Academ's Fury - Jim Butcher

   2005; 529 pages.  Book 2 (out of 6) in the “Codex Alera” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Epic Fantasy; High Fantasy; Roman Empire Fantasy; Coming of Age.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Run for the hills, oh ye citizens of Alera!  The Vord are coming!  They’ve already overrun Marat, and kicked the stuffing out of the human fighting forces.  Alera is next on their list.

 

    It couldn’t be happening at a worse time.  Political infighting wracks the kingdom, and the current ruler, Gaius Sextus, First Lord of Alera, lies in frail health.  That’s actually being kept a secret because if word gets out, civil war is virtually a certainty.

 

    But all is not lost.  The Alerans rely on harnessing the magical power of the what they call the Furies—what you and I would call “Elementals”.  Masterly use of those enables one to do things such as fly through the skies, conjure of deluges, etc.  Pretty powerful stuff.

 

    But what if the Vord are more powerful?

 

What’s To Like...

    Academ’s Fury is Book Two of Jim Butcher’s Epic Fantast Codex Alera series.  I read the first book, Furies of Calderon, a few years back; it is reviewed here.  There’s plenty of Action and Intrigue present, and they both get going immediately.  Academ’s Fury is divided into 58 chapters, plus a prologue and epilogue, so there’s always a good place to stop reading for the night. 

 

    Tavi is still an Academy student.  He’s training to be a Cursor—a person who can control a Fury, but still hasn’t shown a whit of the required magical ability.  To compensate, he’s learning the martial arts under the steady tutelage of his blind mento, Master Killian.  Maybe swordsmanship can counter the powers the Elementals.  But I doubt it.

 

    I liked the monster development.  The Vord are bunch of blood-drinking shape-shifters, who also have the means of taking possession of a human or beast, and turning them into ruthless, mindless killers of their former comrades.  Plus if a Vord goes one-on-one with a Furycrafter, the Vord will always win.

 

    The storyline is complex.  The Vord attacks via three separate hordes, so the Aleran defensive forces have to be split into three parties, weakening them considerably.  The First Lord’s frailty is a constant worry, but so is the realization that someone is murdering Cursors in Alera.  The ambassador from Canim is acting strangely., and perhaps most worrying of all, why does one of the Vord groups seem to be trying to reach Tavi?

 

    The ending consists of several battles in diverse locations, and is suitably exciting and bloody.  The Vord invasion is halted (well, you knew that would be the case, didn’t you?), but at a terrible cost.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 6,155 ratings and 502 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.27/5 based on 74,138 ratings and 2,178 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    The evening’s mists were gathering thick and cold.  Tavi felt himself start to shiver as the cold found its way to his sweating skin.  He shook his head.  “Sorry, I suppose I’m not at my most alert.  But seriously, what are you doing down here?”

    Max grinned.  “There’s a young widow a couple of streets down.  She gets lonely on misty nights.”

    “This time of year, every night is misty,” Tavi said.

    Max beamed.  “I noticed that, too.”

    “There’s a reason people hate you.”

    “Jealousy is common among lesser men.”  (pg. 69)

 

    She blinked her eyes slowly open and said, “Oh, dear.”

    “Oh dear?” Bernard asked.

    She reached up and touched her throat, where Bernard’s ring still hung by its chain.  “Oh, dear.  We’ve survived.  We’re alive.  And . . . and we’re wed.”

    Bernard blinked a few times, then mused, “Why, yes.  I suppose that’s true.  We’ve lived.  And we’ve married.  I suppose now we’ll have to stay together.  Perhaps even be in love.”

    “Exactly,” Amara repeated, closing her weary eyes with sigh and leaning against the broad strength of his chest.  “This ruins everything.”  (pg. 469)

 

“I have no objection to education as long as it doesn’t interfere with my sleep.”  (pg. 160)

    The profanity level in Academ’s Fury is minimal—just three instances in the first half of the book.  Most of the time, when some cussing is called for, crows are referenced.  For example: “crows take you!” and “bloody crows!”

 

    I really can’t think of anything to quibble about.  I didn’t note any typos, which is an improvement over Book One.  I suppose a Cast of Characters would’ve been nice, but I keep notes with such things on every book I read, so that wasn't a drawback for me.

 

    For me, Academ’s Fury was an exciting, action-packed read, with lots of twists and powerful, intelligent adversaries to keep me turning the pages.  The characters were all well-developed, even the secondary ones; and there was enough wit and humor (and even a tinge of romance!) to keep the story’s tone from getting too dark.

 

    I am thoroughly hooked on Jim Butcher’s main series—The Dresden Files—but I’m coming to the conclusion that his Codex Alera series is just as captivating.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  If you want a sneak peek at where this series is going, take a look at the titles of the remaining four books in this series.  Notice the progression?  This is going to be a great series.

Isle of the Dead - Roger Zelazny

   1969; 190 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Classic Science Fiction; Fantasy; Time Travel.  Laurels : 1969 Hugo Award for Best Novel (nominated); 1972 French Prix Apollo Award (winner).  Overall Rating: 6*/10.

 

    Meet Francis “Frank” Sandow.  He’s the 87^th wealthiest being in the entire galaxy.  That’s quite the feat, although it’s probably due to the fact that he’s also the oldest being in the galaxy.  Francis was born on Earth in the 20^th century.  It’s now the 32^nd century and he lives light years away from here on a planet called Homefree.  Francis personally created that world.

 

    The secret to Francis’s longevity is something called “time dilation”, which, as everyone who’s ever taken a course in Quantum Physics (I have!) can tell you, relates to how Time “slows down” as you approach the speed of Light.

 

    Francis is content with his life and has no desire to visit 32^nd-century Earth.  He has too many memories of too many Earthly companions that have long ago shuffled off their mortal coil.  But lately someone has started sending him photographs of some of those long-departed acquaintances.

 

    Those photos could be fake, of course.  But if they aren’t, they present Francis with an intriguing enigma.  Because the six former acquaintances of Francis look like they’re presently very much alive.

 

What’s To Like...

    Isle of the Dead is a standalone 1969 novel by Roger Zelazny.  It is primarily a work of Science Fiction, thanks to the intergalactic time travel, with some mystical Fantasy elements blended in. 

 

    The world-building is phenomenal.  If properly trained, you can create your own planet, although I think it actually refers to terraforming an existing uninhabited world.  Two sentient alien races have been encountered—the Rigelians and the ancient-but-dwindling Pei’ans.  The recall-tapes were a fascinating innovation, and I’ve got to get one of those slip-sleds to avoid traffic congestion.

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV, Francis’s.  There are no chapters per se in the text; instead it is divided up into eight Parts.  Francis’s 20^th-century roots allow him to reference lots of familiar things people and things, including Kafka, Gogol, Rachmaninoff, and my favorite: Ginnungagap.

 

    Things build to a cosmic-sized climax, which was the norm for classic 1960s Sci-Fi.  It features a couple of plot twists that I didn’t see coming and wraps up most of the plot threads.  I got the feeling Roger Zelazny wrote this as a first book in a series, but nothing ever came of that.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.3*/5, based on 452 ratings and 43 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.80*/5, based on 2,085 ratings and 123 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Klepsydra (n.) : a device that measures time using the steady flow of water from one container to another.

Others: Catenary (adj.); Barratry (n.).

 

Excerpts...

    “Will you consent to accompany me back to Earth and talk to my chief?” he asked.

    “No,” I said.  “I’ve answered that question a dozen times, in as many letters.  Earth grates on my nerves, it gives me a big pain these days.  That’s why I live out here.  Earth is overcrowded, bureaucratic, unhealthy, and suffering from too many mass-psychoses to bother classifying.  Whatever your chief wants to say, you can say for him, and I’ll answer you, and you can take it back to him.”  (loc. 3589)

 

    “A penny for your thoughts,” I said.

    “What is a penny?”

    “An ancient monetary unit, once common on my home planet.  On second thought, don’t take me up on it.  They’re valuable now.”

    “It is strange to offer to buy a thought.  Was this a common practice among your people, in the old days?”

    “It had to do with the rise of the merchant classes,” I said.  “Everything has a price, and all that.”  (loc. 4671)

 

Kindle Details…

    I bought Isle of the Dead as part of a two-book Kindle bundle of Roger Zelazny sci-fi.  The other book is Eye of Cat, which I read earlier and is reviewed here.  Amazon no longer offers this bundle in e-book format; but you can buy the paperback version for a mere $17.99.  Alternatively, you can buy the hardcover and/or paperback versions of Isle of the Dead from independent dealers through Amazon for outrageous prices.

 

“Did you ever witness the combat of Betta splendens, the Siamese Fighting Fish?”  (loc. 3932)

    I noted 15 instances of profanity in the first 33% of Isle of the Dead, which is more than I expected for a Sci-Fi novel written in the 1960s.  But they were all of the milder eschatological nature, so it wasn’t distracting.  Later on, several references to female canines showed up, but hey, this was almost written in the 1970s.

 

    I only saw two typos, both punctuation-related, which I suspect happened after this was given to the publisher.  There was no Table of Contents in this bundled e-book version, which bugged me a bit, but that's a quibble.

 

    The big issue was a storytelling.  Halfway through the book, I still couldn’t tell you what the main storyline was.  One of Francis’s ex-lovers has gone missing; should he try finding her?  The 45^th wealthiest man in the galaxy has a proposal for Francis; why?  Who is sending him those real-or-fake photos; and for what purpose?

 

    Things finally come into focus in the book’s second half, but that’s a lot of time spent on galaxy-building.  When the smoke finally clears, way too many characters are conveniently deceased, which means their plotlines have come to naught, plus one of them is still MIA.

 

    All of this could be forgiven if the book was an introduction to a series.  The beauty of time-travel, and of meeting and interacting with hitherto unknown extraterrestrials, is that no one has to remain dead.  Sadly, Roger Zelazny passed away in 1995, so this remains a one-and-done novel.  Someone needs to step up and turn it into a series.

 

    6 Stars.  One last thing.  Every once in a while, some subtle humor works its way into the text.  One example: the three moons of the planet Illyria are named Flopsus, Mopsus, and Kattontallus.  I loved that.

The Spellmans Strike Again - Lisa Lutz

    2010; 388 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book 4 (out of 6) in “The Spellmans” series.  Genres : Women Sleuths; Humorous Crime Fiction; Dysfunctional Comedy.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Meet the Spellman family!  Mom, Dad, and their three children: 34-year-old David, 32-year-old Isabel (aka “Izzy”), and 17-year-old Rae (a high school senior).

 

    Collectively, they make up the entire workforce of a family company called "Spellman Investigations".  Want to know what’s in someone else’s trash?  As long s it’s bundled and in a trash container, the Spellman’s are happy to snare it and bring it to you.

 

    Family-wise, the Spellmans are known for “putting the ‘fun’ back into ‘dysfunctional’.  Weekly dinners are usually laden with sarcasm, and nobody’s lifestyle is above critique.  Maybe some sort of team-building exercise is in order.

 

    I’ve got it!  How about everyone’s mandatory attendance in a camping excursion!

 

What’s To Like...

    There are a slew of storylines in The Spellmans Strike Again, some of which involve sleuthing, but there are also plot threads focusing on family relationships.  Boyfriends and girlfriends of the three children are judged for worthiness; siblings may occasionally lock other siblings in rooms, and bizarrely, doorknobs keep disappearing all over the family house!

 

    The story is told from the first-person POV (Izzy’s), and there are a plethora of footnotes which sometimes refer back to earlier books in the series, and other times give some wry observations by Izzy.  They work flawlessly and are definitely worth your time.  There is also a Cast of Characters section in the back, giving brief bios of the main characters and which comes in handy if, like me, it has been a while since you read the previous book in the series.

 

    The book is divided into four parts consisting of 91 sections.  I wouldn’t call them “chapters”; they’re more like entries in a journal.  That may sound tedious, but it works charmingly.  I enjoyed the literary nod to Jeeves & Wooster, and was surprised to find I’ve been mispronouncing the Vietnamese cuisine, “pho”, for a long time.

 

    In amongst all the mayhem and humor, Lisa Lutz also examines a serious topic: DNA testing.  The Spellmans take on appeals for two cases involving people currently jailed.  The legal system was still grappling with the reliability of DNA analysis when this book was published (2010).  The author devotes a section in the back called “The Innocence Project” giving facts and figures as to how great an impact DNA testing has become in reopening criminal convictions.  Read it; you will be astounded.

 

    The ending is a bittersweet affair.  Spellman Investigations is successful in one of the reopened cases utilizing DNA analysis, but unsuccessful in the other.  Most of the plotlines are resolved and Izzy finds a boyfriend to replace the one she’s been referring to as ”Ex #12”.  We’ll address the “bitter” of the “bittersweet ending” in the next section.  It’s a quibble.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 634 ratings and 155 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.20/5 based on 13,442 ratings and 1,084 reviews.

 

Kindle Details…

    The Spellmans Strike Again currently sells for $13.99 at Amazon.  The other five books in the series are priced in the range of $13.99-$15.99, except for Book 3, Revenge of the Spellmans, which is only $3.49 right now.  Lisa Lutz has four other novels in e-book format; they range in price from $4.99 to $9.99.

 

Excerpts...

    “How can we work this out?” he asked.

    “My brother says I should start making friends my own age.”

    “Ouch,” the inspector replied with mock injury.

    “We’re not enemies,” I offered, thinking that was friendly enough.

    “I want to be more than enemies.”

    “Archenemies?  I suppose we could head in that direction.  But you’d have to do something pretty awful for us to drive down that road.”

    “I was thinking in the other direction,” Henry answered, not amused.  (loc. 335)

 

    “What happened here?” David asked.

    “Feng shui,” Mom replied.

    “Gesundheit,” I said.

    “That’s so unlike you both,” David said, eyeing them suspiciously.

    “We got a book,” said Mom.  “It’s important for the marriage to keep clutter out of the bedroom.  And the bed shouldn’t line up directly with the door and should be approachable from both sides.”

    David stared at the television set that was still stationed in front of the bed.

    “Don’t they tell you to get rid of the TV, too?”

    “We don’t have to do everything the book says,” Dad replied.  (loc. 3115)

 

“I heard you loud and clear the first five times you said that.”  (loc. 1997)

    The profanity level in The Spellmans Strike Again is about normal for this series; I counted 14 instances in the first half of the book, two of which were f-bombs.  Alcohol is consumed on a number of occasions, but I wouldn’t call it excessive.  There are a couple “adult situations”, but they are tastefully described.

 

    Despite the Spellmans being a bunch of Private Investigators, this is not primarily a whodunit mystery novel, and that’s also been true of the prior books in this series.  Indeed, Amazon’s blurbs do not use the word “Mystery” in their genre classifications for this book, so this shouldn't be a surprise.

 

    My only quibble (the “bitter” of the aforementioned “bittersweet ending”) is that one of the recurring characters dies at the close of the story.  The death does not impact the storyline in any way.  I’m not the sort of reader who gets upset when a favorite character is written out of a series (a common George R.R. Martin habit), but I just don’t see any point in doing this here.  Maybe I’ll find out in Book #5, Trail of the Spellmans.

 

    Overall, The Spellmans Strike Again is another solid entry in this series.  The wit and humor are plentiful, there is ample sleuthing, the cases are fascinating, and the family interactions are hilariously zany. The final two books are on my Kindle; my only quibble is that I don’t sense Lisa Lutz continuing the series.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point Rae’s parents buy her a set of books titled “The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”.  This brought back childhood memories for me.  Those were on a family bookshelf when I was growing up, and I read them several times.

Nobody's Girl - Virginia Roberts Giuffre

   2025; 382 pages.  New Author(s)?  : Yes.  Full Title: Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice.  Genres : Biographies & Memoirs; Sexual Abuse & Harassment; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating: 10*/10.

 

    The Epstein Files have sure been in the headlines a lot lately.  There’s a lot of interest as to who partied with him, who went to his Island (aka Little Saint James), and who paid how much to be “entertained”.

 

    But little has been said about the girls in Epstein’s entourage.  Were they happy hookers or indentured servants?  Could they leave anytime they chose or would bad things happen if they failed to show up when summoned?  Were they underage or just heavily made-up to look young?

 

    I bet a lot of people would be interested in hearing about the experiences of those girls.  I bet a lot of people who hobnobbed with Jeffrey Epstein would go to great lengths to suppress any and all information about those girls’ experiences.

 

    That’s what makes Nobody’s Girl such an important book.

 

What’s To Like...

    Nobody’s Girl is the memoir of one of the key girls in Epstein’s fold, Virginia Roberts Giuffre.  The book is divided into four parts, namely:

    Part 1: Daughter  (pgs. 3-63)

    Part 2: Prisoner  (pgs. 65-106)

    Part 3: Survivor  (pgs. 147-256)

    Part 4: Warrior  (pgs. 257-367)

 

    Those section titles give a nice overview of the storyline.  Virginia’s father started molesting her when she was seven years old (Part 1).  As a 16-year-old she gets a job, first at Mar-a-Lago, then at Epstein’s as an aspiring masseuse and sex slave (Part 2).  At age 19, she travels to Thailand, meets her husband-to-be, and quits her Epstein job.  She marries, has kids, and discovers that Epstein will find her wherever she goes, and do anything to her and her family to keep her quiet (Part 3).  She fights back (Part 4), via depositions, lawsuits, interviews, and establishing help groups for others who suffered the same abuse.

 

    If you’re looking for some “great reveals” about Trump, you’ll be disappointed.  He gets scant mention, and that merely has to do with his Mar-a-Lago resort, where Virginia’s father worked as a groundskeeper.  However, there is some mention of unnamed clients such as “Billionaire #1”, “Billionaire #2”, and a “well-known Prime Minister”.  Giuffre admits she’s too scared to reveal these individuals by name, fearing retribution against her and her family., especially from one of the Billionaires.

 

    It’s not surprising that most of the sexploitation tales involve Jeffrey Epstein and the various guests that accompany him on cruises and visits to his island.  He's the chief malefactor, but for sheer depravity, Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, stands above all others.  Her efforts on behalf of Epstein in recruitment, training, participation, and intimidation are jaw-dropping.

 

    If I had to describe the tone of Nobody’s Girl in one word, I would choose harrowing.   Virginia Giuffre is subjected to incredible abuses from a very early age and throughout the rest of her life.  Yet if I could include a second word in my description, it would be uplifting.  There are moments of love interspersed among all the horrors, and it is extremely encouraging to learn that attitudes are changing about sexual abuse.

 

    Laws are being passed to aid the victims in obtaining justice against their abusers, and support programs are becoming available for those suffering trauma from such  abuse.  Nobody’s Girl is contributing greatly to those attitude shifts.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 6,945 ratings and 760 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.57*/5, based on 34,116 ratings and 4,278 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    In July 2009, Epstein was released from jail after serving only thirteen months; he was placed on house arrest for a period of another year.  It would later be revealed that for most of his jail sentence, he’d been allowed to go “on work release” to the office of a nonprofit he’d newly created called the Florida Science Foundation.  As delineated in a handwritten addendum to the nonprosecution agreement, he was permitted to visit this office up to twelve hours a day, six days a week.  He continued to molest girls there, and after he got out of jail, he dissolved the foundation.  (pg. 211)

 

    How entitled and selfish do you have to be to continue hounding and threatening the very victims you’ve hurt before?  It drove me crazy to think these people could potentially get away with silencing me for good.  When someone on Twitter speculated that the FBI might kill me “to protect the ultrarich and well connected,” I felt the need to respond.  If I died suddenly, I tweeted, no one should believe that it was an accident.

    “I am making it publicly known that in no way, shape, or form am I suicidal,” I typed.  (pg. 294)

 

“Just get the icky part over with so the good parts of life can go on.”  (pg. 95)

    The cussing in Nobody’s Girl is relatively light, considering its topic.  I counted just 14 instances in the first 20% of the book, although about 2/3 of those were f-bombs.  Needless to say, the subject material recounted numerous adult situations.  I was pleasantly surprised that the describing of these horrors never descended into lewdness.  I commend both the author and her collaborator for achieving this.

 

    My only quibble is with the memoir’s ending.  The final chapter details Virginia Giuffre’s activities in early 2025 and her immediate plans and hope for the future.  Unfortunately, she passed away on April 25, 2025, apparently by suicide.  But the reader learns of this at the very start of the book, along with some disturbing updates about Giuffre’s crumbling marriage.  I think it would’ve been more appropriate to develop these events into an Epilogue.

 

    But I pick at nits.  For me, Nobody’s Girl was a gritty, gripping tale of systemic sexual abuse perpetrated by certain members of society’s power elite.  It shines a spotlight on a very dark aspect of the American dream, but it also provides hope and resources for the victims of this abuse.  Judging from the reviews at both Amazon and Goodreads, a vast majority of others had the same reaction.

 

    10 Stars.  One last thing.  Virginia Giuffre spent quite a few years in Australia, and in the book she utilizes several common phrases that are used Down Under.  Among them are “having a whinge” and “faffing around”.  Who knew that Australians speak a foreign language?