Pushing Daisy - Scott Baron

   2018; 360 pages.  Book 2 (out of 5) in the series “The Clockwork Chimera”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Space Opera; Alien Invasion Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Daisy is the chosen one.  It’s her destiny to save Earth.  That’s what everyone says.

 

    To be fair, though, “everyone” in this case means the dozen or so beings hiding out at the Dark Side Base on the far side of the Moon.  And it doesn’t include the most important one of those: Daisy herself.

 

    She’s already been to Earth once., and almost died there.  The planet’s a forsaken place that’s home to almost no humans anymore.  Instead, there are lots of cyborgs, mutants, and deadly insectoid Chithiids.  That last group came from who-knows-where and is especially committed to, and skilled at, killing humans.

 

    Daisy is fully human, but she wasn’t born on Earth and feels no kinship with it.  She denies that she’s anybody's “chosen one”, has no intention of ever returning to Earth, and lets everybody else at the Dark Side base know that.

 

    Whattaya think the odds are that she’ll end up back there anyway?

 

What’s To Like...

    Pushing Daisy is the second book in Scott Baron’s 5-volume Space Opera “The Clockwork Chimera”.  I’m reading them in order; the first book, Daisy’s Run, is reviewed here.

 

    It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Daisy does indeed make a return trip to our ruined planet, although that doesn’t happen until about halfway through the story.  This time, however, her Terran settings are not limited to Los Angeles; she travels to several more US cities, including my current stomping grounds, Phoenix, which she finds completely overrun with mutants.

 

   Several new beings are introduced, including Craaxit, a Chithiid soldier.  I have a feeling he’ll be developed into a recurring character in the series.  There are a couple of new AIs to meet and be wary of: Alma, who heads the Los Angeles underground, and Freya, a juvenile AI.  We’re also introduced to a new race of baddies called the Ra’az Hok.  If you cross paths with any of them, run away.  Fast.

 

    There are a half dozen or so of plot threads to keep the reader’s interest.  Some are ongoing, such as the Daisy/Vince affair.  Others are new, such as the secret door on the moon that Daisy happens across, and of course her various adventures down on Earth.

 

    The ending is a mixed affair.  It’s not a cliffhanger, but it’s not exactly a climax to the story either.  It’s sort of a stopping off point on the way to what presumably transpires in Book 3, Daisy’s Gambit.  If I were reading Pushing Daisy as a discrete book, I’d be miffed about how it ends, but fortunately, I’m utilizing Scott Baron’s 5-book bundle of the series, which means the story continues on the very next page of my Kindle.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 637 ratings and 47 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.25/5 based on 483 ratings and 51 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Miyagi-ed (v.) : (a cleverly made-up word, referencing The Karate Kid).

 

Excerpts...

    “Okay,” she began, “here’s what we’re going to do.  It’s kind of like a game, and if you are really good, I’ll put a movie on and we’ll watch it together.”

    “Wouldn’t it be faster if you uploaded it to me?”

    “Well, you see, that’s the point here.  To help you learn to slow down and appreciate things.  If you watch it with me, you see it at the same speed I do.  Learn to savor the meal instead of inhaling it.”

    “But I don’t eat, Daisy.”

    “It’s a metaphor.”  She sighed.  (loc. 6725)

 

    “And look at these wonderful people you’ve brought with!  Oh, but those outfits.  No, no, that simply will not do.  Oh, this is exciting!  I can’t wait to get your measurements.  I have some wonderful ideas I’ve been meaning to try out.”

    “Habby, we don’t want any trouble,” Daisy said.  “We’re just passing through.”

    “Trouble?  Oh my, but you caused quite a lot of that when you went tearing off through the city last time.  You know, we lost several of our friends because of your foolishness.”

    “You were holding me captive.”

    “Potato, tomato, it’s all a matter of perspective, my dear.”  (loc. 8894)

 

Kindle Details…

    Pushing Daisy sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  The other four books in the series are all in the $0.99-$3.99 range.  The complete set can also be bought in the aforementioned bundle, which presently costs $7.99, and which occasionally is graciously discounted by the author.  Scott Baron has lots of other Sci-Fi series to offer; most of the individual books in those are in the $0.99-$4.99 range.

 

“You should always think outside the box.  "But I am a box.”  (loc. 6882)

    There are a couple of quibbles.  I counted 31 instances of cussing in the first 20% of Pushing Daisy (actually the first 8 of its 40 chapters, since pages aren’t numbered in e-book bundles), although that’s about half the rate that I found in Daisy’s Run.  That's about it for R-rated stuff, though.

 

    Not all of the plotlines get tied up.  I don’t mind Daisy’s relationship with Vince still dangling; I expect that to play out over the full course of the series.  But the Freya plot thread, which was well-developed and fascinating at its inception here, just fizzles out.  Also, at the book’s end, a major character's state of health still hangs in the balance.

 

    For me, the book started out slowly, with Daisy going to too many sparring sessions with Tamara, and too many meditation sessions with Fatima.  I recognize both are necessary to make Daisy a formidable protagonist, but for me, it made for slow spots in the tale-spinning.

 

    But no matter.  Once Daisy has her meds (that’s “meditations”, not “medications”) and can summon the fighting mentality of a seasoned warrior, she’s ready to make a trip to Earth and everything thereafter was a fast-paced, page-turning action-adventure.  The overarching plotline also expands nicely.  Before, Daisy’s aim was to save the few surviving humans in Los Angeles, now her horizons have grown considerably.

 

    8 Stars.  FWIW, I’m 40% of the way through this series, which is called The Clockwork Chimera, and I still have no clue as to why it’s called that.  Ah, but that's just one more reason to continue reading Daisy’s tale.

Iron Council - China Miéville

   2004; 564 pages.  Book 3 in the “Bas-Lag” trilogy.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Steampunk Fantasy; Sword and Sorcery; Weird Fantasy.  Laurels: 2005 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel (winner).  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Three men, all of them believers, all of them revolutionaries, all of them searching for something.

 

    Cutter is wandering through the wastelands, searching for Judah Low and the Iron Council.  He wants to warn them that the city-state mega-power, New Crobuzon, has dispatched forces to seek out and destroy them.

 

    Judah Low is the Iron Council’s somaturge (their what??).  He’s dedicated his life to the overthrow of New Crobuzon.  He’s searching for others that share his rebellious passion.

 

    Ori is a resident of New Crobuzon, and a jaded member of the underground resistance there.  He’s tired of his compatriots talking the talk, but not walking the walk.  He’s searching for a way to light a spark of action amongst his fellow dissidents.

 

    New Crobuzon can be summed up by three M’s:  Militia, Magisters, and the Mayor.  Maybe even add a fourth, Mages.  They can crush any and all of the resisters.  If only they can locate them.

 

What’s To Like...

    Iron Council is the closing book in China Miéville’s fantastic Bas-Lag trilogy.  The first two books are reviewed here and here.  The three novels are all standalones; the storylines are not connected and the characters are completely different in each tale.  What ties them together is the setting – New Crobuzon, the main city in Bas-Lag.

 

    For the most part, we follow the lives of the three men mentioned in the introduction, primarily how they impact and relate to the Iron Council, which is a group of dissident railroad-builders that have seized one of the government’s trains along with its rail-laying equipment.

 

    China Miéville’s superb writing skills are once again displayed here: incredibly detailed world-building, deep and fascinating character development, a masterful vocabulary, and a complex and compelling storyline.  Our trio of rebel protagonists are pitted against a well-equipped and numerically superior foe, and they find it hard to keep their followers, and themselves, from giving up and running away.

 

    Iron Council is written in English, not American, which is always a treat for me.  It’s both a steampunk and a sword-&-sorcery tale, with weapons such as pistols, crossbows, blunderbusses, rive-bows, and motor-guns.  The magic/thaumaturgy is on a par with the weaponry: you can “glamour” someone, be a whispersmith, or make use of verity-gauging.  Judah Low is a somaturge, a rare magic art that enables him to conjure up golems out of just about any substance, and which he learned while staying with the stiltspears.  Stiltspears and golems are just a smattering of the strange and interesting creatures that you’ll meet along the way in this story.

 

    I liked that the revolutionary heroes portrayed here are not perfect.  They squabble, get depressed, get mad, and have to contend with situational ethics.  One example of the latter is the tagline that appears below, right after the two excerpts.

 

    The ending is both hopeful and sad, as well as brilliantly unexpected while at the same time slightly anticlimactic.  Judah Low conceives and constructs it, and it's a wonderful answer to the dilemma of what to do when one is up against overwhelming odds.  It leaves the door open for a sequel, but China Miéville has not penned one in the 19+ years since Iron Council was published, so I think we can safely say the series is complete.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Cacotopic (adj.) : of an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be.

Others: Chaverim (n., plural); Boscage (n.), Somaturge (n.); Gurned (v.), Hadal (adj.); Tain (n.); and dozens more.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.1/5 based on 964 ratings and 170 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.72/5 based on 15,293 ratings and 1,077 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Toro’s out there and he’s doing something, yeah?  He’s fighting, and he’s not waiting like you keep waiting.  And you sit and wait, and tell him he’s getting ahead of himself?

    It’s not like that.  I won’t snip at anyone fighting the magisters, or the militia, or the Mayor, but Toro can’t change things on his own, or with his little crew, Jack . . .”

    “Yeah but he’s changing something.”

    “Not enough.”

    “But he’s changing something.”  (pg. 76)

 

    “We have a responsibility,” Ann-Hari said.  Cutter never felt eased in her presence.  The fervour in her unnerved him—it made him tired and uncertain of himself, as though she might win him over against his will.  He knew he was jealous—no one had had such as effect on Judah Low as Ann-Hari.

    “We’re a dream,” she said.  “The dream of the commons.  Everything came to this, everything came here.  We got to here.  This is what we are.  History’s pushing us.  (pg. 514)

 

If one death’ll stop ten, ain’t it better?  If two deaths’ll save a city?  (pg. 370)

    There are some quibbles.  China Miéville has never shied away from using cusswords in his novels, and here I counted 34 cases in the first 10% of the book.  That doesn’t include the clever use of “faux cussing”, including terms like “for Jabber’s sake”, “godsdamn”, and “in Jabber’s name.”  There’s also several instances of several types of sex—hetero, homo, manual—and a bit of cross-dressing.

 

    There’s an extended backstory/flashback section early on telling how the Iron Council came to be.  It comes without any warning to the reader, which confused me at first, but you’ll know you’ve hit it when the new chapters are no longer numbered.

 

    China Miéville is an unabashedly left-leaning activist (read the Wikipedia article), and a lot of readers seemed to be upset that this is reflected in the Iron Council storyline, which may explain how a Locus Award-winning novel can have such mediocre ratings at Amazon and Goodreads.

 

    Some of the vocabulary the author utilizes will keep you resorting to Google for enlightenment.  Personally I had fun discovering which words were incredibly obscure (such as “tain”), and which were made-up ones by Miéville (such as “somaturge”).

 

    Finally, and repeating a quibble from my reviews of the previous two tales, this series screams for a map and a Cast of Characters.

 

    I thoroughly enjoyed Iron Council, and the Bas-Lag trilogy as a whole.  Those quibbles just mean Miéville is treating the reader as an adult, and the lushness and complexity of the text and storyline mean that he also assumes that the reader is reasonably intelligent and imaginative.  This was my ninth China Miéville book, and none of them have disappointed me.

 

    9 Stars.  China Miéville is renowned and respected enough that the definitions for even his made-up words can be found by googling them.  “Somaturge” was confusing me until I looked it up.

A Dead Red Miracle - R.P. Dahlke

   2015; 250 pages.  Book 5 (out of 7) in the “Dead Red Mystery” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Women Sleuths; Crime Mystery; Arizona.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Bosses can be scumbags sometimes.  Just ask the cousins Lalla and Pearlie Bains, who are working for PI Ron Barbour as interns so they can get their Private Investigator licenses.

 

    Barbour’s business has slacked off recently, which means Lalla and Pearlie’s slice of the income has shrunk to a meager sum.  Now they’ve just discovered their boss has been hiding cases, and dollars, from them.  What a scumbag!  They're so angry they could just kill him.

 

    Except that someone has beat them to the punch… er… slaying.  They drive out the Barbour's house to confront him, and catch a glimpse the body of their boss dead on the floor of his house just before the whole place goes up in smoke.  The police soon arrive on the scene, and try to find out who did what to Barbour.

 

    Say, how come they’re looking at Lalla and Pearlie so suspiciously?  It’s almost as if they think Lalla and Pearlie might have done it.

 

What’s To Like...

    A Dead Red Miracle is the fifth book the R.P. Dahlke’s entertaining Dead Red Mystery series.  Pearlie, Lalla, her husband Caleb, and Lalla’s dad Noah have recently relocated from the fertile fields of Fresno, California to the desert dryness of Sierra Vista in southern Arizona.

 

    As mentioned, Lalla and Pearlie are in the process of applying for their Private Investigator licenses, which requires some on-the-job training.  Their mentor/boss’s demise puts those plans in jeopardy.  But it also gives them an opportunity to do some serious sleuthing.

 

    The case rapidly become more complicated.  There are several more deaths to look into, various suspects and material witnesses to track down, and two youthful delinquents (the Garza brothers) to find suitable foster parents to take care of.  Things become so hectic that Lalla and Pearlie have to hire additional help.

 

The story is told from the first-person point-of-view, Lalla’s.  Snarky wit, mixed with friendly banter, abounds between our two protagonists as they try to determine the perpetrators.  There is a nice bit of Native American culture blended into the tale, although the genre listed in the Amazon blurb, Native American Literature, seems a bit of a stretch.

 

    Things build to a suitably exciting ending, with all of the various plot threads (I noted ten of them) getting tied up.  The killings are solved mostly by Lalla’s logical thinking along wiht some fortuitous circumstances.  The story closes with a short but catchy Epilogue involving two pairs of siblings.  The sisters Velma and Zelma give our heroes a neat little plot twist, and the resolution of the Garza brothers’ future will warm your heart.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,429 ratings and 303 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.14*/5, based on 709 ratings and 72 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I thought you enjoyed the company of your landlady.”

    “She wants me to become a vegetarian.”

    “Sounds like a good idea.  You are a heart patient, you know.”

    “I’m a secondhand vegetarian.  Cows eat grass, I eat the cows, and I’m going to continue to enjoy eating that way till I die, thank you very much.”  (loc. 1014)

 

    “If you can’t pay your rent, we have a spare couch.”

    “Ew-w-w.  I’m not that poor.”

    “Since we’re talking about men, how was your date with the trainer from the gym?”

    Pearlie’s mouth twitched.  “Just because a man has Genius printed on his T-shirt, doesn’t mean he is one.”

    I grinned.  “Not hunky enough to ignore his IQ, huh?”

    “Not if he was wrapped in bacon and came with his own trust fund.”  (loc. 1814)

 

Kindle Details…

    A Dead Red Miracle sells for $4.99 right now at Amazon.  The other six books in the series cost either $3.99 (first and last books) or $4.99 (the rest of them).  R.P. Dahlke has three other e-books available, ranging in price from $3.54 to $3.99.  Two are part of a romantic sailing mystery trilogy, the third, and most recent, is a paranormal mystery.

 

“Damian broke into your office again and you reward him with a job?”  “We’re short-handed.”  (loc. 1967)

    The cussing is pleasingly sparse, just five instances in the first 20%, plus one racial epithet later on.  I love it when an author doesn’t have to resort to excessive foul language to set a scene.

 

    My main gripe is my usual one for this series.  The editing is atrocious, and seemed to get worse as the book progressed.  The typos included: Ifinally/I finally; waived/waved, sixty’s/sixties, gapped/gasped, and the embarrassing Barber/Barbour; and Damion’s/Damian’s, just to name a few.  There were also occasional missing words and/or misplaced plurals, plus one continuity issue – referencing a person who wasn’t present.

 

    But if you don't let the errata bother you, you’ll find A Dead Red Miracle to be an engaging tale where character development is just as important as the whodunit aspect.  The book kept my interest throughout, which was also true of the first four books in this series.

 

    8 Stars.  At 250 pages, A Dead Red Miracle was still a novel of acceptable length, but Book 6, A Dead Red Gamble, drops off to 179 pages, and Book 7, A Dead Red Horse Thief, is a mere novella-length 119 pages.  That last book was published in 2019, so I’m assuming that means R.P. Dahlke is finished chronicling Lalla’s adventures.  If so, then I for one, am bummed.

Heat - Stuart Woods

   1994; 448 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Suspense; Thriller.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    Strange things seem to be going on up in the little town of St. Clair, Idaho.  It appears to involve lots of money and lots of guns, all seemingly under the direction of some crazy coot named Jack Gene Coldwater.

 

    The United States Attorney General’s Office wants someone to investigate Coldwater’s activities.  Unfortunately, the last two agents that were sent to St. Clair have disappeared without a trace, and are presumed dead.

 

    The government needs to find somebody else to send up there, but ordering agents to go on suicide missions is bad for morale.  They need to find someone… erm… disposable.

 

    Say, how about that disgraced DEA agent Jesse Warden, currently serving time in Atlanta Federal Prison? He was convicted of stealing drug money and killing a fellow agent in the process to cover it up, and he’s been in solitary for 14 months now.  Let’s talk him into “volunteering.”

 

    If his cover gets blown and Coldwater offs him, so what?  If he somehow succeeds, we can grant him a pardon.  Alternatively, after he gives us the incriminating evidence we can expose him to Coldwater's goons, and let them have the pleasure of killing another government agent.

 

What’s To Like...

    Heat is a Thriller novel by Stuart Woods, an author whose work I’ve wanted to get acquainted with for a while now.  Woods, who died in 2022, was a prolific writer, with (according to Wikipedia) seven series under his belt, including the 64-volume "Stone Barrington" series, his most famous work.  Heat, however, is a standalone story.

 

    The plotline is straightforward: Jesse wants to infiltrate the inner circle of Coldwater’s trusted council, learn what their aims are, and hopefully find something illegal enough to exchange for a government pardon.  Along the way he meets an attractive and available woman (Jesse is a widower), searches for the daughter that’s been taken from him, and tries to outmaneuver his former DEA boss who’d love to see Jesse be exposed and killed.

 

    I liked the “religious cult” atmosphere that Stuart Woods explores.  St. Clair is a small town totally devoted to Coldwater’s apocalyptic visions.  Everyone in town goes to his church every Sunday, and all the children are schooled in his teachings.  It’s very reminiscent of David Koresh’s Branch Davidians cult in Waco, Texas, or Jim Jones’s cult in Jonestown, Guyana, both of which ended in tragedy.  Koresh and his followers died in an ATF raid in 1993; Jones’s followers “drank the Kool-aid” and committed mass suicide in 1978.  I loved the way Stuart Woods depicts this sort of brainwashing.

 

    All the standard action-adventure tropes are present.  Jesse and his attractive-yet-unattached landlord Jenny fall in love, one of Coldwater’s right-hand aides remains convinced Jesse is a government spy (which he is), and there’s a long, drawn-out, north-to-south chase scene down the entire state of Nevada.  For the record, I’ve made that trek recently; Nevada is fricking huge!

 

    The ending is so-so.  On the plus-side, it’s sufficiently exciting and even has a plot twist or two.  On the minus side, it strained my “believability” tolerance, most markedly when Jesse’s imminent death is averted by a conveniently-timed disturbance that distracts his killer.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 2,385 ratings and 242 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.11/5 based on 3,476 ratings and 138 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I’m moving up in the world,” Jesse said.  “Making nine bucks an hour, now, and I expect to get raised to ten any day.”  He told Kip about the promotion.

     “Glad to hear it, Jess.”

    “Not everybody is as happy as you are about my advancement,” Jesse replied.  “Fellow called Partain took exception.”

    “And what did you do about it?” Kip asked, sounding worried.

    “I hit him until he got over it,” Jesse replied.  (loc. 1630)

 

    “You know, Charley, it might have been interesting.  Up until the time we met in solitary, I had just been trying to stay alive.  But I think that after our chat, I would have started killing people, and you would have been first in line.”

    Bottoms grinned.  “I like you, Jesse; I always did.  You always handled yourself real good in the yard; took out some guys I’d have thought would have stomped you into the ground.  I’d have hated to kill you, but I’d have done it the minute you set foot out of that cell.  I’m glad our present circumstances don’t require me to do that.”

    “That’s sweet of you, Charley.”  (loc. 3736)

 

Kindle Details…

    At present Heat sells for $9.99 at Amazon.  Dozens of Stuart Woods's books are available in e-book format, for the most part ranging in price from $7.99 to $14.99, and occasionally discounted to $1.99.

 

“Jesse, can you fly an airplane?”  “Sort of.”  (loc. 4670)

    I found some quibbles when reading Heat.  For those averse to R-rated stuff, there’s a moderate-but-acceptable amount of cussing (17 instances in the first 10%), a half-dozen or so racial epithets (which I expected), a roll-in-the-hay, and at least one cursory drug reference (coke).

 

    There were more typos than I’d expect in a book by a top-tier author: saia/said; night clothes/nightclothes; hanger/hangar, and four Weather by/Weatherby (Jenny’s last name) oopsies before someone belatedly noticed and started fixing them.

 

    But those are all trifles.  My big issue with Heat were the WTF’s.  The plotline was rife with them.  We eschew spoilers on this blog, but here are some of the mind-boggling conveniences:

 

    Jesse just happens to have lock-picking and safecracking skills, both of which he'll need during this mission.  Jesse’s "cover” identity is a real but dead person), and his first name also happens to be Jesse.  At one point Jesse needs to learn to fly an airplane, and one of the baddies obligingly teaches him.  Jesse somehow wins every fight he’s in, even against the goons in prison.  Last but not least, he's given a tour of Coldwater’s stronghold and then is  given the blueprints to it as well.

 

    I noted at least a dozen of these WTFs.  I could’ve sworn I was reading a Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt novel.  There's a reason why I don’t read Thrillers more often.

 

    6 Stars.  Admittedly, there are a lot of readers of this genre out there who love it when the action is over-the-top.  Clive Cussler caters to those fans with his ultra-popular Dirk Pitt series.  I read one book from that series (I forget which one) and felt no need to try a second.  OTOH, a coworker of mine has read them all, and wishes there were more in Dirk's 26-book (soon to be 27) adventures.

Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming - Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley

   1991; 310 pages.  Book 1 (out of 3) in the “Millennial Contest” series.  New Authors? : Yes, and no.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Fairy Tales.   Overall Rating: 5*/10.

 

    It’s 1000 CE and you know what that means.  Well, actually you probably don’t, unless you’re a demon or an angel.

 

    Those creatures, for better and for worse, know it’s time for the Millennial Contest, a competition that takes place only every thousand years, and which will determine whether Good or Evil will control the universe for the next millennium.

 

    Azzie Elbub is a charismatic but malevolent demon who is determined to win the event for the Dark Side. His scheme is to reenact the age-old Sleeping Beauty tale but with a startling new twist: when Prince Charming finally makes it to where Sleeping Beauty reposes, his quest will end in disaster.

 

    Good luck, Azzie.  Somehow, I think this will turn out to be “too much of a bad thing.”

 

What’s To Like...

    Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming is a lighthearted 1991 novel featuring the collaborative efforts of two respected sci-fi/fantasy authors, Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley.  The other two books in the trilogy are If at Faust You Don’t Succeed and A Farce to be Reckoned With.  ANAICT, none of these are available in e-book format.

 

    The storyline is an amusing depiction of the differences, and similarities, between the nature of good and evil.  There are also several fairy tales – Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Aladdin – worked into the tale..  Azzie is a fun-to-watch protagonist; he may be an evil demon but he’s carrying out a noble mission, albeit for the dark side, and is repeatedly beset by the underworld's bureaucracy and his own ineptness.

 

    There are drawings, usually of one of the characters, at the start of each of the 10 parts.  Each part has between 5 and 13 chapters, with an average length of just about 5 pages per chapter.  There are critters galore to meet and dread, including talking ponies (as well as talking swords and talking spells), dragons, Harpies, Valkyries, dwarves. and the Morrigan.  Most of the settings are in Western Europe in 1000 CE, with an excursion or two into the Underworld.

 

    The book is a vocabulary-lover's delight.  There are a bunch of highfalutin ones such as: palaverations, fuscating, quiddities, ensorcelled, congeries, aftertides, scansions, ensor, and those were just the ones that dazzled me after I started keeping writing them down.  A couple more are listed below.

 

    The trivia details were also neat.  Mad King Ludwig, Peer Gynt, and Turkestan get mentioned, as well as the ancient Irish legends Finn McCool and Cuchulain.  Cuisine-wise, nachos and pho make an appearance, but so does fermented dragon poop.  And I’m definitely going to get me a pair of Seven League Boots, although they do have their drawbacks.

 

    You can pretty much figure out which side will emerge victorious in this contest, but the fun is watching Azzie getting vexed the all snags in his that crop up in his scheming.  More about the ending in a bit.  There’s a cute Epilogue at the very end.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 36 ratings and 15 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.74*/5, based on 3,638 ratings and 136 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word…

Bosky (adj.) : wooded; covered by trees or bushes.

Others: Seneschal (n.); Caitiff (n.).

 

 

Excerpts...

    “I love you; the bad enchantment has ended at last, and we can be together again, just as you have always wanted and I secretly have wanted, too, though I said otherwise.”

    “What enchantment?” Ylith said.

    “Did I mention an enchantment?”

    “You said, ‘Now the bad enchantment has ended.’”

    “I said that?  You’re sure?”

    “Of course I’m sure!”

    “Well, I shouldn’t have,” Azzie said.  (pg. 109)

 

    “Where is your sword?”

    “I need to get it.”

    “You’re supposed to have a sword on your person at all times.”

    “Give me a break, it’s my wedding day.”

    “Well, go get your sword, but be quick about it.”

    “Frike, you were practically a father to me.  How can you do this?”

    “Well, I’m playing a pretty traditional role,” Frike said.  “The crippled servant who is slightly sympathetic but still has a fatal bias toward evil.  Nothing personal, but we must fight it out with swords.”

    “Well, rats,” Charming said.  “Wait right here.  I’ll be back with my sword.”  (pg. 277)

 

“Cowardice is nothing to be ashamed of, Prince Charming. (…) It is like measles—most people get it at least once in their lives.”  (pg. 279)

    As expected in any fairy-tale/fantasy story, there’s very little cussing.  I noted just 4 instances in the first third of the book, and those were relatively mild ones.

 

    The writing style is adequate, the early hiccups to Azzie’s plans are humorous, but the main storyline drags and after a while I just wanted to get on with the Millennial Contest.  There is a decent amount of wit – that’s a trademark of both authors – but it seemed aimed at a junior-high reader, adult readers may find it simplistic.

 

    The big problem is the ending.  When we finally get to the climax of both Good and Evil’s projects, they both fizzle out.  Babriel’s is barely mentioned and a complete flop, and Azzie’s “Napping Beauty” scenario plays out in the worst possible way for Evil.  Both are without an iota of tension or excitement.  I was expecting more action and adventure in a book titled Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming.  Maybe each author expected the other one to come up with a boffo ending.

 

    5 Stars.

A Mighty Long Way - Carlotta Walls LaNier

   2009; 273 pages.  Full Title: A Mighty Long Way – My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School.  New Author?  : Yes.  Genres : Civil Rights; American History;  Non-Fiction; Black and African-American Biographies.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    I am old enough to remember watching on TV the struggles to integrate schools in the Deep South.  The one that remains etched in my mind is George Wallace, then governor of Alabama, standing on the steps of a building, presumably on the University of Alabama campus, impeding black students, who were being escorted by federal troops, from entering therein.  Bloodshed loomed in my 12-year-old brain.

 

    But before push came to shove, and after giving a short segregationist speech, Wallace moved aside.  Shooting and other assorted violence were averted, at least while the national cameras were capturing the moment.  The students walked through the doors.

 

    But I’ve always wondered:  What was it like for those black students, and those who integrated other schools throughout the South, on the second day of school, or a week later, or when the next semester rolled around?  What harassment did they did they suffer through when all the cameras, troops, and news crews were no longer present?

 

    Thanks to A Mighty Long Way, I have an answer.

 

What’s To Like...

    Carlotta Walls LaNier is one of the “Little Rock Nine”, a group of high school age black students that took the first steps in integrating the Arkansas educational system in 1957.  I was just seven years old at the time and frankly I don’t remember it at all.  A Mighty Long Way is Carlotta’s memoir about the experience and how it impacted her life for many decades to come.

 

There are 17 chapters plus a prologue in the book.  They can be roughly divided into:

    1.) Prologue + Chs. 1-3:  Family history and early life.

    2.) Chs. 4-9: High school years and Integration.

    3.) Chs. 10-11: The house-bombing.

    4.) Chs. 12-14: High school graduation and college years.

    5.) Chs. 14-17: Post-collegiate Life.

 

    It should come as no surprise that Carlotta’s traumatic 10^th grade year (some of the other Little Rock Nine were 11^th and 12^th graders) had a profound effect on the rest of her life.  It did surprise me, however, that for many years afterward, she avoided mentioning her role in the integration movement and turned down all requests to speak at schools, churches, and other public events about it.

 

    The “Jackie Robinson test” was enlightening, and I was in awe of Carlotta’s meeting the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I enjoyed her (and my) grade-school memories of eagerly awaiting the Weekly Reader to be passed out, and I had to look up what the rules were to the card game “pitty-pat”.  I cringed when she had to endure being spat upon, cursed at and shoved in the high school halls while going to classes, and shuddered when she gave the details of the lynching of Emmett Till.  The dynamite-bombing of her family’s home and the relentless and untraceable telephone hate calls made me realize that integrating someplace in the South meant risking your life, as well as your family’s.

 

    The book closes on a high note: Barack Obama’s election to the presidency in 2008.  Carlotta sees it as a culmination of the Civil Rights movement, and one she never expected to see in her lifetime.  Even if she did favor Hillary Clinton early in the campaign.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 540 ratings and 70 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.14*/5, based on 1,365 ratings and 204 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

She-Ro (n.) : a woman regarded as a hero.

 

Excerpts...

    It never occurred to me as I grew up to question, even in my mind, why colored folks could go to the park only on certain days, why we had to climb to the back of the bus, or why stopping at a gas station to use the bathroom in most areas of the South wasn’t even an option.  Those were just the rules, and I learned to follow them like I learned to walk, by observing those closest to me and following their guidance until I knew the steps well enough to venture out on my own.  (loc. 340)

 

    Wherever I go to talk to students, I usually encounter some who know little or nothing about the Little Rock Nine.  Sometimes they’re African American.  Sometimes they’re white, Latino, or Asian.  But when they hear my story, often they get angry, like the white kid whose hand went up slowly in the back of the room after my first speech at Ponderosa High School in a Denver suburb many years ago.

    “Why am I just learning this?” he asked.  “Why haven’t I learned this in school before now?”  (loc. 3984)

 

That is the point of this book: to show that determination, fortitude, and the ability to move the world aren’t reserved for the “special” people.  (loc. 128)

    There’s not much to quibble about in A Mighty Long Way.  I counted just 7 cusswords in the entire book, and those were mostly when she was quoting somebody.  There is of course a slew of instances where she has to endure the N-word being screamed at her, but that was to be expected.

 

    There’s also a lot of name-dropping of people she met.  To name a few: Thelonius Monk (and many other jazz musicians), Thurgood Marshall, Satchel Paige, Langston Hughes, Herb Adderley, and Bill & Hillary Clinton.  But those encounters rang true, particularly the stone-throwing incident in Central Park, and it was kinda neat to see all the celebrities she rubbed shoulders with over the course of her life.

 

    I spotted only two typos – mid wester/midwestern and fifty-two-hundred/fifty-two hundred.  Kudos to the editors and proofreaders.  The book cover lists it as being written “with Lisa Frazier Page”, and the Foreword is by President Bill Clinton.  In Chapter 8 there are some family pictures of Carlotta and her kin.  Those were extremely heartwarming.

 

    9 Stars.  We live in an age where book-banning has once again become commonplace, and teachers, whether they are mentoring elementary school students or collegians, risk being fired for revealing what really occurred during critical moments in America's History.  Desegregation was an ugly time for the United States, but sweeping it under the carpet just makes it worse.  Thank goodness there are books like A Mighty Long Way, which tell the facts about the American Civil Rights movement, even if it is a harsh awakening.