One Corpse Too Many - Ellis Peters

   1979; 188 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book 2 (out of 20) in the “Brother Cadfael” series.  Genre : Murder-Mystery[ Cozy.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    For the besieged defenders of Shrewsbury Castle, there is no hope.  King Stephen has decreed that no mercy shall be given to them.  And so, after the final assault by Stephen’s forces, the 94 surviving defenders are hanged from the castle walls, then cut down and their bodies unceremoniously dumped into a common ditch

    But enemies or not, they deserve a proper Christian burial, and it falls upon Brother Cadfael from the nearby abbey to oversee that duty.  And it is quite a shock when he discovers that, whereas 94 bodies went into that ditch, 95 were taken out.

    Who is the extra corpse?  Why was he murdered?  And perhaps most importantly. who killed him and then why did he feel the need to cover it up?

What’s To Like...

    The Brother Cadfael series takes place in 12^th-century England, in the westernmost area close to the border with Wales.  One Corpse Too Many is set in a particularly violent time – when civil war rages across England as King Stephen and the Empress Maud vie for power.

    As is usual for this series, the storyline is part Romance (two of them, in fact), part Murder-Mystery (of the ‘cozy’ variety), and part Historical Fiction, of which Ellis Peters (the pen name for Edith Pargeter) is an absolute master.  One of the recurring characters in the series, Hugh Beringar, is introduced here, and plays a lead role in the plotline.  This is my eighth Brother Cadfael book, although I’m not reading them in order, and it was neat to see from where and how Hugh makes his way into the greater plotline.

    The book is unusual in a couple ways.  First of all, at 188 pages, it is the shortest Brother Cadfael book I’ve read so far.  The previous ones have ranged from 198 to 275 pages.  Also, while this can still be called a “cozy” murder-mystery, the parts dealing with the 94 victims are somewhat gruesome.  Finally, both Romances are rather straightforward and uncomplicated.  Generally, the Romances in this series have “issues” – one of the lovebirds is a suspect, the duo come from different social classes or opposite sides of a conflict, etc. That isn’t so here.

    There’s more  action than usual, mostly because of the bitter war going on.  And if you like your protagonist subjected to situational ethics, you’ll quite enjoy the decisions Brother Cadfael has to make with regards to God, the warring parties, and the lovers themselves.

Kewlest New Word ...

Unchancy (adj.) : unlucky, inauspicious, dangerous.

Others : Distrained (v.); Sedulous (adj.); Caltrop (n.).

Excerpts...

    Nicholas Faintree was laid, with due honours, under a stone in the transept of the abbey church, an exceptional privilege. … Abbot Heribert was increasingly disillusioned and depressed with all the affairs of this world, and welcomed a solitary guest who was not a symbol of civil war, but the victim of personal malice and ferocity.  Against all the probabilities, in due course Nicholas might find himself a saint.  He was mysterious, feloniously slain, young, to all appearances clean of heart and life, innocent of evil, the stuff of which martyrs are made.  (pg. 65)

    When the dishes were cleared away, musicians playing, and only the wine on the tables, the servitors in their turn might take their pick of what was left in the kitchens, and the cooks and scullions were already helping themselves and finding quiet corners to sit and eat.  Cadfael collected a bread trencher and loaded it with broken meats, and took it out through the great court to Lame Osbern at the gate.  There was a measure of wine to go with it.  Why should not the poor rejoice for once at the kings cost, even if that cost was handed on down the hierarchies until it fell at last upon the poor themselves?  Too often they paid, but never got their share of the rejoicing.  (pg. 167)

“Brother Cadfael at least can tell a hart from a hind.”  (pg. 88 )

     There’s only one weakness to One Corpse Too Many, but it’s a significant one  - The Murder-Mystery itself.  For the first ¾ of the story, Brother Cadfael is up to his ears in various plot and intrigues, so his sleuthing takes a back seat.

    When he does finally get time to investigate the murder, it’s essentially a string of fortuitous discoveries.  A fragment of an artifact is conveniently found, which makes it a simple task to determine who the perp is – just look for the rest of the artifact.  Our baddie realizes this as well, and has the foresight to dispose of the rest of incriminating artifact.  But there is a convenient witness to the act, and said witness then conveniently crosses Brother Cadfael’s path.

    All this is trite enough, but it gets exacerbated by a medieval “let God decide” method of determining guilt or innocence.  It reminded me of the Monty Python Holy Grail “how do you know she’s a witch?” scene, except here the tone is supposed to be serious.  All works out, of course.  But it would’ve been much more entertaining if God had somehow chosen wrongly.

    7½ Stars.  Add 1 Star if you read Brother Cadfael books for the Historical Fiction and couldn’t care less about whodunit.

Pieces of the Puzzle - Jennifer Fowler and Carrie Wahl

   2008; 368 pages.  New Authors? : Yes.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Timekeepers” series.  Genre : Historical Fantasy; LDS Fiction.  Overall Rating : 3*/10.

    King Gilgamesh has lived for a long, long time, but his days are coming to an end.  He has six children, and the gods have ordained that they too will live for centuries on end, albeit not as long as their father.

   There’s a downside to this.  They are fated to be pitted against the six children of Chantu, the implacable foe of Gilgamesh.  And Chantu’s kids, like those of Gilgamesh, will be similarly long-lived.

    But the gods have a sense of humor, and have devised several objects that will be up for grabs among the two sets of children, including an amulet, a tablet, a scroll, a bracelet, and a seal.

    And a vial.  Which contains the elixir of immortality.  Yeah, that should stir things up for quite a few centuries.

What’s To Like...

    The "Gilgamesh" in Pieces of the Puzzle is based loosely on the incredibly old Epic of Gilgamesh story, which comes to us from ancient Sumer.  The Wikipedia article on this is quite interesting and can be found here.  PotP starts out with a prologue, set somewhat soon after the Great Flood; but the bulk of the book is the storylines of the children of Gilgamesh.  Timewise, their stories are set in the 20^th Century, and that’s “BC”, not “AD”.

    By then, the kids have scattered into Africa, India, China, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, and North America.  Historically, this is an interesting time for those zones; civilization is just beginning to take root.  And not coincidentally, one each of the Chantu children has also settled in the vicinity of each of these six locales.

    The authors have inserted a handy “Cast of Major Characters” at the beginning of the novel.  Bookmark it; you will be referring to it frequently.  The historical settings are adequate for the story, but not overly detailed.  The upside to this is that there are no info dumps.  Stylistically, this is a “cozy” tale – some pirates drown, but that’s about as gory as it gets.  There is also an instance of reaching up a camel’s “canal”, but that’s more funny than gross.

    This is not a standalone novel, but it ends at a decent spot, with most, but not quite all, of the rival siblings being drawn to one giant meeting.  Jennifer Fowler and Carrie Wahl have published the sequel, Race To The Portal, but that seems to be it.  It doesn’t look like Book 2 was meant to be the end of this series, but Amazon doesn't show a third book, so the whole effort may have fizzled out.

Kewlest New Word ...

    Gwier (n.) : Hmm.  Google came up empty for this.  A made-up word?

Kindle Details...

    Pieces of the Puzzle sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  The sequel sells for $3.99.

Excerpts...

    “I am seeking the Far Away, Utnapishtim.”

    Menachem raised an eyebrow.  “You must come from far to use that name.  What is your purpose?”

    “He and his wife know the secret to eternal life.  I wish to be immortal, as well.”

    Menachem frowned.  “My children have completely corrupted everything I taught them.  Like all men, you seek the impossible.  It has been decreed no man shall find immortality in this life.  Men are weak, and it is a blessing that our lives here are temporary.  Everything we gain here is as naught when we pass on.  I have seen more life than any man on earth today, and I know it would be a curse to choose this immortality you desire.”  (loc. 132)

    They were mean and miserly, hording (sic) everything they had, unwilling to share just one crust of bread with an outsider.  Even their trees were caged to keep animals from stealing one bite of their bounty.  The unfortunate beggar who chanced to come to these cities and ask for a bite to eat would be showered with gold and silver, while all food was mockingly withheld from him.  The poor man would die on the streets with an empty belly and full pockets, which would be raided as soon as he was dead.  (loc. 4041)

 “Perhaps…a long life is not always the treasure one might think.”  (loc. 2220)

    Truth be told, Pieces of the Puzzle didn’t resonate at all with me.  The pacing was slow, and there was way too much telling and not nearly enough showing.  The half-dozen storylines were too many and too repetitive, and the six protagonists were cookie-cutter clones of each other, and rather dimwitted to boot.

    The storytelling is unambitious.  Our heroes are “drawn” to cities, or “feel the need” to board a certain ship.  They also all have the “magic ability” to understand all languages past-and-present, which avoids those pesky communication issues.  Amazingly, one of them is able to gad all around the New World, with only a dog for a companion, and not run into any food or foe problems.

     But the real turn-off for me came when the story veered off into Religious Fiction.  I knew I was in for this when Abraham & Sarah (aka Abram and Sarai) were awkwardly and pointlessly inserted into the story, time-after-time, with the authors gushing effusively about how spiritual they were.  The only mystery was exactly what sort of dogma I’d be subjected to, since Abraham/Sarah are crucial to at least three religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

    It took a while, but this finally became clear when swords were introduced into the North American narrative.  The only place you’ll find this sort of nonsense is the Book of Mormon, and no one considers that to be historically credible.  This is not the first time I’ve had to endure religious drivel disguised as literary fiction (another example is here), and it’s one of my pet peeves.  Hey, Jennifer and Carrie, Amazon has a Religious Fiction section; if you want to toss your religious views into a storyline, kindly label your book’s genre(s) properly.  You are not doing God’s Will when you resort to deception.

    3 Stars.  Not recommended.  Add 2 Stars if you’re LDS and think all those Jaredites, Nephites, and Lamanites just routinely made transoceanic trips to the New World at incredible speeds.  SMH.

Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle - Phil and Kaja Foglio

   2014; 481 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book 3 (comprising of Volumes 7-9 of the graphic novel editions) in the “Girl Genius” series.  Genre : Comic Novelization; Gaslamp Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    It is the moment of reckoning for Agatha.  Now that she’s discovered her true lineage – she’s both a Heterodyne and a Spark, it’s time to claim her rightful place as the ruler and master of Castle Heterodyne.

    Of course she still has to prove to the rest of the world that she’s not a pretender.  That’s easily enough done; she just has to enter Castle Heterodyne and have it accept her.  Which may sound strange, but the castle is a sentient …er… being, and will exterminate all false claimants as soon as they pass through the front gate.

    So it is rather curious then, when another girl, Zola, sashays up to the castle door and enters without any terminally dire consequences.   Surely there is only one Chosen One, and that’s Agatha.

    Hmm.  It’s enough to make a girl think twice about entering Castle Heterodyne.

What’s To Like...

    Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle is the third “novelization” of Phil and Kaja Foglio’s fabulous Girl Genius graphic novel series.  As before, the book encompasses three issues of the graphic novels, meaning this book covers Volumes 7 through 9.  I’ve read the two previous novelizations; they are reviewed here and here.  to read this trilogy in order.

    If you liked the first two, you’ll enjoy AH&tVotC as well.  It has the same wit and humor, and is another fine piece of literature for inspiring girls to become scientists and engineers.  The scene where Agatha is determined to improve the coffee brewing process was hilarious.  So are the multitude of footnotes, which will remind you of the late great Terry Pratchett.  And I’m very intrigued by Airman Higgs.

    The authors work a fairly long and detailed backstory into the beginning chapters, which slows things down.  However, since it’s been more than a year since I read Book Two, I was glad they did.  And once that’s gotten out of the way, things hum along nicely.

    Everything builds to a tense climax, but unfortunately, it has a cliffhanger ending, something that I detest.  I’ll forgive it here, only because the primary source of the storyline is the graphic novel, and we all know comic books are notorious for ending with a cliffhanger to get you to guy the next issue.  Still, it sucks.  I’m glad I got this as a library book, not a purchase.

Kewlest New Word ...

Bindi (n.) : a decorative mark worn in the middle of the forehead by Indian women..

Others : Raconteur (n.).

Excerpts...

    Gil cleared his throat.  “The very trait that allows Sparks to apparently warp the laws of physics seems to affect probability and statistics within their vicinity as well.  Every visible action will be open to misinterpretation and their motives can easily be misconstrued.”

    Klaus looked startled.  Gil leaned in.  “Your words, Father, used to explain a rather catastrophic incident in your father’s laboratory when you were eleven, if I remember correctly.”

    Klaus glared at his son.  “I was lying.  I knew the cat was there.”  (pg. 84)

    Mr. Oilswick piped up.  “They’re still gaining, sir.”

    The captain thumped a fist down on a bulkhead.  “Blast!  There’s got to be something we can toss!”

    “You scum!”  The voice caught everyone by surprise.  It was Duke Stinbeck.  He had pulled himself up to a sitting position.  “You dare to strike my royal personage?  I’ll have every member of your crew flayed alive!  I’ll see to it that you never collect a pfennig of your pensions!  You’ll never fly again!”

    Lieutenant Lorquis exchanged a glance with the captain.  Occasionally, problems solved themselves.  (pg. 223)

“Whenever he goes on like this, I just think of how many different ways I can spell ‘eviscerate’”.  (pg. 283)

    Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle is another solid installment in this novelized series, but I found it just a bit “off” from the two earlier books.  It seemed like the cause was nothing major, just a combination of several little things.

    First, there aren’t a lot of locations to explore – just Castle Heterodyne and the town below it, Mechanicsburg.  Second, there were a slew of characters to meet, remember, and/or keep track of.  Also, the tone seemed darker and more serious, and Agatha’s side-endeavors into chemistry and engineering, which I find particularly entertaining and motivational, seemed fewer and further between.  Lastly, it just felt longer and slightly “draggy” due to the need for an extensive backstory.

   I suspect this is mostly because the stories were originally visual, in boffo comic book style.  Perhaps it all works better in graphic novel format.  I intend to find out, as my local library carries a lot of the newer graphic novel issues (to be eventually made into Book 4, I’m sure) and I’m going there this weekend.  If I can find where they stash these, I’ll bring one home.

    8 Stars.  Add 1 star if you’re a YA girl and Agatha H. inspires you to set your sights on becoming a scientist, instead of a princess.

Two Graves - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

   2010; 578 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book 12 (out of soon-to-be 15) in the Agent Pendergast Series; Book 3 (out of 3) in the “Helen” trilogy.  Genre : Action-Thriller.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

    It is without a doubt the best moment in Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast’s life.  After 12 years of mourning the death of his wife, Helen, he has found out she is still alive and now has been reunited with her.

    Alas, the absolutely worst moment in his life occurs just a couple minutes later, when gunmen abduct Helen and whisk her away to an unknown fate, leaving several dead passersby in their wake.

    But it’s not a good idea to cross Special Agent Pendergast.  He’s an extraordinarily clever person with FBI credentials and resources.  And the fact that all he has to go on is a stolen taxi cab’s license plate is not going to deter him one bit when it comes to rescuing his wife.  And when he catches up to the kidnappers, there will be hell to pay.

    But what was it Confucius said?  “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

What’s To Like...

    Two Graves is the final book in Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s “Helen” trilogy.  The action begins immediately, recapping the end of Book 2, Cold Vengeance, and doesn’t slow down until the end of the book.  There are four seemingly-unrelated storylines to follow: Pendergast pursuing Helen’s abductors, D’Agosta investigating a bizarre hotel serial killer, Corrie Swanson finding her dad, and Dr. Felder trying to verify Constance’s age.  This is not a standalone novel, so if you’re unfamiliar with any of those preceding names, you may want to read this trilogy in order.

    I’ve always liked the way Preston and Child create their Ultimate Evils.  Here, he has almost superhuman talents, and even though you know Pendergast will prevail, you wonder how he can possibly overcome the UE’s abilities.  It is also extremely refreshing to have a hero who guesses wrong occasionally, especially in critical situations.  In Two Graves, Pendergast seriously misjudges the hotel killer’s identity and miscalculates whether a gunman will shoot his hostage.

    As always, the reader is treated to some great locations – New York City, the Deep South, Brazil, and even a little-known city in Mexico that I’ve been to: Cananea.  You’ll learn the difference between a Judas window and the Copenhagen window (to say nothing of Plato’s allegory), as well as brush up on your Portuguese and German.  There are thrills galore, twists aplenty, enough violence and cussing to remind you this is an adult series, and just the right amount of wit to keep everything in balance. 

    The tension builds steadily to an exciting ending, which includes a long, drawn-out battle sequence.  Helen’s story is resolved, albeit with the expected amount of Preston-&-Child surprises.  But the unforeseen delight was finally learning Constance Greene’s full story, as well as that of her newborn child that she claims to have killed by tossing him overboard during a transoceanic cruise.  But don't worry about not having any characters to ponder, a couple of new major ones are introduced for the reader to wonder about.

Kewlest New Word ...

Grotesqueries (n.; plural) : grotesque figures, objects, or actions..

Others : Judas window (n.; phrase).

Excerpts...

    “Vinnie, what is this?”

    “An Italian spritz,” he said as he sat down.  “Ice, Prosecco, dash of club soda, Aperol.  Garnished with a slice of some blood oranges I picked up from Greenwich produce in Grand Central on the way home.”

    She took another sip, then set the glass down.  “Um.”  She hesitated.  “I wish I could say I liked it.”

    “You don’t?”

    “It tastes like bitter almonds.”  She laughed.  “I feel like Socrates here.  Sorry.  You went to a lot of trouble.”  (pg. 113)

    “And so you think you’re better than he is.”

    “Of course I’m better.  Everyone here is created for his place and knows it from the beginning.  This is the ultimate social order.  You’ve seen Nova Godoi.  There’s no crime.  We have no depression, no mental illness, no drug addiction – no social problems whatsoever.”

    “Supported by a camp of slave laborers.”

    “You speak from ignorance.  They have a purpose.  They have all they need or want – except, of course, we can’t let them reproduce.  Some people are simply better than others.”  (pg. 457)

“Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.”  (pg. 509, and a quote from Nietzsche)

    The quibbles about Two Graves are few and far between.  Some of the death-defying escapes are over-the-top.  When Aloysius does this, I’m okay with it.  When a psychiatrist does it, I raise my eyebrows.

    Not all the storylines converge smoothly.  The hunt for the hotel serial-killer kinda fades away once the killings stop, and I had a tough time believing the NYPD would just lose interest when the mutilations cease.  And the “Corrie and her father” thread, while it does get resolved, never did tie in to the main story.  Ditto for the bizarre place where Dr. Felder found the key piece of evidence regarding Constance’s claims.

    But I suspect this is not any sloppiness on the part of Preston & Child.  Instead, it is more likely a hint at where this series is heading.

    8½ Stars.  Which is what I gave the other two books in the trilogy.  This was a complex, action-packed, twisty-turny story that kept me entertained from beginning to end, and which held true to its promise to wrap everything up within the three books.

Gathering Blue - Lois Lowry

   2000; 215 pages.  Book 2 of the “Giver Quartet” series.  Full title : “Gathering Blue; A Companion to The Giver”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Dystopian Fiction; YA.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    It’s been a rough life so far for little Kira.  First and worst, she was born with a crippled leg, and any deformity is looked upon as a just cause to be banished from the village by its citizens.  Then shortly after she was born, her father was killed while hunting.  Only the stubbornness of Kira’s mother prevented the villagers from sending Kira to a certain death in “the field” beyond the village.

    But now her mother is dead, cut down by a sudden sickness, and their hut has been burned to the ground to prevent the disease from spreading.  No one is going to adopt a crippled girl, and no one is going to help her rebuild her home.

    To boot, several of the neighboring women are greedily eyeing Kira’s small plot of land already, and have brought about legal proceedings to have her banished.  How can a little girl with only one good leg justify her continued living in the village?

What’s To Like...

    Gathering Blue is Lois Lowry’s follow-up to her incredibly-popular, multi-award-winning book, The Giver.  It has the same general structure – a coming-of-age child is found to be gifted, gets put into an important village position, and gains “special knowledge” that reveals that things in the village are not as utopian as its inhabitants think.  The overall themes are the same; but the details in the two stories differ considerably, with GB having a noticeably darker tone to it.

    This is not a sequel.  Although I got the impression that it’s set in the same general location, it’s a different village, existing under different conditions.  These villagers see colors normally, and the longer you live, the more syllables you get added to your name.  Four-syllable people are given great respect.

    The characters are engaging and easy to keep track of, which is the norm for a YA book.  I especially liked Matt and Branch.  The village was developed more fully here than in The Giver.  There is also a mild strain of humor here that I don’t recall being in The Giver.  Kira’s struggles to understand the bathroom facilities made me chuckle.

    The ending was not what I expected, which is a plus.  But again, like The Giver, a lot of threads remain unresolved, which is a minus.  Being a YA novel, there is nothing R-rated to be found.

Kindle Details...

    Gathering Blue sells for $7.99 at Amazon, which is also true of the other two “follow-up” books in the series.  Book 1, The Giver, sells for $6.99, which is an excellent way to be introduced to this series.   

Excerpts...

    She stood in the open doorway and watched them retreat down the long corridor, the man leading the way, Matt, walking jauntily just behind him, and the dog at Matt’s heels.  The boy looked back at her, waved slightly, and grinned with a questioning look.  His face, smeared with sticky candy, was alight with excitement.  She knew that within minutes he would be telling his mates that he’d barely escaped being washed.  His dog too, and all the fleas; a close call.  (loc. 619)

    “Matt said she was already a singer.”

    Kira, thinking, smoothed the folds of her skirt.  “so each of us,” she said slowly, “was already a – I don’t know what to call it.”

    “Artist?” Thomas suggested.  “That’s a word.  I’ve never heard anyone say it, but I’ve read it in some of the books.  It means, well, someone who is able to make something beautiful.  Would that be the word?”

    “Yes, I guess it would.  The tyke makes her singing, and it is beautiful.”

    “When she isn’t crying,” Thomas pointed out.  (loc. 1379)

 “Night comes, and colors fade away; sky fades, for blue can never stay…”  (loc. 1972)

     The biggest problem with Gathering Blue is that it doesn’t advance the thoroughly captivating plotline that was left dangling at the end of The Giver, as Jonas sledded down the hill to the new village.  The details may be different here, but underneath it’s just a repeat of the storyline from the first book.

    This isn’t helped by the book’s POV.  Although written in the Third Person, the events are limited to what Kira sees, hears, and experiences.  Jonas had The Giver in the first book to show him the broader picture; Kira has no such resource.  Exciting things do happen in Kira’s story, but they’re offstage, and we (and Kira) only learn of them secondhand and after the fact.

    In fairness, Lois Lowry is upfront about this; she calls this book “A Companion to The Giver”.  But readers mesmerized by The Giver will be looking for a sequel, not a rehash of something they’ve already read.  It’s no surprise, then, that Gathering Blue made a much smaller splash in the literary world than The Giver.  What is surprising is that there was a 7-year gap between the two books.

    7 Stars.  I read Gathering Blue to commemorate the 2015 Banned Books Week (28 September through 05 October), even though it’s The Giver that gets repeatedly challenged by self-proclaimed censors.  Add 1 Star if you haven’t read The Giver yet; Gathering Blue will feel a lot fresher in that case.

The Last - Michael John Grist

  2015; 248 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Zombie Apocalypse.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    It was undoubtedly the best evening of Amo's life.  First there was dinner with Lara, the waitress of his dreams but who he felt was way too pretty to look his way.  That was topped off by a pleasant roll in the hay with her, even though the doctors had told him that such excitement was likely to kill him.

     It’s a pity, then, that what followed was the worst morning of his life.  Something bizarre happened overnight, and now it seems everyone in New York City – with the exception of Amo – has been turned a zombie.  And that’s a lot of undead, all looking for a very limited supply of brains for breakfast.  Which is bad news for pets, stray dogs, and alley cats, none of which have been “turned”.

    Plus Amo, with his alive-and-functioning brain.  And who seems to be a zombie-magnet.

What’s To Like...

    The Last is a Zombie Apocalypse tale, set in the US in 2018.  For the most part, it is told in the first person POV (Amo’s), particularly the first half, where he’s occupied with learning what works and doesn’t work against the undead, and having enough weaponry to keep them at bay.  The reader will learn a bunch of practical life-preserving tips, in case he should ever find himself in a similar situation.

    There aren’t a lot of characters to keep track of (if you’ve met one zombie, you’ve met them all).  Amo is a pleasantly believable protagonist.  He develops his zombie-killing tactics by trial-and-error, and quite often he misses when he shoots at them.  I could personally relate to his painful lesson about a rifle’s recoil.

    The writing is both lighthearted and thought-provoking.  There are a ton of Zombie Apocalypse books out there, but I liked the innovative “cause” of this one, and the unique “best way” to deal with the undead.  Michael John Grift’s wit is also a plus, such as the Yangtze online-shopping website.  There are lots of kewl music references in all sorts of genres, and music plays a key role in the storyline, although I never did fully fathom exactly how.

    There is some cussing, booze, “adult situations”, and a couple spliffs (see Kewlest New Word, below) get rolled and smoked.  I was left with a couple unanswered questions besides the role of music, the most notable of which are listed in the comments due to spoiler considerations.

      The writing is good.  You’ll bond with Amo as he tries to come to grips with his situation, and even have some empathy for the zombies, who have no idea why they were “turned” without any warning and for seemingly no cause.  This is not a standalone novel, but it ends at a logical place, with this stage of the tale being satisfactorily completed.

Kewlest New Word ...

Spliff (n.) : a joint; a marijuana cigarette.

Kindle Details...

    The Last sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  The sequel, The Lost, is the same price.  Michael John Grist has a number of other e-book offerings, all in the $0.99-$4.99 price range.

Excerpts...

    “You’re lucky you’re alive.  You know how many people out there who’re  immune?  Do you have any idea?”

    “No idea.  I didn’t see any.  Maybe her?”

    “Maybe her.  On top of that there’s me and there’s you.  I’ve not seen any others, Amo, not any at all.  Every live video feed I saw got corrupted in seconds, because the people filming it were infected.  It’s the most virulent thing ever.  It’s like that cat in the box, the second you open the box to see if it’s alive or not, it drags you in so you’re inside the box too.”  (loc. 658)

    I sigh and lie back.  The tea and bolognese can be breakfast.  I look up at the sky.  Of course it’s the same sky.  These are the same stars, though the shooting ones aren’t.

    “They’re not really stars,” my dad told us once.  “They’re just little bites of interstellar dust, or the screws and nuts that come off falling satellites, burning up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.”

    This awed us even more.  That there was a layer of sky up there so hot that it burned, that interstellar dust was reaching out to our little planet across the gulf of space, then falling down upon us like a fine rain, like fairy dust.  (loc. 3008)

 “Damn the zombies, full speed to the West!”  (loc. 1963)

    There were a couple slow spots for me, most notably in the first portion of the book where a lot of pages are spent detailing Amo killing zombie after zombie after zombie.  But that’s probably unescapable in any zombie apocalypse story; it wouldn’t be a tale of terror unless there were zillions of them to deal with.

    And it’s also probably inherent in any book where, for most of the pages, we’re dealing with a single character, stranded and all alone (zombies don’t count as characters) in the world.  The present hit movie, Martian, faces this same challenge.  So did the book/movie I Am Legend, reviewed here.

    But I quibble.  Amo’s drawn-out loneliness serves to emphasize his plight, and if Michael John Grist had made it shorter, I’d probably be griping that it hadn’t been developed enough.

    7½ Stars.  The Last is my third zombie book already this year, and this is not a genre I normally read.  I don’t know if this is an anomaly or a trend.  Add 2 Stars if you’re a zombie enthusiast; I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy this book.

Not Quite Scaramouche - Joel Rosenberg

   2001; 301 pages.  Book #9 (out of 10) in the Guardians of the Flame series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 5*/10.

    It is a busy time for the warrior-bodyguards Kethol, Pirojil, and Erenor.  Walter Slovotsky has charged them with keeping the young Baron Jason Cullinane alive; which is no mean task, given the lad’s propensity for putting himself in noble but life-threatening situations.

    Now the emperor has called Parliament into session, and that requires all Barons to travel to the capital city of Biemestren.  The route from the Cullinane Barony to Biemestren is well-known, and there are many who would smile inwardly if Jason were to meet with an unfortunate end along the way.  So stay alert, guys.

    But hey, meals and lodging don’t come free, and the countryside inns don’t know what a credit card is.  So there’s always time to roll a couple drunks in an alley and relieve them of their assets, right?  We’ll even stash of the money away.  After all, nobody in this strange land has heard of a pension plan either.

What’s To Like...

    Not Quite Scaramouche takes place in an alternate universe that has sword-&-musket technology, wizardry, and fantasy creatures such as dragons, orcs, elves, and dwarves.  It is the ninth book in a 10-volume series, and this was one of the few times where I felt I was really missing a lot by not having read the series in order.

    I liked Joel Rosenberg’s treatment of the dragons.  They’re powerful and telepathic, but not omnipotent and are in fact on the verge of extinction.  The magic system is nicely done, and having a wizard in your midst certainly widens one’s options in a fantasy world.  But it too has its limits, and doesn’t overwhelm the medieval setting and world-building.

    The text is witty, particularly the thoughts and words of my favorite character, the Imperial Proctor Walter Slovotsky, who is one of the people who “fell through” from our world to this one.  The ending is both twisty and imaginative.  I have no idea what the titular "Scaramouche" reference means, even after consulting Wikipedia.  There is some cussing, and sexual references; prudes should stay away from this one.

    There’s a ton of intrigue, but almost no action.  Indeed, the only two bits of excitement were the rolling of the drunks (perpetrated by the good guys!), and the sniffing out an assassin-in-hiding.  I was also disappointed in the fantasy creatures, apart from the dragon.  The elves and dwarves were stereotypical, the oft-cited orcs never make an actual appearance.  That’s about it for the fantasy critters; everybody else could be found at your local Renaissance Fair.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Solecism (n.) : a breach of good manners.

Others :  Swive (v.); Kinesthesia (n.); Conoid (adj.); Geas (n.); Twigged (v.); Billy (n.; short for ‘Billycan’).

Excerpts...

    Splitting your forces was, whether you were part of an army or just a pair of comrades, always something to be approached with caution.  At least Kethol would have Ahira to watch his back.  Pirojil would have Erenor, and while Erenor wasn’t entirely useless in everything, his swordsmanship was pitiful, striving towards weak, and not striving very hard.  He was a perfectly fine hand with a flintlock pistol, of course – as long as he had the muzzle of the weapon pressed tightly against the target.  (pg. 137)

    A little embezzlement here and there was no problem, as long as it was only a little.

    And if it was too much?  A governor could be hanged for embezzlement just as legally as a peasant could be hanged for poaching.  The trick was to hang him only if necessary, only if a governor made a pig of himself, to encourage prudence in the others.  You didn’t want the other governors spending more time fiddling with their books than watching for signs of brewing rebellion.  (pg. 164)

“... if pigs had wings, they’d be pigeons.”  (pg. 254 )

    The lack of action made Not Quite Scaramouche a slow read.  But even worse was the lack of a storyline.  Jason and his band of heroes roam around the countryside, Slovotsky contends with plots, counterplots, and courtly subterfuge, and a couple missing persons – one good, one bad – turn up at unexpected times.  But when you finish the book, you realize that it was all lint and no story threads.  It was almost as if Joel Rosenberg wanted to move some of the characters around, but couldn’t think of a tale to go with it.

    Perhaps this is because this was my introduction to the series.  Maybe the other books have more action.  Maybe if I’d known more about the various players in the battles of intrigue, I’d have a better appreciation of the subtle maneuverings.  But when I pick up a book with a cover showing three badass heroes riding atop a menacing-looking dragon, I’m going to expect fighting, bloodshed, a bunch of otherworldly creatures, and an epic storyline.

    It's also possible I picked the wrong book to become acquainted with this author.  To be fair, Joel Rosenberg’s wit, musings, and writing style save this book from being a waste of the reader’s time, but only barely.

    5 Stars.  Add 2 stars if you’re reading this series in order.  Or not.  By this time, you’re a better judge of how good it is than me.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams

   1987; 291 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : British Humor; Fantasy; Quasi-Mystery.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Gordon Way has been killed.  Even he can see that.  Literally.  Because he’s now a ghost, and everyone knows you can’t become one of those until you’re no longer alive.

    Strangely, Gordon has no idea who shot him.  Neither do the police.  But they have a strong lead – Richard MacDuff.  He has a motive and the means, no alibi, and was caught acting very strange on the night of the murder.

    Richard needs to hire a Private Investigator to clear his name and determine who really did kill Gordon.  So he pays a visit to Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency?  After all, he’s met Dirk once, albeit many years ago.  And funnily enough, Reg was just asking about him at dinner tonight.

    Wait a minute.  Just what the heck is a “holistic” detective agency, anyway?

What’s To Like...

    Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency follows Douglas Adams’ (first three books of) Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series, and simply put,  has the same captivating weirdness that makes HHGTTG so popular.  You might think from the title that it is going to be a Murder-Mystery, and both those elements are present, at least for a while.  But really the focus isn’t on the “who” and “why”, which are both revealed early on.  Instead, it’s on the “how’d this come about?” aspect.

    All the characters are well-developed and unique.  Dirk Gently may be the headliner, but he’s pudgy, doesn’t appear until 37%, and is somewhat of an a$$hole.  Still, it’s fun to watch him as he utilizes his Sherlock Holmesian logic to “solve” the case.  Richard MacDuff is the perfect schmuck of a protagonist, and it’s a blast to watch Gordon as he “learns” the physics of being a ghost. 

    Like HHGTTG, DGHDA is a geek’s delight.  There are multiverses and time travel, an impossibly stuck sofa, and a horse in a bathtub.  We learn the truth about Bach and Coleridge, and even Ginger Baker gets a brief mention.  Since it was written in 1987, it was an unexpected treat to meet up with some obsolete technology – car tape decks, telephone answering machines where you rewind the tape to play back messages, and outside public telephones.

    I liked the writing style.  Adams spins several separate (POV) storylines simultaneously to keep things from becoming boring; then gradually and skillfully brings them together.  There’s wit aplenty, lots of plot twists, and a couple cusswords thrown in to keep the prudes away.

Kewlest New Word ...

Moggy (n.) : a cat, especially one that doesn’t have a pedigree (a Britishism)

Others : Pettishly (adj.); Mazy (adj.); Dep (v., Britishism, and unclear in meaning)

Kindle Details...

    Amazon offers the e-book version of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency for $11.99, which seems somewhat steep to me.  The rest of Adams’ sci-fi books are priced in the $6.99-$7.99 range.

Excerpts...

    By means of an ingenious series of strategically deployed denials of the most exciting and exotic things, he was able to create the myth that he was a psychic, mystic, telepathic, fey, clairvoyant, psychosassic vampire bat.

    What did “psychosassic” mean?

    It was his own word and he vigorously denied that it meant anything at all.  (loc. 603)

    “Do you know,” said Sergeant Gilks of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, blinking with suppressed emotion, “that when I arrive back here to discover one police officer guarding a sofa with a saw and another dismembering an innocent wastepaper basket I have to ask myself certain questions?  And I have to ask them with the disquieting sense that I am not going to like the answers when I find them.

    “I then find myself mounting the stairs with a horrible premonition, Svlad Cjelli, a very horrible premonition indeed.  A premonition, I might add, that I now find horribly justified.  I suppose you can’t shed any light on a horse discovered in a bathroom as well?  That seemed to have an air of you about it.”

   “I cannot,” said Dirk, “as yet.  Though it interests me strangely.”  (loc. 2391)

 “Now.  Having saved the entire human race from extinction I could do with a pizza.”  (loc. 3519)

    The only issue I had with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency was the ending, which was a bit of a letdown.  While it’s true that Dirk deductively reasons out the “big picture” conundrum, none of the lesser plotlines are resolved.  Gordon remains a ghost, and the misadventures of Dirk, Reg, Richard, and Susan, etc. just kind of grind to a halt, to be continued in Book 2.

    Along those same lines, the reader meets a number of fascinating characters, who enter, get developed, then exit the story, never to reappear.  Among them are Sergeant Gilks, Janet Pearce, and a precocious young girl named Sarah.  But I suppose some of them will show up in the sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

    But this is a small price to pay for another heaping helping of Douglas Adams zaniness and wit, and it’s a pity that he passed away while working on Book 3, The Salmon of Doubt,  the unfinished pieces of which were issued in a patchwork collection of his other writings in 2005.  I borrowed DGHDA from my local digital library, which offers the other two books in the series as well.  I will probably read the second one, because I’m an Adams Aficionado, but I’m iffy on Book 3. 

    8 Stars.  Listen, the Dirk Gently series is never going to  supplant HHGTTG as everyone’s favorite Douglas Adams reading.  But it’s a fine, well-written supplement to Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox, and it kept me entertained throughout.