My Hitch in Hell - Lester I. Tenney

   1995; 210 pages.  Full Title: My Hitch in Hell – The Bataan Death March.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : World War 2; Military history; Memoirs; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    The Bataan Death March.  It was perhaps even more of a shock to the “American Invincibility” myth than our country's initial World War 2 event: the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor.

 

    Because the Death March came on the heels of something unthinkable: the complete surrender of the American forces stationed on the Bataan peninsula of the Philippines.  Americans surrendering?  To those sneaky Japanese?  Perish the thought.

 

    The Death March became a catalyst for intense hatred by America against Japan, and an effective recruitment tool.  Lots of books have been written about it, written by lots of authors.  Lester I. “Ten Spot” Tenney is one of them.  But he stands apart from the other writers in one crucial way.

 

    Lester Tenney was a participant in, and a survivor of, the Bataan Death March.

 

What’s To Like...

    As the book's subtitle suggests, the Bataan Death March certainly is the highlight of My Hitch in Hell, and the longest chapter is devoted to it.  However, that catastrophic event only lasted eight days (April 9-17, 1942), and this book actually chronicles Lester Tenney’s full 4-year stint of overseas US military service, 3½ years of which was spent as a POW of the Japanese.

 

    I was impressed by Tenney’s even-handed “ground-level view” of the fight for the Philippines.  It is portrayed in our history books as a noble sacrifice of the American forces to slow down the Japanese advance.  But snafus abounded (see Chapter 2 and the first excerpt below), and if you were part of the units being sacrificed, facing death, torture, starvation, and brutal beatings (see second excerpt below), you might more abandoned than noble.

 

    I was pleasantly surprised to find the rest of the book just as interesting as the Death March itself.  Lester Tenney’s decision to join a local National Guard unit in 1940 eventually resulted in his being stationed in the Far East.  After the Death March and captivity in two POW camps in the Philippines, he was shipped off to Japan itself to endure barbaric conditions while working in a coal mine.  Freed only once the war ended, the latter chapters recount his repatriation and return to the US, in some ways just as excruciating as his POW ordeals.

 

    It was enlightening to see the steps Lester took to keep his sanity intact and his spirits up.  One of his tricks was to learn some basic Japanese phrases from his captors so he could understand what they were screaming about.  It also helped to keep a mental image of his wife, in order to have something to motivate him to stay alive.

 

    There were lighter moments as well.   Lester sets up a craps game while on the prison ship headed to Japan, which eased everyone’s mind since allied submarines were torpedoing any and all boats flying the Rising Sun flag and the Japanese refused to mark prison ships with Red Cross markings.  At the POW camp in Japan he helped set up, with the permission of the commandant, a musical talent show titled “The Ziegfeld Follies of 1944”.  He also arranged a sort of  black market goods-exchange system where items were bartered between both POW and Japanese patrons, with the middle man (Lester) charging an “agent’s fee”.

 

    The ending is bittersweet.  Lester comes home to a postwar America that has changed a lot in the five years he’s been away.  His wife Laura also has changed, and that needs attending to, especially since they had married in secret.  War is hell, even for the victors.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 220 ratings and 98 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.35*/5, based on 399 ratings and 62 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    We still did not have any training on the new tanks.  While we were in Honolulu, our commander tried to borrow two 37mm (the types mounted in our new tanks) and enough ammunition to practice from our transport deck while en route to the Philippines; but post ordnance in Hawaii refused this request.  When our tank unit arrived in the Philippines, we asked for the use of a firing range so that we could become familiar with the weapons mounted in our new tanks.  This request was also denied.  Therefore, it was not until the Japanese bombers and Zeros came over Clark Field that we were able to get in our “practice.”  On-the-job training does not work very well under these conditions.  (pg. 19)

 

    One of the men had a very bad case of malaria and had barely made it to the rest area.  He was burning up with fever and severely disoriented.  When ordered to stand up, he could not do it.  Without a minute’s hesitation, the guard hit him over the head with the butt of his gun, knocked him down to the ground, and then called for two nearby prisoners to start digging a hole to bury the fallen prisoner.  The two men started digging, and when the hole was about a foot deep, the guard ordered the two men to place the sick man in the hole and bury him alive.  The two men shook their heads; they could not do that.

    Once again without warning, and without any effort to settle the problem any other way, the guard shot the bigger of the two prisoners.  (pg. 57)

 

“Anyone can learn Japanese in ten easy beatings.”  (pg. 100)

    There’s not a lot of profanity in My Hitch in Hell, which surprised me, given the gruesome settings.  I noted just 8 instances in the first 50% of the book, and these were of the "milder" ilk.  This was helped by the author often choosing non-vulgar options when he was able, such as defecate, urinate, bowels, anus, feces, and others.

 

    There were some negative reviews at Amazon for this book.  Some people wondered whether the author “tweaked” some events to make himself look good.  That’s possible, but hey, that could be true in any autobiography, and I’d counter that quite often Lester suffers beatings for getting caught doing something underhanded, or for no reason at all other than Japanese barbarity.  Others thought the writing was rather amateurish.  They have a point, but I thought it added to the realism of the account.

 

    For me, My Hitch in Hell was a brutal and eye-opening read.  I’ve read about the Bataan Death March in my history books.  It’s quite different to “see” it through the eyes of one who survived it.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  On pages 211-213 in the back of the book there's an Appendix listing the 80 servicemen in Lester Tenney’s unit who didn’t make it back, along with (where known) their place, date, and cause of death.  It made for a sobering read.

Burglars Can't Be Choosers - Lawrence Block

   1977; 294 pages.  Book 1 (out of 11) in the “Bernie Rhodenbarr” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Hard Boiled Mysteries; Crime-Humor.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Sooner or later, even the most careful burglar gets caught in the act.  Bernie Rhodenbarr is a case in point.

 

    The job seemed like an easy one.  Break into an apartment, rifle a desk, steal a blue box.  Someone’s willing to pay him $5,000 to do that.

 

    The guy who lives there, a patron of the arts, is guaranteed to be out that night, attending a show.  Still, Bernie is taking no chances; he rings the doorbell several times before picking the locks on the door.  There’s no answer, which confirms that no one is home, and Bernie is quickly inside and searching through the desk.

 

    That’s when several bad things happen.  First, two policemen come barging through the door, catch Bernie in the act, and read him his rights.  Second, one of the cops checks the back bedroom—something Bernie hadn’t bothered to do because no one answered the doorbell.

 

    It turns out there’s a corpse in there, with its head bashed in.

 

What’s To Like...

    Burglars Can’t Be Choosers is the opening book in Lawrence Block’s “Bernie Rhodenbarr” series featuring a lovable and adept burglar as the narrator and protagonist.  Despite this being his literary debut, Bernie is experienced in his vocation, well-known to some of the police, and has even served a jail sentence for getting caught once in the past.

 

    The story takes place in New York City, the author’s stomping grounds, and I really liked the Gotham “feel” to it.  As you might in a series where the burglar is the hero, the tone is lighthearted and humorous.  The title reference, at 20%, is one of Bernie’s wry views on life.

 

    Unsurprisingly, Bernie manages to avoid being thrown in jail and quickly begins his own investigation into the mystery.  Who is the unfortunate victim in the bedroom?  Why did someone kill him?  Who and why did somebody set Bernie up to take the rap for the murder?  Why  couldn't he find the blue box?

 

    Bernie’s efforts are hampered by the fact that he’s a wanted man and he can safely assume that the NYPD is watching his apartment.  On the flipside, his lockpicking skills allow him easy entry into just about any place he wants to look for clues.  And, as usual (this is my fifth Bernie book), a sultry female is worked into the storyline and gives him sleuthing assistance plus other added benefits.

 

    The ending is above-average.  The case is solved thanks to two key clues.  One clue is there for both Bernie and the reader to notice and later slap their foreheads for failing to recognize its importance.  The other clue Bernie keeps to himself and only reveals it during the accusation scene.  There are a couple of kewl plot twists, one of which occurs after the perp is identified and the case closed.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Momser (n.) : a contemptible person (Yiddish).

Others: Loid (v.); Bokhara (n.); Gama-Houche (n.; obs.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 1,074 ratings. and 172 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.82/5 based on 7,173 ratings and 606 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    A funny thing.  The better your building, the higher your monthly rental, the more efficient your doorman, why, the easier it’s going to be to crack your apartment.  People who live in unattended walkups in Hell’s Kitchen will fasten half a dozen deadbolt locks to their doors and add a Segal police lock for insurance.  Tenement dwellers take it for granted that junkies will come to kick their doors in and strong-arm types will rip the cylinders out of their locks, so they make things as secure as they possibly can.  But if the building itself is set up as to intimidate your garden variety snatch-and-grab artist, then most tenants make do with the lock the landlord provides.  (pg. 4)

 

    “I’m relatively new at harboring fugitives but I’ll do my best to harbor you in the style to which you are accustomed.  Is it called harboring a fugitive if you do it in somebody else’s apartment?”

    “It’s called accessory after the fact to homicide,” I said.

    “That sounds serious.”

    “It ought to.”  (pg. 102)

 

Kindle Details…

    Burglars Can’t Be Choosers goes for $8.99 at Amazon right now.  Most of the other e-books in the series are that price as well, with two exceptions; one at $8.49 and one at $4.99.

 

“I thought you never lie.”  “I occasionally tell an expeditious untruth.”  (pg. 119)

    There’s a fair amount of cussing in Burglars Can’t Be Choosers.  I counted 23 instances in the first 20% of the book, most of which are of the “mild” variety.  Later on, at least one f-bomb shows up.  There are also a couple of rolls-in-the-hay, but those are tastefully done.

 

    The typos were few and far between.  Things like orbungling/or bungling and sub-liminal/subliminal.  I strongly suspect these cropped up in the “book-to-ebook” conversion stage.

 

    That’s about all I can gripe about.  Burglars Can’t Be Choosers is a well-written, enjoyable story where both the Mystery aspect and the Humor aspect shine.  I’m not reading this series in order, and I don’t think I’m losing anything because of that.  If you’re familiar with, and happen to like Donald Westlake’s “Dortmunder” series, you’ll love Bernie Rhodenbarr.

 

    8½ Stars.   One last thing.  At around 25% the Latin phrase “de mortuis” is used.  I’d never heard of it so had to look it up.  The full saying is “de mortuis nil nisi bonum”, which apparently is a famous phrase.  I took two years of Latin in school, and if you saw my grades in those classes, you’d realize why I couldn’t suss out the translation without Google’s help.

Any Day Now - Terry Bisson

   2018; 344 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Alternate History; Coming of Age Fiction; The 1960s.  Overall Rating : 5½*/10.

 

    It’s the 1950s, and all over the USA, the times they are a-changin’.

 

    You can hear it on the radio.  The “big band” music of the two previous decades is being replaced by a new sound that makes you want to snap your fingers and move your feet.  They call it “jazz” for whatever reason.

 

    Clayton “Clay” Bewley Bauer’s was just in grade school back then, in a small town called Calhoun, Kentucky; just outside the much bigger city of Owensboro.  His future, like all those in the Bewley clan, is already set in place:

    Graduate from high school,

    Graduate from Vanderbilt,

    Get a job in upper management somewhere.

 

    That sounds good.  The trouble is, that’s the “old way”, and Clay yearns to be part of those times that are a-changin’.

 

What’s To Like...

    In Any Day Now we follow Clay through three phases of his life.  Let’s call the first one his “Jazz Phase”, in the late 50s, wherein high-schooler Clay is introduced to new music from his friends and new ideas in the science-fiction books he reads voraciously.

 

    The next one is his college years in the early 60s; and we’ll label this his “Beatnik Phase”.  Clay eschews his family's tradition of attending Vanderbilt and instead opts for a small college in Minnesota.  But he soon drops out of there and moves to New York to be part of the Beat Scene and fulfill his career dream of becoming a poet.  His third phase is his “Commune Phase”, set in the late 60s and early 70s, after he moves out west and embraces the hippie lifestyle, including partaking of lots of recreational substances.

 

    The storyline resonated with me in several ways.  Clay’s approximately the same age as I am; we both spent our childhoods in small towns; and both had our long-haired, “Peace-Love-Dove” counterculture days.  To be honest, though, I never was tempted to go live in a commune.

 

    The first half of the book is Clay's Coming-of-Age saga, and felt like Terry Bisson was incorporating parts of his youth into the story.  One example: both the author and the protagonist were born and raised in Owensboro, Kentucky.  At that point I was disappointed that there wasn’t a bit of the Alternative History that the Amazon blurb promised.  Then abruptly, around 50% Kindle, a timeline anomaly pops up, and leads to a very different world that's going to sorely test Clay’s ideals.

 

    The ending is so-so.  After some exciting events in the “commune community”, Clay gets a much-needed rest.  But nothing is resolved, which makes me wonder if Terry Bisson intended to one day write a sequel to this.  Alas, it won’t happen.  Terry passed away in January 2024, and Wikipedia lists Any Day Now as his final full-length novel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.1/5 based on 24 ratings and 11 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.36/5 based on 189 ratings and 38 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    "It has to be real jazz,” said Clay.

    “So what’s real jazz?” Ruth Ann asked.  They were sitting on the hood of the Ford with the motor cooling underneath, still warm on their bottoms.

    “Felonious Monk, Charles Mingles, Billy Ladyday,” said Clay.  “Very experimental stuff.  But it has to swing.  White people don’t do it as well.  Coal Train is good.”  (loc. 447)

 

    They were calling themselves Redeemers.  They wore masks on TV and talked about freedom.

    “The freedom to burn things,” Rotella said.

    They burned bridges in Indiana, barns in Idaho, buses in Detroit, cars and crosses in Georgia, and two kidnapped King’s Men in a locked shed in Illinois.  MLK called them misguided pawns; the UN called them terrorists.

    “Terrorism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” said Haig.  “It’s time the silent majority spoke up for America.”

    “Got a light?” muttered Clay.  (loc. 3649)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Kindle version of Any Day Now is presently priced at $9.99 at Amazon, which is rather steep.  Other Terry Bisson e-books are in the $2.99-$9.99 range.  It appears that a number of the author’s best-known works, such as Bears Discover Fire, are not yet available in e-book format.

 

Ernest was a rich kid working at being poor.  (loc. 862)

    There’s a fair amount of profanity in Any Day Now.  I counted 22 instances in the first 20%, but to be fair, half of those were the n-word racial epithet, which was mostly used to show Clay didn’t like the word, even though it was used frequently in the 1950s.

 

    Recreational drug usage is one of Clay’s frequent habits, and is generally presented in a positive and/or humorous way here, such as learning how “hold in” a toke, and how to properly prepare peyote before partaking of it.  I thought Clay’s first acid trip was presented particularly well.  Gay people are a common occurrence in both the Beat Scene and the hippie communes.  So if you’re a homophobe, you probably should skip this book.

 

    My biggest issue with Any Day Now is the storytelling.  Terry Bisson’s writing style is good, but the plotline doesn’t go anywhere or reach any conclusion.  Plus the previously mentioned genre-switch at the halfway point didn’t work at all for me.  Moreover, judging from the extremely low Goodreads ratings and several reviews there, I’m not the only one that felt this way.

 

    Despite that, I enjoyed Any Day Now, presumably because I could relate to so many of Clay’s experiences and have enjoyed so many of his sci-fi novels.  So let’s just call this one an ambitious and noble literary experiment that didn’t work.  RIP, Terry Bisson.  Your devoted fans dearly miss you.

 

    5½ Stars.  One last thing.  At one point during his Beat Phase, Clay goes to hear a 1950s hipster speaker by the name of Lord Buckley.  If you’ve never heard of him, go to YouTube and listen to some of his routines.  You will be amazed.

Captain Hawklin At War - Charles F. Millhouse

   2024; 504 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book #11 (out of 11) in the Captain Hawklin Adventures series.  Genres : Pulp Fiction; World War 2; Military Fiction.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    It’s 1940 and Americans can smell the smoke of the second World War in the wind.  Which is not surprising since much of Europe and Asia are already embroiled in fighting.

 

    Captain Steven Hawklin’s friends and fellow Crusaders are scattered all over the globe.  Hardy Miller is in Crown City, California attending to the business affairs of Hawklin’s flight school.  Desa Wintergreen is in Paris, on some sort of mission so secret that she won’t even divulge the details to Steven.

 

    Who knows where Steven’s friend and fellow American Zane Carrington is?  He could be anywhere on the Pacific Ocean, hiding out so he doesn’t get arrested and put on trial in America for murder.

 

    And Steven?  He and his longtime friend Oscar “Oz” Lyman are presently in a plane over a very hostile Japan, carrying out an affair of honor, while a bunch of Japanese Zero fighter planes try to shoot them down.

 

    In other words, Captain Hawklin is just doing his usual stuff.

 

What’s To Like...

    Captain Hawklin At War is the latest entry in Charles F. Millhouse’s “New Pulp” Captain Hawklin Adventures series.  The book is divided into six sections, each one spanning a year’s worth of dashing deeds, beginning in 1940 and closing with 1945.

 

    For the most part we tag along on the escapades of the characters mentioned above, switching from one hero to another, with the happy result of a ton of thrills, spills, and nefarious conniving, without any slow spots.  If you’re new to the series, like I was, there are some very helpful “Character Bios” at the start of the book, including one for a baddie I was especially intrigued by, Maximilian Odenthal.

 

    Each section starts with a quick recap of the historical World War 2 events that take place that year, but keep in mind that Captain Hawklin At War is a work of the Pulp Fiction genre.  Although clearly on the side of the allies, Captain Hawklin and his associates are battling the Nazis in a different, lesser-known arena: Occult Mysticism.  It may surprise some readers that there is historical justification for this, but several of the leading Nazis did dabble in it.  The Wikipedia link about this subject is here.

 

    I loved the character development in Captain Hawklin At War.  Yes, the Crusaders are all Pulp heroes, but they can get on each other’s nerves at times, and Hawklin himself can be short-tempered, especially when around high military/government muckamucks and/or his in-laws.  The two main female characters, Desa and Juno, are not the sort you want to be condescending to.  And Hawklin’s Crusaders are integrated, much to the discomfort of the US Navy.

 

    There are a slew of characters to meet and greet, some of which I’m sure are recurring from the earlier books in this series.  The bad guys are just as resourceful as the good guys, and I always like that.  I’m a history buff, so I appreciated the tie-ins to World War 2 events, but I’m also a sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast, so the pterodactyls, tree people, lizard men, and zombies delighted me as well.  I thought the catacombs scene was particularly well done.

 

    Despite their far-flung starting points, the main characters eventually come together for an exciting, action-packed ending.  The #1 bad guy, Sykes Revan, is a formidable opponent, whose planning and anticipation skills are incredible.  Anyone foolish or brave enough to confront him does so, knowing the outcome will be costly.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: -.-*/5, based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews.

    Goodreads: -.--*/5, based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word…

    Cataleptic (adj.) : resembling a condition where the body is stiff, and stops moving, as if dead.

 

Excerpts...

    “What’s your business here?” another English soldier asked as Zane and the others came nearer.

    Keeping his pistol leveled to the ground, Zane said, “I’m the captain of the Fortitude.  Just wanting to get my ship and get the hell out of here.”

    “You should have left hours ago,” the first soldier said as he lowered his rifle away.  “You’ll be lucky if you can clear the harbor before you’re blown out of the water.”

    “That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Zane said.

    “Why are you Americans so pigheaded, ay?”

    “We come by it natural,” Zane replied.  (pg. 194)

 

    “Don’t let it get to you.  It’s war.”

    Hardy stood.  “It’s war,” he said in a dark tone as he turned away from the boy’s body.  He regarded Demonte in a fever pitch of ferocity.  “That one simple word with so much power, that gives us immunity from committing the most heinous of acts.  It’s war will be a phrase that criminals hide behind, that soldiers will tell themselves when medals are pinned to their chest.  How many of the dead will be forgotten, whittled down to, it is war?  How will history remember this time?  ‘It was war’ they will say.  But how many more wars will we have to face, huh.  How many more innocents will die behind the phrase, ‘’it’s war?’”  (pg. 382)

 

“Why is it, Max, that every time there’s a castle around, I find you lurking in it?”  (pg. 291)

    The profanity is sparse in Captain Hawklin At War.  I noticed just nine instances in the first 20% (100 pages) of the book, and they were all of the milder ilk.  I don’t recall any “adult situations”, and the one racial epithet later on is given its proper comeuppance by Oz.

 

    My main issue is the number of typos in the book.  Some examples: Oman/Orman, Oaf/Oof, flower/flour, Metals/Medals, distain/disdain, fare-shear/fair share, and many more.  I’d suggest another round of editing before the next edition is published.

 

    But enough of the quibbling.  Captain Hawklin At War is an incredibly ambitious undertaking by Charles F. Millhouse to: a.) chronicle the efforts of at least seven major characters over the course of entire Second World War and in all parts of the world; b.) do so with utter clarity and no slow spots; c.) seamlessly blend Military History with New Pulp Fantasy; and d.) keep the reader turning the pages to see what happens next.

 

   Ambitious?  Yes.  Successful?  Yes, on all four of those endeavors.  Despite being 500 pages in length, Captain Hawklin At War was a quick read for me, mostly because I kept reading “just one more chapter” to see which Crusader was going to find himself/herself in what sort of new mayhem.  So if you’re looking for a “pulpy” action-adventure novel with a World War Two setting, this book is for you.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  If you’re new to this series, and upon finishing Captain Hawklin At War, you want to read more stories about our hero, a section titled “The Captain Hawklin Timeline”, located at the end of the book, lists 10 more novels and 8 more short stories featuring him.  Happy reading!

Revenge of the Jinx - Benjamin Laskin

   2018; 344 pages.  Book 2 (out of 4) in the “Murphy’s Luck” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Magical Realism; Cozy Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    The security camera captured the entire sequence.  Murphy Drummer singlehandedly foiled the plans of a pair of gun-toting bank robbers, while simultaneously protecting all the bank patrons and employees from any harm.

 

    He did it in spectacular fashion too, utilizing, among other things, the Heimlich maneuver, a baby bottle, and a seat cushion.  Everyone in the bank appreciated his odds-defying heroics, except, of course, the bank robbers.

 

  His actions also caught the attention of another group.  The FBI.  They’re sending two of their agents to talk to Murphy about a possible job opportunity for him at the agency.

 

    Hmm.  What kind of job would cause the FBI to prefer a civilian operative instead of one of their own experienced field agents?

 

What’s To Like...

    Revenge of the Jinx is the second book in Benjamin Laskin’s four-volume Murphy’s Luck series.  I read Book One last year; it is reviewed here.  Several years have passed between the events of the two books.  Murphy and Joy have married, a daughter is born, and little Phaedra is now five years old.

 

    Murphy is still afflicted by his jinx, but he’s mitigated its effects by living way out in the sticks and rarely if ever being around any outsiders.  Joy and Phaedra, both of whom seem to be immune to Murphy’s jinx, share his solitude.  Phaedra is a happy little girl, and her dad has built his daughter her very own playground called Cloverville.

 

    I liked the character development here.  Two inept FBI agents, Lester McDougall and Milo Lowenstein, provide the comic relief for the story.  The main bad guy, Lucius Valentine, has an excuse for his vileness: a giant wart on his chin.  And his two enforcers, Lamar and Miguel, are a lot less “thuggy” than stereotypical goons usually are.

 

    The storyline moves along at a pleasant pace.  Murphy’s boundless optimism and naivete keeps the jinx at bay, and by now he’s honed his “murphometer” skills to where he can shrewdly discern what disasters are about to befall innocent bystanders.

 

    The ending is appropriately over-the-top, and includes a couple of neat plot twists and dei ex machina.  which is consistent with the storyline.  Good triumphs over evil, of course; but good also smiles upon the baddies to a certain extent.  The last two chapters are of the “Whatever happened to…” ilk.  Chapter 38 covers the fates of various secondary characters; Chapter 39 does the same for Murphy and family.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 150 ratings and 33 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.41*/5, based on 94 ratings and 17 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “What amazed Lowenstein was why two incompetent schlubs like he and Lester McDougall would be assigned to such an important case.

    As if reading Lowenstein’s thoughts, Dunlap replied, “Exactly, Agent Lowenstein.  I can’t think of two worse agents for such a top-secret operation, but this is something we want flying under everyone’s radar—way under.  Subterranean—get it?”

    “Um….”

    “I do!” McDougall blurted.  “You want us to pose as oafs so that no one will suspect we’re up to something!”

    “No posing required,” Dunlap said.  (loc. 625)

 

    “Joy, honey,” Mrs. Daley said, “what about your—?”  She saw Phaedra listening and caught herself.  “Your rhymes with sphinx?”

    “I thought you guys didn’t believe in rhymes with finks.”

    “We don’t,” Mr. Daley said, “but if you believe in rhymes with stinks, then aren’t you acting irresponsibly?”

    “Yes,” Mrs. Daley said.  “Look at all the ‘chinks’ you went through to get here.  If you’re right, then going twice the distance could result in twice the, er, ‘tiddlywinks.’”

    “Leave our kinks to me,” Joy answered with finality.  (loc. 3714)

 

Kindle Details…

    Murphy’s Luck sells for $4.99 currently at Amazon, as do the other three books in the series.  Benjamin Laskin has several other series in e-book format; their books cost either $2.99 or $4.99.

 

Lunch was seafood served up with an assortment of near catastrophes.  (loc. 2646)

    As with the first book, cussing is sparse in Revenge of the Jinx.  I counted just seven instances in the first 25% of the book, all of the mild variety.  A technical term for male genitalia pops up later on, but not in an “adult situation”.  And though we find remnants of past victims of the main bad guy, there’s not really any gore.

 

    There are a lot of conveniently-timed saving graces, but here that’s a plus, not a criticism.  Murphy’s “gift” may be a jinx for everyone else, but for him it’s a source of incredible luck.  Revenge of the Jinx is meant to make you smile and feel good, not keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering whether Murphy and his friends are going to die.

 

    Overall, I thought this was a fine sequel to the opening book in the series.  The tone was heartwarming, there was sufficient action and intrigue to keep the plot moving, and enough witty dialogue to keep the reader smiling.  I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series, Curse vs. Jinx.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last tidbit.  I loved the inclusion of the lyrics of one of my favorite songs ever, Radar Love by Golden Earring.  I’ve never met him, but I am certain that Benjamin Laskin has fantastic musical tastes!

2010: Odyssey Two - Arthur C. Clarke

   1982; 285 pages.  Book 2 (out of 4) in the “Space Odyssey” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Space Exploration; Hard Science Fiction; Movie Tie-In.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    It’s 2010, and it’s been almost a decade since the first manned space mission to Jupiter.  That one was a disaster, due to a computer malfunction.  Everyone but Dave Bowman perished, and no one knows what happened to him.  The space vehicle Discovery was abandoned, and presumably is still orbiting around Jupiter.

 

    That ship is still American property though, and now US Intelligence has just learned that the Russians are building a spaceship to go to Jupiter and claim the Discovery as "salvage".  The USA has started a crash program (no pun intended) to build a spaceship, but there’s no way we can beat the Russians’ projected launch date.

 

    But aha!, we’ve got a trump card: Dr. Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai (called ‘Dr. Chandra’ for short), who programmed HAL-9000, the computer on Discovery that caused all the trouble.  He works for us, and he will be a great asset to anyone trying to get Discovery up and running again.

 

    So let's do something unexpected—call the Russians and propose the venture to Jupiter be a joint American-Russian mission, with Dr. Chandra as one of the American guests.

 

    Those Russkis are probably dumb enough to accept the offer.

 

What’s To Like...

    2010 – Odyssey Two is the sequel to 2001- A Space Odyssey, both in movie and book format.  I’ve seen the 2001 movie three times, a record for my cinematic attendance.  I haven’t seen the 2010 movie.

 

    I liked the book’s premise of Russian and American scientists cooperating with each other.  2010 – Odyssey Two was written in 1982, when the Cold War was still very much a reality.  To portray a group of Russians as normal human beings, and not the usual brainwashed Communist stereotypes, was a pleasant change.  Arthur C. Clarke also inserts a number of Russian phrases into the text, usually without translations into English.  Thank goodness for Google.

 

    There’s a multitude of plotlines to keep track of.  It’s not a spoiler to say that HAL-9000 is successfully reactivated, but how trustworthy will he be?  Will they find out what happened to David Bowman?  Is there life of Jupiter’s moons?  What’s with those monoliths?  And why is a cryptic deadline given for them to leave and return to Earth?

 

    I loved the attention to scientific details.  Arthur C. Clarke writes in a “hard science fiction genre” style.  I’m proud to say I knew what “Lagrange points” were, but had to look up “von Neumann machines”.  The “1:4:9 Ratio” twist was sheer genius, and I was amazed to learn that the name of the “EPCOT center” is actually an acronym.

 

    The pacing was similar to the 2001 storyline.  There’s not a lot of action in the first 2/3 of the book, but the reader’s interest is kept by the interactions of the multinational and mixed-gender crew, plus the reawakened HAL.  Then comes an extended and exciting ending, which resolves some questions about the mysterious monolith-building extraterrestrials, while posing new ones.  Presumably those will be addressed in the remaining two books in the series.  Things close with an altered solar system, one that is both hopeful and scary. 

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 3,323 ratings and 410 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.95*/5, based on 58,208 ratings and 1,601 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Perijove (n.) : the point in a spacecraft’s orbit around Jupiter when it is closest to the planet.

Others: Posmotri (v., Russian).; Lingam (n.).

 

Excerpts...

    “You naïve Americans! We’re more realistic; we have to be.  All your grandparents died of old age, Heywood.  Three of mine were killed in the Great Patriotic War.”

    When they were alone together, Tanya always called him Woody, never Heywood.  She must be serious.  Or was she merely testing his reactions?

    “Anyway, Discovery is merely a few billion dollars’ worth of hardware.  The ship’s not important—only the information it carries.”

    “Exactly.  Information that could be copied and then erased.”

    “You do get some cheerful ideas, Tanya.  Sometimes I think that all Russians are a little paranoiac.”

    “Thanks to Napoleon and Hitler, we’ve earned every right to be.”  (loc. 922)

 

    “It’s all very well to feel grateful to Bowman—or whatever gave that warning.  But that’s all they did.  We could still have been killed.”

    “But we weren’t,” answered Tanya.  “We saved ourselves—by our own efforts.  And perhaps that was the whole idea.  If we hadn’t—we wouldn’t have been worth saving.  You know, survival of the fittest.  Darwinian selection.  Eliminating the genes for stupidity.”  (loc. 3821)

 

Kindle Details…

    2010 – Odyssey Two sells for $7.59 at Amazon, the same price as Books 3 and 4.  Book 1, 2001 – A Space Odyssey, costs $9.99.

 

How did one annoy a two-kilometer-long black rectangular slab?  (loc. 1764)

    Profanity is almost nonexistent in 2010 – Odyssey Two, which is what I expected.  I noted only 4 expletives in the whole book, all of which were of the “milder” variety.

 

    The quibbles are minor.  Tame, playful, intelligent dolphins are worked into the storyline several times, and I kept waiting for them to make some sort of impact, presumably of the “goodbye, and thanks for all the fish” ilk.  Alas, it never happened.  Maybe they play more important roles in the remaining two books in the series.

 

    A Chinese space team also enters into the plotline, although it sort of a cameo appearance.  But theirs was an obvious fate since only one of them is even identified by name.  I suspect they'll all be wearing red shirts in the movie version.

 

    That’s all I can gripe about.  If you read 2001 – A Space Odyssey and liked it, you’ll enjoy 2010 – Odyssey Two just as much.  Now I'm wondering how Stanley Kubrick handled the cosmic ending in the movie version.  I'll have to search the Netflix files to see if they carry it.

 

    9½ Stars.  A brief mention of a novella by Leo Tolstoy called The Kreutzer Sonata intrigued me  Wikipedia says it was published in 1889 and promptly censored by the Russian authorities.  Here, it is described as “Russian erotic fiction”.  I never knew such a genre existed.