over the Atlantic.  Or pecking out the music of Mozart we’d only heard the night before with an infallible ear and a concentration that made her ghostly as she sat there hour after hour discovering the music̶─the melody, then the bass, and finally bringing it together.  Claudia was mystery.  It was not possible to know what she knew or did not know.  And to watch her kill was chilling."  (loc. 1566)

 

Kindle Details…

    The e-book version of Interview With The Vampire goes for $8.99 right now.  Amazon and Wikipedia consider The Vampire Chronicles to be a 13-book series, with all those e-books priced in the $8.99-$11.99 range.  However, in the back of the e-book itself a 30-book series is listed in detail.

 

“She is perfect.  Mad; but for these days that is perfect.”  (loc. 4460)

    There’s not a lot to grouse about in Interview With the Vampire.  I admit that Part 1 dragged a bit for me, until I realized that it was going to be an in-depth character study and not a “Bela Lugosi” type of horror-adventure.  Happily, things events started rolling nicely in Part 2, and continued that way through the rest of the book.

 

    There is some profanity, but that was expected and I counted only 10 instances in the first 25% of the e-book.

 

    The biggest challenge was getting used to the proper, but somewhat complex, punctuation of a transcribed interview.  Almost everything was a direct quote recorded on the cassette tape (the exceptions being brief interludes detailing the actions of the interviewer), and when those were direct dialogue by Louis or some other character, both single- and double-quotation marks piled up at the start of each paragraph.  It was grammatically correct, but distracting nonetheless.

 

    Overall, I enjoyed Interview With the Vampire, which was a pleasant surprise since I tend to prefer rock-‘em-sock-‘em  thriller storylines more than character studies.  Kudos to Anne Rice for penning a book in the latter genre that kept even me interested in the struggles of Louis, Lestat, Claudia, and the other vampires to maintain their sanity and cope in a world that will now both fears and hates them.

 

    8 Stars.  A quick tip gleaned from the book, should you ever be accosted by a vampire in a dark alley late at night.  Don’t pull out your crucifix and point it at them, expecting them to vaporize.  It amuses them and makes them chuckle as they kill you.

Daybreak 2250 A.D. - Andre Norton

   1952; 191 pages.  Alternate Titles: “Star Man’s Son” and “Star Man’s Son, 2250 AD”.  New Author? : No.  Genres : 50’s Sci-Fi; YA; post-apocalyptic.   Overall Rating: 8/10.

 

    Fors's father, Langdon, was a highly regarded Star Man.  He had roamed the ruined lands around the Eyrie extensively, drawn maps of it, and brought back precious loot.  And even though Langdon was now dead, it was natural to assume that Fors would follow in his father’s footsteps.

 

    But his mother was of an alien race, one could tell that just by looking at Fors.  Which made him a half-breed, a mutant.  And when it came time for the yearly Choosing ritual at the Star Hall, the Council’s opinion was that Fors’s genes were more important than his training or his father's fame.

 

    Five years Fors had been nominated to be a Star Man; five years he had been rejected.  Five years was the limit; a sixth nomination was forbidden.  Fors would be relegated to the status of a commoner, suitable for working in the fields.  Nothing more.  All because of his looks.  And there's nothing he can do about it.

    Is there?

 

What’s To Like...

    Andre Norton (real name: Alice Mary Norton, b. 1912, d. 2005) was a prolific and popular sci-fi/fantasy author; Daybreak 2250 AD is one of her early works.  We follow Fors as he travels into the ruins of a post-apocalyptic world with his companion cat, Lura (see cover image).  In a land where nuclear war has annihilated almost all of civilization, Fors encounters various beasts and humans, which at best, distrust any stranger passing through their territory, and at worst, want to kill and eat them.

 

    The target audience is YA boys, which was true of all sci-fi novels written in the 1950s.  Therefore there is lots of adventure here, and absolutely zero booze, drugs, adult situations, and/or cussing.  When the latter seems called for, Andre Norton delightfully resorts to phrases like “by the great horned lizard!” and “forest filth!”.

 

    In amongst all the exploring and adventuring, the author subtly weaves some keen insight about several serious themes.  The book was published in 1952, just seven years after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  This introduced a new global dread: a massive, life-ending nuclear holocaust.  Andre Norton uses that scenario as the setting for Daybreak 2250 AD.  She also offers some provocative opinions, for that era, on racial bigotry (the southern tribespeople are dark-skinned) and feminism (one of the clans is led by a woman).  Plus, there is an overarching theme of the futility of war.  Pretty awesome for 1952!

 

    It was fun to comb through the ruins alongside Fors searching for long-lost gadgets and artifacts.  The rusted, derelict automobiles, both the nuclear-powered and the older gasoline-burning ones, are ignored; the technology for making their fuels has long been lost.  Store mannequins scared and mystified Fors because at first he thought they were petrified victims of the nuclear blasts.  OTOH, finding pencils, especially the colored ones, and a ream of paper, cause him to rejoice.  So do foodstuffs preserved in cans and jars that are still sealed.  Ordinary forks are also valuable finds.

    The ending is satisfying and heartwarming, albeit pretty straightforward and not very twisty.  Given several choices for a tribe that will accept him, and mutant though he is, Fors opts for the obvious one.  The book screams to be developed into a series chronicling Fors’s further adventures, but that has never happened.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 58 ratings and 34 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02*/5, based on 2,539 ratings and 163 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    They might have forgotten about his night sight and too-keen hearing.  He could have concealed those as soon as he learned how wrong it was to be different.  But he could not hide the color of his close-cropped hair.  And that had damned him from the day his father had brought him here.  Other men had brown or black, or, at the worst, sunbleached yellow, covering their heads.  He had silver white, which showed to all men that he was a mutant, different from the rest of his clan.  Mutant!  Mutant!  (pg. 6)

 

    “Mountains—man made—that is what we see here.  But why did the Old Ones love to huddle together in such a fashion?  Did they fear their own magic so that they must live cheek to cheek with their kind lest it eat them up when it was loosed—as it did?  Well, they died of it in the end, poor Old Ones.  And now we have a better life—”

    “Do we?”  Fors kicked at the loose stone.  “They had such knowledge—we are groping in the dark for only crumbs of what they knew—"  (pg. 70)

 

“Only a fool tries to teach the otter to swim.”  (pg. 157)

    There’s very little to quibble about in Daybreak 2250 AD.  As mentioned, there is nothing even remotely R-rated here.  One reviewer felt that the storyline was anti-feminist because Fors chose not to accept the female leader’s offer to accept him into her tribe.  But this novel came out in 1952.  Feminism was not yet an issue back then.  Personally, I was impressed that it portrayed an army of men as being willing to have a woman lead them into battle.

 

    The big problem was with the editing.  Typos abounded: tained/tainted; mid-dile/middle, horrow/horror, scatered/scattered, and a host of others, numerous enough to be a distraction. But again, this book came out in 1952, when spellchecker and word processing programs were just a figment of the imagination.   So I’m forced to cut the editing staff some slack.

 

    Daybreak 2250 AD kept my interest from the start to finish, which was a bit of a surprise, since I am not part of the target audience.  The text did not seem “YA-ish” at all, and the action, if not particularly realistic, did feel “balanced”—the baddies (aka “the Beast Things”) were capable of holding their own, using tricks and strategy to thwart the good guys.  1950s sci-fi can sometimes feel out-of-date.  I’m happy to say that wasn’t the case here.

 

    8 Stars.  Daybreak 2250 AD was a re-read for me, although it’s been about 60 years since I first read it.  It was one of two books that had a major impact on my literary preferences as a kid, the other being Evan Hunter’s Danger: Dinosaurs!  The latter sits on my Kindle, waiting to be read again.  I hope it delights me the second time around as much as Daybreak 2250 AD did.

They Came and Ate Us - Robert Rankin

   1991; 336 pages.  Full Title: They Came and Ate Us – Armageddon II: The B Movie.  Book 2 in the “Armageddon Trilogy” series.  New Author? : Goodness, no.  Genres : Humorous Absurdism; Time Travel; Weird Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Quick, how do you stop an NHE (that’s “Nuclear Holocaust Event” for you Earthlings) after it’s already happened?

 

    Well, as any Phnaarg can tell you, you send someone back through time, or forward in time for that matter, and have him kill whoever was responsible for the NHE.

 

    But what if the assassination attempt fails?

 

    Then you resend your guy and have him try again.  Or send some other person.  Or both.

 

    But that’s messing around with the original timeline!  I thought we weren’t allowed to do that.

 

    The taboo against spawning timeline anomalies is literary laziness preached by sci-fi authors who are afraid it will spread confusion.  Ignore those sissies.

 

    Gee, I don’t know.  It still sounds kind of risky.

 

   Well, ask yourself this: if someone did screw around with the original timeline, how would you know?

 

What’s To Like...

    They Came and Ate Us is vintage Robert Rankin absurdism.  The storyline is engaging and despite being confusing to start out with, it clarifies into several main storylines by the halfway point.  The primary plot threads are:

 

    Who zapped Rex Mundi a half century into the past, and why?

    Can Rex and Jack Doveston succeed in preventing the 1999 NHE, and how?

    Why is Elvis obsessed with killing Wayne Wormwood, and how come he repeatedly fails?

 

    There are talking dogs and sentient bean sprouts.  There are shakers and hackers and demons.  There are a slew of time paradoxes and fourth-wall asides.  The author himself sneaks in, cleverly disguised as one of the characters.

 

    I was pleased to see that there are also some of Robert Rankin’s trademark running gags and obscure (at least to us Yanks) British trivia.  Fangio’s bar makes a brief appearance; so does the inscrutable fighting art called Dimac.  Jim Pooley and John Omally have cameo roles near the end of the book, which makes me wonder if they’ll play a larger role in the sequel.  Trivia-wise, I had to look up both Frankie Howerd and Ray Harryhausen.

 

    They Came and Ate Us is the sequel to Armageddon – The Musical, and if both books reside on your TBR shelf, I highly recommend reading them in order.  I did, but alas I read Book 1 way back in 2013 and thus remembered almost nothing about it.  Thankfully, Robert Rankin provides a brief recap of that tale early on here (pgs. 7-8), for which I am very much grateful.

 

    The ending is over-the-top and replete with plot twist after plot twist.  Earth is saved from the 1999 NHE.  Or is it?  I guess I’ll have to read book 3, The Suburban Book of the Dead, to make sure.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Yobbo (n.) : a cruel and brutal fellow. (English slang)

Others: Librams (n., plural); Putting Pay (v.), Prial (n.); Bunged the readies and seen all right (British slang, for which I never did suss out the meaning).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 81 ratings and 16 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.89/5 based on 1,411 ratings and 16 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    In the year 2050 planet Earth finally got the chance to enjoy Armageddon.  It had originally been scheduled to occur in 999 and after that fell through, in 1999.  However, due to certain legal loopholes in the original contracts and God moving in the mysterious way he is known and loved for, the thing didn’t get under way until 2050.

    But when it did it was a real showstopper.  Cracking special effects, flaming chariots, angelic hosts, fire and brimstone, the whole kith and caboodle and the kitchen sink.  All in glorious Buddhacolour and broadcast live as it happened.  (pg. 7, and the opening paragraphs.)

 

    “Perhaps it can’t be done.”

    Elvis made a bitter face.  “What do you mean?”

    Rex turned to meet his eyes.  “Perhaps it is impossible to change history.  The Phnaargs tried it with you but it didn’t work.”

    “But I fooled the Phnaargs.  I am here and now.”

    “Perhaps you would have been here and now anyway, which is why you are.  If you follow me.”

    “I surely do.”  Elvis surely didn’t.  (pg. 126)

 

Sam voiced certain words to the effect that the junior officer’s cranium was in fact a male reproductive organ and flung the handset aside.  (pg. 12)

    There’s a moderate amount of profanity in They Came and Ate Us.  I counted 11 instances in the first 10% of the book, 5 of which were scatological in nature.  Later on, there were at least four references to male genitalia and its various functions.

 

    In addition to deciphering the British idioms, the punctuation takes some getting used to.  Across the pond, dialogue is in single quotation marks, not double.  There was an abundance of missing commas in direct quotes here.  Example: ‘And back to you in the studio Ramon.’  Us Yanks were taught to absolutely positively put a comma after the word “studio”.  This type of omission happens so frequently (yet not always), that I was left wondering if there are different rules for it in Britain.

 

    Finally, keep in mind that absurdism rules the roost here.  The crazier and more convoluted the storyline is, the better its entertainment value.  If complex and confusing plot threads bug you, you might want to eschew Robert Rankin's books.

 

    But I confess, I’m a Robert Rankin fanatic.  I’d be disappointed if he wrote a book where I wasn't kept on my toes trying to follow what's going on.  They Came and Ate Us may be a challenging read, but for me it was also a delightfully satisfying one.

 

    7½ Stars.  They Came and Ate Us was published in 1991.  Did Robert Rankin somehow foresee the rise of a prominent 21^st-century American politician?  Check out pages 152-53 and judge whether the person they’re talking about bears an eerie resemblance to one of our present-day newsmakers.

Clockwork Legion - Jamie (J.G.) Sedgwick

 2016; 342 pages.  Book 4 (out of 5) in the series “Aboard the Great Iron Horse”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Steampunk Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    All aboard the Great Iron Horse!  Socrates and his crew have departed Dragonwall in order to continue their mission of searching for remnants of civilization in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

 

    They are short a couple of crewmembers, but that can’t be helped.  Kale has remained at Dragonwall to take on the role of "First Knight" for Queen Aileen.  And Shayla has chosen to stay there with Kale as well.  Methinks some romantic possibilities may be a factor.

 

    Shayla’s staying behind quickly becomes a timely event.  Queen Aileen's city has been plagued by a series of poisonings lately.  She wants Kale to investigate.  But she’s also just received a letter from the mayor of Ravenwood, a town well to the south of Dragonwall, begging the queen to dispatch troops there immediately due to some unspecified threat.  Queen Aileen wants Kale to lead a squad of knights down there.

 

    Well, Kale can’t be in two places at once, so perhaps Shayla can look into the poisonings while he travels to see what’s endangering Ravenwood.  Best of luck to both of you, Kale and Shayla!

 

    You’re going to need it.

 

What’s To Like...

    Clockwork Legion is the fourth installment in the five-book “Aboard the Great Iron Horse” series, although see below for the recent reorganization of this.  There are three main plotlines to follow, involving Socrates, Shayla, and Kale, as briefly described above.  The common thread in all of them is a magical substance called starfall, which serves as a “super-fuel” for Socrates’s steampunk locomotive, but has a very unhealthy effect when inhaled or ingested by creatures, whether they be living or already dead.   

 

    As with any Jamie Sedgwick novel, there's plenty of action and intrigue.  If undead baddies are your shtick, you’ll like this book, and if dinosaurs make you tick, you’ll enjoy it too.  Even better, if undead dinosaurs appeal to your literary tastes, you’re going to love Clockwork Legion.

 

    Being a chemist by trade, I liked the bits of chemistry woven into the book.  Ozone from lightning lays a small role in the storyline, so does powdered iron.  I also thought the timepiece called a chronoforge was a nice detail.  The title reference comes at 84% Kindle, and it was great to see two main characters from a related series make cameo appearances in the Epilogue.  Here’s hoping they play a bigger part in next book.

 

    The story ends at a logical spot, but it needs to be said that zero plot threads are resolved.  Queen Aileen and Kale make some important plans, but will those come to pass?  Socrates and the Iron Horse are out in the boondocks, so how will they impact the impending invasion of the baddies?  Shayla’s life is undergoing some changes, but will this be for the better or for the worse?

 

    Presumably, all these plotlines will be tied up in the next, fifth, and final book in the series: Starfall.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 206 ratings and 36 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.50/5 based on 109 ratings and 5 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “How do I make them respect me?”

    “I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you how Dane did it.”

    “How?”

    “He threatened to kill ‘em, or worse.  And they knew he meant it.  But that only worked because they knew Dane had the guts to do what he said, and he knew they didn’t have the guts to stab him in his sleep.”

    “And you think that’s what I should do?”

    “Absolutely not!  These men wouldn’t hesitate to kill you in your sleep.”  (loc. 262)

 

    Shayla had a refined, elegant beauty about her that was a natural advantage.  She also had years of training to supplement that beauty.  As a child, Shayla had been trained in every manner of espionage and survival.  The soldiers knew they might not always be there to protect her, and she might need the ability to defend herself or to blend in with other people and cultures.  One of the most useful skills was one that had always come natural: flirtation.  (loc. 1497)

 

Kindle Details…

    Clockwork Legion is priced at $3.99 at Amazon right now.  The other four books in the series range in price from free to $4.99, with the cost increasing as the series progresses.  Jamie Sedgwick (aka: “J.G. Sedgwick”) has several other fantasy series for your reading enjoyment, and in the same price range.

 

“Great plan. (...) When the horde of undead warriors gets here, we’ll just ignore them to death.”  (loc. 1896)

    Incredibly, I didn’t note any cussing in Clockwork Legion.  Either I’m falling down on the job, or there was none.  I also don’t recall any “adult situations”.  When an author/can keep the story interesting without R-rated material who—and this book does that—I am deeply impressed.

 

    There were only a couple of typos, such as: tired/tire, phased/fazed, and leech/leach.  The insertion of dashes somehow resulted in them all being off-center and incorrect spacing.  But I suspect this occurred during the reformatting-for-Kindle stage, and was therefore beyond the author's control.     

 

    My copy of Clockwork Legion had a big problem with the chapter tabs.  There were none.  After the usual opening sections there’s  a “Table of Contents heading, but all it links to is the cover image.  After that, there is nothing else in the Table.  UPDATE: in looking at the current Amazon “Read Sample” blurb, that seems to have been corrected in later versions.

 

    The main quibble is the fact that none of the storylines get tied up.  That means this is not a standalone novel.  Therefore, if you’re not reading this series in order, you’ll probably be really disappointed in the storytelling in Clockwork Legion.

 

    So take my advice and read the earlier books before this one.  In the proper order.  Then you’ll find Clockwork Legion to be a light, fast-paced, enjoyable read whose purpose appears to be to get all the major characters properly positioned for the final episode.  We shall see about that.

 

    7 Stars.  I’ve had Clockwork Legion on my Kindle for quite some time.  Meanwhile the author has altered his name for this series from Jamie Sedgwick to J.G. Sedgwick, both of which are actually pen names for Jeramy Gates.  To boot, the author’s 5-book Aboard the Great Iron Horse series and the 3-book Tinkerer’s Daughter series are now combined into an 8-book Age of Steam series.  The other books and series penned by this author remain credited to "Jamie Sedgwick".

    I’m sure this has to do with some sort of revised marketing strategy, but frankly I fail to see the logic of it.

Still Life With Murder - P.B. Ryan

   2003; 296 pages.  Book 1 (out of 6) in the “Nell Sweeney Mysteries” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Historical Crime; Murder-Mystery; Women Sleuths.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

   The Good.  William Hewitt, one of the sons of Boston’s “upper crust” Hewitts, and reported as killed while attempting to escape the dreaded Andersonville POW camp four years ago, has just turned up alive in Boston!

 

    The Bad.  He’s been living under the assumed name “William Touchette”, and has just been arrested for murder.  Eyewitnesses confirmed his presence at the scene of the crime, kneeling over the corpse, knife in hand, and screaming at it about revenge.

 

    The Ugly.  William and his parents can’t stand each other.  His father is fully convinced of his son’s guilt and his mom wants to question Will about the incident.  William refuses to meet and talk with either one.  What can the Hewitts do?

 

    Maybe they should send their governess, Nell Sweeney, posing as some sort of spiritual guide, to visit “William Touchette” in jail.  She can at least ask him if he wants to retain a lawyer and/or get out on bail.

 

    Before they hang him.

 

What’s To Like...

    Still Life With Murder is set in the Boston area in the 1860s.  The prologue, which introduces us to Nell Sweeney and gives a backstory of how she came to be governess of little Gracie at the Hewitts’ manor, takes place in 1864; the rest of the book takes place in 1868.

 

    Although this is primarily a murder-mystery, I was impressed by the depth and detail paid to the historical aspect of the novel.  Things like women’s wear and house furnishings felt well researched.  So did, for that matter, the opium dens which play a prominent part of the storyline; including how they were laid out and the various gambling games they hosted, such as chuck-a-luck, rat’s night, and lansquenet, to keep the addicts entertained and spending even more money.

 

    There are some nice character studies in the story.  Nell, of course, gradually evolves into an amateur sleuth.  But that’s no easy task since Will Hewitt is a most uncooperative client – he refuses to confess or deny his guilt, and at times acts like he’d welcome the hangman’s noose.  The police detective is also non-stereotypical:  far from being bull-headed and resentful of Nell’s meddling, he shares information with her at times, and even occasionally invites her along on some of his inquiries.

 

    I enjoyed the smattering of French and Chinese phrases that were worked into the text, since I’ve taken some night classes in both.  Unfortunately, I drew a blank on the Chinese words (but maybe this was in the Cantonese dialect, not the Mandarin I studied), and I had to look up the context of the French phrase “Vous l’avez voulu, George Dandin”.

 

    The ending is satisfying, logical, with a bit of a twist to it that causes Nell, the police detective, and myself all to be slightly off in our theories as to who did the killing and why.  Will Hewitt rides off into the sunset (well, you knew he wasn't going to hang, right?) but I suspect he’ll become an important character in the series.  I have a felling that little Gracie will show up in the next book as well.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 8,401 ratings and 1,523 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.91/5 based on 9,796 ratings and 958 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “The round head is because of the Caesarean.  She didn’t have to pass through the . . .”  Nell looked away, chastising herself for having made such a reference in polite conversation, especially with the likes of Viola Hewitt; what would Dr. Greaves say?

    Mrs. Hewitt chuckled.  “I’m afraid I’m not particularly easy to shock, Miss Sweeney.  Mr. Hewitt is of the opinion that I ought to be a bit more prone to swooning, but I never could quite get the knack.”  (loc. 301)

 

    “Let’s see if I understand this correctly.  Will is supposed to have killed this man because of an altercation over a woman.”

    Nell nodded.  “Kathleen Flynn, the owner’s daughter.”

    “Is she beautiful?”

    “I . . . she’s . . .”  Nell shrugged.  “I’m not really sure, from a man’s perspective.  Why?”

    “Will’s women are always magnificent.  And very sophisticated.  He liked them smart and a little dangerous.”

    “Kathleen is none of those things.  Although her father did compare her to his most vicious rat terrier.”  (loc. 3295)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Gowsters (n., pl.) : violent or unmanageable persons; swaggering fellows  (alt. spelling)

Others: Merlin chair (n.), Stertorous (adj.).

 

Kindle Details…

    Still Life With Murder sells for $3.99 at Amazon right now.  The other books in the series are priced at $4.99 apiece.  P.B. Ryan, who writes under the name of Patricia Ryan as well, also pens the Historical Romance series, Lords of Conquest, with its six books all going for $3.99 each.

 

“Hate to ruin your little theory, sweet pea, but dead men are even worse at payin’ off their debts than live ones.”  (loc. 3884)

    There’s not much to gripe about in Still Life With Murder.  The profanity is light, just seven instances in the first 25% of the book, and all but one of those were the relatively mild epithet “damn”.

 

    There were a couple of ethnic slurs later on, but those would be consistent with lingo of the times.  There are several visits to opium dens along the way, but frankly this book serves as a warning against the usage of that drug, not a glorification of it.

 

    The editing was good; I noted just two typos: lean-to’s/lean-tos and wretching/retching.  Kudos to whoever the copy editors were.

 

    That’s about it for the nitpicking.  I like it when the murder-mystery I’m reading is set in another time and another place, with just as much attention paid to getting the historical fiction right as to getting the murder-mystery coherent.  Still Life With Murder succeeded nicely in that regard.

 

    8 Stars.  In looking at the Amazon blurbs, it looks like the e-book versions of the books in this series all came out in 2010, and the paperback versions all came out in 2014.  I’m guessing that means this is a completed series.  For me, Still Life With Murder was a great way to get introduced to Nell Sweeney.

Lies, Damned Lies, and History - Jodi Taylor

   2016; 399 pages.  Book 7 (out of 14) in the series “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s”.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Fantasy; Historical Fiction.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    Chief Operations Officer “Max” Maxwell is leaving St. Mary’s!!  Well, it’s an amiable parting, and there’s a good reason for it.  Max is going to have a baby quite soon.

 

    She’s already on the “restricted list” when it comes to St. Mary’s primary function: time-traveling into the past to record historically important events.  Max is still allowed to chrono-hop, but she’s not allowed to go on any mission that might involve warfare or violence of any kind.  It’s for the baby’s well-being.

 

    Max understands the restriction, but it means the only assignments she gets are boring ones.  Such as her latest one: going to watch the coronation of some British king who’s in a scandalous marriage.  Ho.  Hum.

 

    But Max has a long history (pun intended) of having the time-jumps to which she’s assigned turning into dangerous adventures with harrowing escapes.  And there’s no reason to think that’s going to change just because an unborn child is coming along for the ride.

 

What’s To Like...

    Lies, Damned Lies, and History is the seventh book in Jodi Taylor’s excellent and exciting 14-book time-travel series, The Chronicles of St. Mary’s, where inept historians are the heroes is spite of their efforts.  Max is the main protagonist, and while Trouble usually finds her as she’s jaunting around the time-space continuum, here she willingly and knowingly creates her own bad mojo, and takes several coworkers down with her.

 

    Once again, Jodi Taylor conjures up all sorts of time-jumps for our historians.  There are nine chrono-excursions here, with Max being involved in eight of those, albeit quite unwillingly in one of them.  Almost all of the destinations here are within the borders of Great Britain, which is a bit unusual; normally one or two of the time-jumps are to places beyond the English isles.

 

    The story is written in the first-person POV, Max’s, which is true for the entire series.  I love the attention to detail in Jodi Taylor's tales.  It may sound trite, but I really can envision the historical settings presented in these books.  It’s also a plus that the text in these books sparkles with plenty of wit and a bit of snarkiness, yet also oozes with interpersonal tension.

    It's also neat that none of the characters in this series are completely black or white.  Max knows she’s doing something wrong and accepts the inevitable consequences.  Conversely, the "black hats" Time Police may be ruthless in dealing with those who alter the timeline in any way, but theirs is a dirty job that someone has to do.

 

    The book is written in English, not American.  That leads to some odd spellings and punctuation, but you’re also rewarded with a bunch of quaint British expressions, such as “knees-up”, “a bit of a kick around”, “cack-handed pillock”, “shame about the gob”, “complete girl’s blouse”, “banging on about me”, and my personal favorite “and Bob’s your uncle”. By comparison, our American “dialect” is sadly lacking in such colorful idioms.  And we won’t even mention the esoteric Latin-sounding expression “Illegitimi non carborundum”.  Yeah, you’ll want to google that one.

 

    The ending is reasonably exciting and includes a tension-filled race against time as well as a nifty plot twist that both Max and I never saw coming.  Everything works out for the good guys; although it can be said that everything pretty much works out for the bad guys too.  I like those kind of endings.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 5,863 ratings and 496 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.42*/5, based on 9,919 ratings and 642 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I think we’ve done everything we can, don’t you?” he said.

    I nodded.  “Yes, I think so.”

    “As I always say – whatever the task you’re about to undertake, you should never neglect the basics.  Doesn’t matter what you call it – staff work, advance planning, spadework, foreplay – a little effort at the beginning always pays dividends in the end.”

    “Does Helen know you refer to your romantic interludes as spadework?”

    He looked over his shoulder.  “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”  (pg. 127)

 

    “Dr. Maxwell.  Advise us of your location.”

    The words bounced off the valley walls.  I was willing to bet if there ever had been anyone in the village below they weren’t there now.  They probably thought their gods were speaking to them.  It’s interesting to think that every major religion that claims to have heard the voice of their god might well have heard nothing more than the Time Police ordering some unfortunate to surrender at once, or be zapped with one of their sonic thingies.  I took a moment to wonder whether they could actually be responsible for the parting of the Red Sea, told myself not to be so bloody stupid, and staggered to my feet.  (pg. 380)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Juggins (n.) : one easily victimized; a simpleton.  (British; informal)

 

Never again would I tease Roberts about his bum-fluff.  (pg. 161)

    There’s just a scant amount of cussing in Lies, Damned Lies, and History.  I counted only 8 instances in the first quarter of the book, the most common one referencing an excretory product.  Later on, one f-bomb appeared, as well as an informal reference to a female mammary organ.

 

    I only just two typos: th/the and Halcombw/Halcombe, and one missing close-quotation mark.  Kudos to the editor(s) for a job well done.  That’s all the nitpicking I can come up with.

 

    I found Lies, Damned Lies, and History to be another fine effort in this series.  I’ve been reading the books in order, and have yet to be disappointed in any of them.  They are all equal parts time-travel, historical fiction, and wry British humour, with hints of romance and save-the-world adventure blended in.  That’s a great recipe for a bestselling series.

 

    9 Stars.  I should mention that Jodi Taylor has at least three other series for your reading pleasure: The Time Police (5 books), Frogmorton Farm (4 books), and Elizabeth Cage (3 books).  I’ve snagged a couple of e-books from two of these series, but haven’t read any of them, mostly because I’m hooked on this St. Mary’s series.  That’s a first-world problem, I admit, but a pleasant one to have.