Twelve Years A Slave - Solomon Northup

   2013; 363 pages.  Full Title: Twelve Years A Slave: The Autobiography of Solomon Northup. New Author(s)?  : Yes.  Genres : Biographies & Memoirs; American history; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    Twelve Years A Slave is a gripping account of the horrors and injustices of the pre-Civil War slave system.  Probably only Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a bigger impact on abolitionist sentiment in the Northern US states during the 1850s.

 

    We follow Solomon Northup as he is kidnapped and shipped to New Orleans, then forced to work on cotton plantations and in the sugar cane fields.  He spent twelve years of his life in servitude, twelve years that he’ll never get back.  Twelve years of being separated from his wife and three kids back in New York who were left wondering what happened to him and whether they’ll ever see him again.

 

    Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Twelve Years A Slave are both acclaimed accounts of slavery in the South.  But there’s one important difference.

 

    Uncle Tom’s Cabin is fictional while Twelve Years a Slave is an autobiography.

 

What’s To Like...

    It may sound like an oxymoron, but the autobiography Twelve Years A Slave is written by three authors.  As a black freeman born in New York in 1808, Solomon Northup had learned to read and write.   But this book was actually ghost-written in the 1850s by David Wilson.  A century later, long after Twelve Years A Slave had faded into complete obscurity, historian Sue Eakin came across a copy of the book, thoroughly researched its contents, and published an “expanded version” of it, which is the format I read it in.

 

    Solomon Northup was kidnapped and enslaved in 1841, and wasn't rescued until 1853.  My history classes didn’t spend too much time on that decade prior to the Civil War, so there were a number of historical surprises waiting for me in Twelve Years A Slave.

 

    One of them was the way Solomon became a slave.  He was drugged while in Washington DC, put into a slave pen there, then put on board a ship sailing to Louisiana.  It was called a Reverse Underground Railroad, and I’d never heard of such a thing.  Sunday Money was also an eye-opener for me, ditto for the rules used for slaves celebrating Christmas in the South (see the second excerpt below).  I marveled at the use of “lumber women”, was revolted by the conditions in the slave pens, and was amazed at the system used to pick cotton efficiently.

 

    Solomon’s even-handed portrayal of plantation life impressed me.  Yes, there were some exceptionally cruel masters, such as the man who owned Solomon for the last ten years of his incarceration.  But he had served under the ownership of a relatively kind-hearted owner for the first two years.

    This variety of descriptions seemed to irritate a number of readers/reviewers.  Some gave low marks because they felt the book painted too gruesome of a picture of slavery.  Others gave low marks because they thought it painted too rosy of a picture.  That’s where Sue Eakin’s research comes into play.  Her exhaustive investigation, detailed in more than a hundred footnotes, confirms Solomon’s observations for the most part, although there were one or two instances where she felt David Wilson may have been “stretching the truth” a bit.

 

    Although this is a non-fiction tale, it has a storybook ending, with Solomon at long last reuniting with his family.  It’s not a spoiler to reveal that; after all, if he never regained his freedom, this book would never have been written.  But it's worth reading this book to see how he managed to win his release.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 946 ratings and 519 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.22*/5, based on 117,665 ratings and 8,076 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Expatiate (v.) : to speak or write in great detail or length.

Others: Groggery (n.); Cachinations (n., plural); Condign (adj); Latterly (adv.); Betimes (adj.).

 

Excerpts...

    Ten years I toiled for that man without reward.  Ten years of my incessant labor has contributed to increase the bulk of his possessions.  Ten years I was compelled to address him with down-cast eyes and uncovered head—in the attitude and language of a slave.  I am indebted to him for nothing, save undeserved abuse and stripes.  (loc. 2115)

 

    During the remaining holidays succeeding Christmas, they are provided with passes, and permitted to go where they please within a limited distance, or they may remain and labor on the plantation, in which case they are paid for it.  (…)

    They are different beings from what they are in the field; the temporary relaxation, the brief deliverance from fear, and from the lash, producing an entire metamorphosis in their appearance and demeanor.  In visiting, riding, renewing old friendships, or, perchance, reviving some old attachment, or pursuing whatever pleasure may suggest itself, the time is occupied.  Such is “southern life as it is,” three days in the year, as I found it—the other three hundred and sixty-two being days of weariness, and fear, and suffering, and unremitting labor.  (loc. 2529)

 

Kindle Details…

    This version of Twelve Years A Slave presently sells for $0.99 at Amazon.  There are several dozen other versions of it available in e-book format, ranging in price from $0.99 to $10.00.

 

In cotton picking time, Patsey was queen of the field.  (loc. 2180)

    There’s little to quibble about in Twelve Years A Slave.  The standard cusswords are handled in an unusual manner: the underworld is given in the text as “h_l”, and to be condemned to be sent there is rendered as “d_d”.  The racial epithet n-word is the main bit of profanity, but let's face it; this story couldn’t be written without it.  The sum total of epithets-plus-cusswords for the first third of the book was less than a dozen, which both surprised and impressed me.

 

    There was a fair amount of British spellings, such as offence/offense and whisky/whiskey; some cities were hyphenated, such as New-York, and a slew of "separated" compound words, such as heart sick/heartsick and candle light/candlelight.  I’m pretty sure these are not typos.  All languages evolve over time, including Americanized English. As an editor, I found this fascinating, not distracting.

 

    This being the expanded version, means there are oodles of extra sections, both before and after Solomon’s actual account, which ends at 59% Kindle.  I’d tell you the page number, but those aren’t included in this e-book version.  The only “must read” added section is “After Freedom, What Happened?” which is located at Kindle 59%-64%, and provides an eye-opening epilogue to Solomon’s life.  Other than that, feel free to partake of or eschew any of the extras.  Some I read; others I skipped.

 

    For me, Twelve Years A Slave was a great read.  So much of the details of the daily life of slaves gets pushed under the carpet in history classes, and that’s true no matter what part of the US you live in.  It was enlightening to finally read a firsthand account of how it really was.

 

    9½ Stars.  After being freed in 1853, Solomon Northup went on a widely-popular speaking tour throughout the North, railing against the evils of human bondage.  Alas, his stardom was short-lived and he, along with his book, soon fell back into obscurity.  No one knows where and when he died.  Nobody knows where his body is buried.  Solomon Northup simply disappears.  Sic transit gloria mundi.

A is for Alibi - Sue Grafton

   1982; 308 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book 1 (out of 25) in the “Kinsey Millhone” series.  Genres: Private Investigator Mystery; Hard-Boiled Mystery.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    It promises to be a easy but strange case for PI Kinsey Millhone.  Nikki Fife wants her to investigate the killing of her late husband, Laurence Fife.  That sounds fairly routine, but there are a couple of weird aspects.

 

    First off, this is a cold case, since Laurence’s death occurred quite some time ago.  Nikki was accused and convicted of murdering him and has just been released from prison after serving eight years.  During her incarceration she never attempted to initiate an investigation.  So why start one now?

 

    Secondly, Laurence was killed in a most unusual way: he was poisoned via oleander, ground up into a powder, then slipped into one of the medication tablets he was taking.  Outside of his wife, who would have access to his medicines?

 

    Nonetheless, Nikki is willing to pay handsomely for Kinsey’s efforts.  And it turns out lots of people hated Laurence for lots of reasons, most of them involving infidelity.  So there are lots of suspects for Kinsey to look into.

 

    And since she’s already served her time, Nikki wouldn’t have reason to want further investigating, unless she actually innocent, amiright?

 

What’s To Like...

    A is for Alibi is the first book in Sue Grafton’s popular “Alphabet Series”, published over the course of 35 years, and closing with Y is for Yesterday.  Sadly, Ms. Grafton passed away before writing the “Z” installment.

 

    Despite it being a cold case, things quickly get complicated.  Kinsey discovers there was a second oleander-poisoning death back around the time of Laurence’s demise.  More chilling, and more timely, one of the present suspects is murdered right after Kinsey contacts her.  Someone is worried about the new probe.

 

    A is for Alibi was published in 1982 and it was fun to note some of the bygone things mentioned:  cameras needed a roll of film; a room at a cheap hotel only cost $11.95 per night; college students used “blue books” when taking exams; and dial phones could be slammed down to terminate a conversation.  I was happy to see one of my alma maters, Arizona State University, get mentioned, and smiled when it was revealed that one of the characters created crossword puzzles as a pastime. 

 

    A key break comes courtesy of a child's offhand remark.  I'm proud to say I picked up on that, but I couldn’t connect the dots.  Fortunately, Kinsey could, but even so, another plot twist jumped up and roiled the waters again.  Things wrap up with an obligatory chase scene; with the bad folks getting their deserved comeuppance and all the killings being solved.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 13,431 ratings and 1,563 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.86*/5, based on 184,374 ratings and 5,811 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    He was thirty-nine years old when he died.  That Nikki was accused, tried, and convicted was just a piece of bad luck.  Except for cases that clearly involve a homicidal maniac, the police like to believe murders are committed by those we know and love, and most of the time they’re right—a chilling thought when you sit down to dinner with a family of five.  All those potential killers passing their plates.  (pg. 8)

 

    Claremont is an oddity in that it resembles a trim little midwestern hamlet with elms and picket fences.  The annual Fourth of July parade is composed of kazoo bands, platoons of children on crepe-paper-decorated bikes, and a self-satirizing team of husbands dressed in Bermuda shorts, black socks, and business shoes doing close-order drills with power mowers.  Except for the smog, Claremont could even be considered “picturesque” with Mount Baldy forming a raw backdrop.  (pg. 162)

 

“The only cleavage I got left, I sit on.”  (pg. 31)

    The cussing is light: just 11 cases in the first 20% of the book.  One of those was an f-bomb though; and later on, there are a couple rolls-in-the-hay plus two instances of profane terms being used to describe sensual parts of the body.

 

    I had a couple quibbles, but they’re minor.  The ending, although suitably exciting, is rather conveniently resolved by Kinsey simply firing first.  And throughout the tale, the storyline goes off on a tangent of Kinsey working on a unrelated case.  I kept waiting for it to somehow tie into the main plot thread, but it never did.

 

    As a first effort, A is for Alibi is a promising tale, with enough action and intrigue to keep me turning the pages.  This was my second Kinsey Millhone book (the other one is reviewed here), and I get the sense that the author hones her writing skills nicely as the series progresses.  I have a bunch more of her works on my Kindle and TBR shelf, and look forward to more books in this series.

 

    7½ Stars.  An interesting sidelight, courtesy of the Wikipedia article for A is for Alibi.  Sue Grafton was going through a divorce while writing this book, and admits about her husband that she “would lie in bed at night thinking of ways to kill him.”   Oy.

From Dead to Worse - Charlaine Harris

   2008; 308 pages.  Book 8 (out of 13) in the “Sookie Stackhouse” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Paranormal Mystery; Gothic Romance; Vampires; Werewolves.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    To say that these are turbulent times in Sookie Stackhouse’s life would be an understatement.  The Were clans (as in "Werewolf") in Bon Temps, Louisiana are engaged in a bitter struggle for supremacy and somehow Sookie is in the middle of it.  Sookie’s beau, Quinn, is a "weretiger" and is currently missing-in-action.

 

    The Vampire factions are also warring against each other, for dominance and Sookie is known to have a blood bond with one of the leaders.  One of her neighbors is a vamp, and he’s also one of her ex-lovers.  A vampire named Jonathan has been asking around about Sookie, which means he’s probably a spy for one of the factions.

 

    Sookie’s brother Jason is having marital difficulties with his werepanther wife.  Sookie’s roommate is a witch who’s in bad graces with her coven for accidentally turning a human into a pet cat.  The whole Pelt family thinks Sookie might be responsible for the killing of Debbie Pelt.  And in truth, they’re right.

 

    What’s a telepathic human to do?  Well, maybe keep showing up for work on time (a waitress at a local bar) and hope that Quinn shows up again, unharmed.

 

What’s To Like...

    From Dead to Worse is the eighth book in Charlaine Harris’s completed “Sookie Stackhouse” series.  I’ve been reading these books in order, so am a bit more than halfway through.  The book is written in the first-person POV, Sookie’s, and is a continuation of the events in the previous book, All Together Dead, which is recapped in the opening Prologue.  I much appreciated that, since it’s been a year since I read that one.

 

    There isn’t really a “main plotline” here.  Instead, the reader joins Sookie in about ten mini plot threads, including a.) who’s the withered man, b.) where’s Quinn, c.) who sent the phony cop to try and kill Eric, d.) who killed Maria-Star Cooper.  Plus about a half-dozen more.

 

    Sookie gets to meet two members of her extended family, which I thought was neat.  Early on, she meets her great-grandfather, Niall, whose fairy bloodline means he’s been living for a very long time.  At the book’s close, she meets a younger relative, whose identity we’ll refrain from giving since it would be a spoiler.

 

    The usual creatures—dead, undead, ultra-religious, and magical—are all once again present.  I liked the “ectoplasmic reconstruction” ritual, which would be quite useful.  The Thai courteous greeting known as “wai” is worked into the story and brought back fon memories.  I learned and used it on a business trip in Bangkok long ago.  I also enjoyed Charlaine Harris’s music nods: Evanescence, Dixie Chicks, Travis Tritt, and Carrie Underwood.  Those selections show good tastes.

 

    There’s no build-up to a rock-'em, sock-'em ending.  Instead, you get a bunch of “mini-endings” for each of the short plotlines.  Happily, all of those get resolved, including Bob the Cat’s dilemma.  From Dead to Worse is both a standalone novel and a part of a series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 3,511 ratings and 722 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.01/5 based on 188,428 ratings and 4,051 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    She bowed her head.  “The prince is my grandfather,” she said.

    “Oh,” I said.  “So, we’re like cousins?”

    She looked down at me, her eyes clear and dark and calm.  She didn’t look like a woman who’d just killed two wolves as quick as you could snap your fingers.  “Yes,” she said.  “I guess we are.”

    “So what do you call him?  Granddaddy?  Popsy?”

    “I call him ‘my lord.’ "

    “Oh.”  (loc. 2107)

 

    “Ah, that seems likely to result in some pretty bad things happening to Tanya,” I said.

    “Isn’t that what you want?”  Octavia looked innocent in a real sly way.

    “Well, yeah, but I don’t want her to die.  I mean, I don’t want anything she can’t get over to happen to her.  I just want her away and not coming back.”

    Amelia said, “ ‘Away and not coming back’ sounds pretty final to me.”

    It sounded that way to me, too.  “I’ll rephrase.”  (loc. 3541)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, From Dead to Worse sells for $7.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series are all in the $3.99-$9.99 price range.  Charlaine Harris has several other series for you in Kindle format, none of which I’ve read.  The prices of those books are in the $2.99-$14.99 range.

 

 I was practically reeking with normality by the time I got home.  (loc. 3601)

    I noted nine instances of profanity in the first 25% of From Dead to Worse, including one f-bomb.  That seemed about normal for this series.  I only caught a couple of typos: sooth/soothe and adherants/adherents.  I don’t recall any “adult situations”.

 

    After the Prologue, there’s a wedding chapter that gives updates on a bunch of characters that have little impact on the rest of the tale.  I think it’s the author’s way of introducing and giving updates for a slew of characters from the earlier books in the series, but if they don’t play a further part in the book, isn't it just wasted effort?

 

    The biggest issue has already been mentioned: the lack of an overarching storyline.  I felt like I was reading a Sookie Stackhouse anthology, and I’m not a big fan of anthologies.  Still, Charlaine Harris’s writing skills are sufficient to make it work.  But I think less-proficient writers should avoid the temptation of trying this.

 

     From Dead to Worse is a solid contribution to this series, but I wouldn't call it a top-tier entry.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed it, and look forward to the next book, Dead and Gone.  Hopefully, it will have an “everything builds to an exciting climax” storyline.

 

    7½ Stars.  Subtract 1 star if you’re not reading this series in order, particularly if you haven’t read the previous book, All Together Dead.  The backstory in the Prologue only helps if you’ve read the "back story".

Beyond The Ice Limit - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

   2016; 371 pages.  Book 4 (out of 5) in the “Gideon Crew” series.  New Authors? : No.  Genres : Thriller; Suspense; Save The World.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Eli Glinn has a score to settle.  With a meteorite.

 

    Five years ago the two of them crossed paths and the meteorite won.  It sank Eli’s boat, and more than a hundred people perished.  Eli was one of the survivors.

 

    You probably visualize a big blazing rock falling from the sky and slamming into the boat, but that’s not the way it happened.  Eli had hauled it up from the bottom of the ocean and stowed it in his ship.  When it slipped from its cradle, it caused an explosion and sank again to the bottom of the sea.

 

    Eli is going back to destroy it.  He’s not leaving anything to chance—he’s going to blow it up with a nuclear bomb he’s acquired.  He just needs to find someone who knows how to set up, and set off, an atomic bomb when it’s two miles deep in salt water.

 

    Hello, Gideon Crew.

 

What’s To Like...

    Beyond The Ice Limit is the penultimate book in Preston & Child’s Gideon Crew series, as well as the sequel to one of their other standalone thrillers, The Ice Limit.  As they mention in a short section titled “A Note to Our Readers”, they wrote this as a standalone story, which is important, since I hadn’t read The Ice Limit..

 

    The main storyline is whether Glinn, aided by Gideon, will carry out his mission to destroy the meteorite.  Sounds straightforward and easy, right?  Nope.  Things rapidly get more complicated.  In the five years that have passed since Encounter #1, the alien rock seems to have taken root and grown into a huge, treelike monstrosity.  Is it alive?  Is it sentient?  Is it a plant, an animal, or a machine?  Is it capable of communicating?  And perhaps most importantly, can it defend itself?

 

    The “human” plot threads are equally complex.  When crew members start dying, there is understandably more than a little discontent among their ranks., especially when Glinn seems determined to continue on regardless of how many of the rank-and-file members perish.  And since the whole excursion is a hush-hush affair, national navies cannot be called upon for support.

 

    I liked the “whale-speak” angle; it is a fascinating take on communicating with them.  There was also an “Alien” moment, if you remember that flick, and it scared me just as much this time around as it did when I watched the movie.  The titular “Ice Limit” is explained early on.  And Gideon will remember the phrase “let me touch your face” for the rest of his life.

 

    The ending is over-the-top, which is okay in a Thriller-genre tale.  It wasn’t particularly twisty, but the world is saved, thanks to Gideon’s valor, and he survives despite his computer simulation predicting his demise.  I don’t think a sequel will be penned, but there’s already an additional book in Gideon’s own series after this.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

    Stochastic (adj.) : randomly determined.

    Others: Rugose (adj.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5 based on 6,244 ratings and 1,024 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.37*/5 based on 1,743 ratings and 183 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Four months ago, back when Garza first walked up to my fishing spot on Chihuahueños Creek and offered me a hundred thousand dollars for a week’s work, stealing the plans for some new kind of weapon off a defecting Chinese scientist—it was really this moment, this job, that you had in mind.”

    Glinn nodded.

    “And you want to use the nuke to kill a gigantic alien plant that is supposedly growing on the bottom of the ocean.”

    “In a nutshell.”

    “Forget it.”

    “Gideon,” said Glinn, “we’ve been through this tiresome dance several times before: your heated refusals, your storming out, and then your eventual return once you’ve thought it through.  Can we please skip all that?”  (pg. 19)

 

    “If there was no glitch, then obviously there was some sort of delay in the transmission, some kind of time lag.”

    “No delay.”

    “Come on.  What are you saying?”

    “What your hydrophone picked up was a direct acoustic sound coming through the water, at that moment.”

    “Impossible.”

    A shrug from Prothero, some scratching of his arm.

    “So you’re saying a dead person spoke,” Gideon pressed on.

    “All I’m saying is, there was no glitch.”

    “Jesus Christ, of course there was a glitch!”

    “Ignorance combined with vehemence doesn’t make it so.”  (pg. 132)

 

“Dr. McFarlane . . . is going to be our very own Cassandra.”  (pg. 213)

    I counted 13 cusswords in the first 20% of the book, which is reasonable for a Thriller novel, plus one roll-in-the-hay.  Amphetamines have a minor impact on the story, but drug-prudes will be happy to know they’re presented in a negative light.  That’s about it for R-rated stuff.

 

    I only saw two typos: image/imagine and Hcl/HCl.  That second one will only bug readers who are also chemists by trade, which includes me.

 

    My biggest issue was the pacing, which is a rare quibble for a Preston-&-Child novel.  The first quarter of the book, roughly 100 pages, just plods along as Gideon gets extensive training in properly manipulating a DSV (Deep Submergence Vehicle).  It got tiresome, but once that gets out of the way, the pace picks up nicely, and action abounds.

 

    Beyond The Ice Limit had lots of thrills to keep your interest, lots of scientific issues to contemplate, and even a bit of romance for the ladies.  I wouldn’t call it one of Preston & Child’s top novels, but it did meet my expectations for a Gideon Crew tale.

 

    7½ Stars.  Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child collaborate on at least three Thriller series: Agent Pendergast, Nora Kelly, and Gideon Crew.  Of those, the latter one is the only one that doesn’t blow me away.  Its most recent book, The Pharaoh Key, was published in 2018, six years ago.  Maybe Gideon Crew doesn’t blow Preston and Child away either.

Exile - R.A. Salvatore

    1990; 307 pages.  New Author? : No.  Book 2 (out of 33) in the Legend of Drizzt series.  Genres: Epic Fantasy; Dungeons & Dragons; Sword & Sorcery.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    The dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden is fleeing for his life.  All sorts of people want him killed.

 

    Some of them are his own kin.  There’s his three sisters: Briza, Vierna, and Maya; and his older brother, Dinin.  Briza’s the most dangerous.  She’s a high priestess, capable of some powerful, deadly spellcasting.

 

    Right now, Drizzt’s siblings are after him at the behest of his mother, Malice Do’Urden.  He’s to be caught and brought back to face judgment.  Malice is not someone you want mad at you.  Her proper title is “Matron Malice”, and she's the leader of House Do’Urden, one of the most powerful houses in Menzoberranzan.

 

    Still, Drizzt’s chances of eluding capture are decent.  He’s traipsing around in a huge maze of underground tunnels and caverns called The Underdark.  He’s explored the area a lot more than any of his siblings.  Alas, Drizzt has offended a more powerful foe than anyone in his family.  Lolth, aka “The Spider Queen”, the main deity of the Dark Elves.

 

    And let's face it: when a goddess is after you, you’re doomed.

 

What’s To Like...

    Exile is the second book in R.A. Salvatore’s Legends of Drizzt series.  It takes places ten years after the events in Book One, Homeland, which is reviewed here.  That means Drizzt’s been on the run for quite some time, although a decade is admittedly a small part of a dark elf’s lifespan.  His only companion is a magical panther named Guenhwyvar, but the cat lives on an astral plane and only comes when danger threatens Drizzt.  The loneliness of his exile is slowly killing Drizzt.

 

    The main plotline chronicles Lolth’s efforts, through Matron Malice, to destroy the renegade warrior.  But we also watch Drizzt try to make friends and find companions to join him in his wanderings.  That’s a difficult task, since befriending someone cursed by the gods generally means being marked for death as well.

 

    The story takes place almost entirely underground, with lots of critters and other races to cross paths with and often cross swords with as well.  The book cover shows Drizzt being threatened by a pack of illithids, nasty creatures whose name translates into “Mind Flayers”.

 

    I liked R.A. Salvatore’s lighthearted approach to naming some of the characters.  Yes, this is Epic Fantasy at its finest, but you have to smile when being introduced to someone named Belwar Dissenguip, Elviddinvelp, Bristan Fendlestick, and my favorite, King Schnicktick.

 

    The book is divided into 26 chapters, plus a very helpful prelude which gives a brief backstory of Book One.  The ending is spread out over the last three chapters.  As you’d expect, Drizzt successfully overcomes the threats to his life, but at some terrible and unexpected collateral costs.  Things close with a teaser for the next book in the series, Sojourn, with Drizzt contemplating a trip to the aboveground part of his world, to get better acquainted with what is perhaps the strangest race of creatures he’s met thus far.

 

    Humans.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 6,828 ratings and 557 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.23/5 based on 66,013 ratings and 1,522 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Get me information from Menzoberranzan, and quickly.  I like not the prospect of dark elves wandering about my front door.  It does so diminish the neighborhood.”

    Councilor Firble, the chief of covert security in Blingdenstone, nodded in agreement, though he wasn’t pleased by the request.  Information from Menzoberranzan was not cheaply gained, and it as often turned out to be a calculated deception as the truth.  Firble did not like dealing with anyone or anything that could outsmart him, and he numbered dark elves as first on that ill-favored list.  (loc. 1734)

 

    “Why do human wizards practice the art of magic at all?” Drizzt asked.

    Belwar shook his head.  “I do not believe that any scholars have yet discovered the reason,” he replied in all sincerity.  “A strange and dangerously unpredictable race are humans, and better to be left alone.”

    “You have met some?”

    “A few.”  Belwar shuddered, as though the memory was not a pleasant one.  “Traders from the surface.  Ugly things, and arrogant.  The whole of the world is only for them, by their thinking.”  (loc. 2555)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, Exile is selling for $7.99 at Amazon.  The other books in the series go for that same price.  R.A. Salvatore occasionally discounts a book or two, usually (but not always) from the first dozen books in the series.

 

“We do not consider friendship a debt.”  (loc. 1779)

    There’s very little profanity in Exile.  I noted less than a dozen cusswords throughout the whole book, most of which were “damn”.  When the circumstances called for swearing, the favorite phrase used was “magga cammara”, which means “by the stones”.  I don’t recall any “adult situations”.

 

    Overall, I found Exile to be a quick, yet entertaining read.  The pacing was quick, there was action aplenty, and the worldbuilding was once again fantastic.

 

    8 Stars.  One last plaudit for Exile.  The structure of the Dark Elves society is conspicuously matriarchal.  Women hold all the positions of power; there are high priestesses but no high priests; and Goddesses call the heavenly shots.  Males are generally regarded as dolts when it comes to spellcasting, and are really only useful when fighting is necessary.  I found this to be a refreshing deviation from the norm.

Goya - Rose-Marie & Rainer Hagen

   2003 & 2022; 95 pages.  Translator: Karen Williams.  Part of a 135-book series.  New Authors? : Yes.  Genres : Art history; Art Appreciation; Biography; Spain; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    I like art.  In high school and junior high I enjoyed taking art classes, but I never took any in college.  Apparently such classes aren’t considered beneficial for a degree and career in Chemistry.

 

    I’m nutso about anything painted by Salvador Dali.  I’ve got several books giving comprehensive coverage of his works.  But beyond him, I know very little about any other artists.

 

    So it was time to learn about Francisco de Goya.

 

What’s To Like...

    Goya is divided into seven section, plus an appendix.  They are:

Part 1. : Cheerful Scenes for Gloomy Places

Part 2. : People of Yesterday – the Portraits

Part 3. : Nightmare and Social Critique

Part 4. : They Don’t Smile – Spain’s Women

Part 5. : One Can’t Tell Why – The Disasters of War

Part 6. : The Skies of Empty – the “Black” Paintings

Part 7. : A Love of Fear – the Bullfights

Appendix : Life and Work

 

    Each section covers a stage in Goya’s artistic career, and are arranged in chronological order.  The authors, Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen, also briefly discuss what was going on in Goya’s life during each stage.  Each section also includes a half dozen or so of Goya’s artworks from that particular phase of his life.

 

    My favorite sections were Parts 3, 5, and 6.  Goya was a definite liberal, stuck in a place and time where such views could easily get you executed, either by the Roman Catholic Inquisition, the Napoleonic French army, the Spanish royalty, or the powers behind the throne.  That Goya managed to earn a living as a painter amongst all these folks, and stay alive, is nothing short of amazing.

 

    Each painting is accompanied by a short explanation of it: its title, the year(s) it was done, its size, the medium it was done in (e.g.: “oil on canvas”), and its present location.  Brief, revealing details of each of these works (such as facial expressions, clothing styles, and background colors) are given, and often expanded upon in the text.  I found these to be positively enlightening.

 

    I was surprised to find that I was familiar with several of Goya’s paintings, although admittedly I would not have been able to tell you who painted them.  And although the cheerfulness in his early paintings will lift anyone’s spirits, it is his depictions of the horrors of war, and other terrors, that will stay with you for a lifetime.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 87 ratings and 9 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.72*/5, based on 254 ratings and 17 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Cartoons (n.) : canvases in the format of the tapestries to be woven.

 

Excerpts...

    They (Goya’s sketches) are images which demonstrate no one-sided support either for the ideals of the French Revolution or for the glorious name of Goya’s own country.  They show the slaughter of both French and Spanish, and it is often impossible to tell for which side people are killing or dying.  This was new in the history of Western art.  Since the Egyptians and Greeks, the portrayal of battle had invariably served to glorify the victor.  (…)  Goya is interested only in what people do to each other, in how chaos and war turn peaceful citizens into brutal beasts.  (pg. 58)

 

    Open mouths were – and are still – considered taboo, both in society and, for a long time, in art.  Allegedly because they make the face ugly, but in truth more probably because the lips and mouth mark the start of the digestive tract – a part of the human body that remains anonymous, a part that cannot contribute to the desire for individuality as expressed, for example, in portraiture.  (…)  To look down the throat is to remember that our intellectual existence, which we consider our real one, is dependent upon organs and instinctual drives that we cannot control and at whose mercy we lie.  (pg. 81)

 

The fact that Goya includes himself in a royal portrait, in exactly the same way as his famous predecessor [Velasquez], shows how his opinion of himself has grown.”  (pg. 21)

    It’s hard to come up with anything to quibble about in Goya.  There is zero profanity in the text, but that’s to be expected in a book of Art.  There is one “nude” painting, accompanied by a “clothed” version of the same woman in the same pose, so guests could be shown whichever one wouldn’t offend or bore them.  There’s nothing lewd about the nude, but it did get the Inquisition’s attention, who let Goya know they’d be keeping a close eye on him.

 

    The book was originally written in Spanish and later translated into English.  And “English” in this case means “British”, not “American”.  But I didn’t find that to be distracting.

 

    Reading this book gave me a deep appreciation for Goya’s paintings, but I was expecting that.  As an artist, Goya is amazing.  What surprised me was the way the “real” Goya came through via the textual detailing of his life.  I had forgotten that Spain was fighting a savage civil war at this time, which was then capped off by Napoleon invading, conquering, and brutalizing the country.

 

    The book makes me eager to study Goya’s complete works, and fortunately, I have an e-book on my Kindle, 824 pages in length, and taking up oodles of my device’s storage memory, showing every one of Goya’s masterpieces.  Now that I’m acquainted with him, it’s time to get immersed in his works.

 

    9½ Stars.  Goya is only 95 pages long.  If you have a book report due tomorrow, where the subject matter must be the Fine Arts, and you haven’t even started reading anything yet, this book may be your salvation.  And though I read the hardcover version, there’s an instantly downloadable version of it for your e-reader.

Chasing Daisy - Scott Baron

   2018; 384 pages.  Book 4 (out of 5) in the series “The Clockwork Chimera”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Space Opera; Alien Invasion Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    It’s time to finish the task. 

 

    With Daisy’s crucial help, the ragtag crew of humans, Chithiids, cyborgs, and Artificial Intelligences have sent the alien Ra’az baddies, who were in the process of stripping Earth of all its natural resources, fleeing in their spaceships to somewhere on the other side of the galaxy.

 

    Next up is the liberation of the Chithiids’ home planet, Taangaar.  Then it’s on to Ra’azengar, the home planet of the baddies.

 

    There are a couple things holding up progress.  First, no one is exactly sure of where the Ra’az home planet is, and the universe is a hugely big place to go searching blindly.  Even more importantly, Daisy and her friends don’t possess warp-drive technology.  Without that, trying to fly somewhere thousands of lightyears away will take . . . erm . . . thousands upon thousands of years.

 

    Maybe we should have some of the AI beings work on that.  Unless someone can think of a quicker way of gaining that technology.

 

What’s To Like...

    Chasing Daisy is the fourth book in Scott Baron’s (completed) “Clockwork Chimera” series.  The first half of the book dovetails with the neat plot twist at the end of Book 3, wherein Daisy learns that Quantum Physics predicts that, theoretically, not only can you instantly jump from one place in the universe to any other site, but you can also travel from one time to another just as easily.

 

    The first half of Chasing Daisy consists of her, Freya, and Sarah learning to function on a different timeline.  Like all conscientious time-travelers, they do their best to avoid creating temporal paradoxes, but their track record in this regard is less than perfect.  Indeed, they get quite adept at “correcting” earlier plotline anomalies, such as the “mysterious sniper” that Finn and his group encountered, a while back in the past, while doing a recon mission in Rome.

 

    Every reader of time-travel novels knows that such timeline alterations mean that Daisy’s triad risks being blipped out of existence at any moment.  Fortunately, History apparently is quite able to adjust to such things, albeit occasionally having to create anomalies like two “yous”.  See first excerpt, below.

 

    The multiple-timeline issues are eventually resolved, and the second half of the book focuses on the efforts by Daisy and the Dark Side personnel (at a surviving space base on the far side of the moon) to organize, and rally the disparate factions of inhabitants, both organic and inorganic, to unite in what, sadly, may well be a suicide mission.

 

    The ending is adequate, given that this is an “in-between” book, and should not be read as a standalone tale.  The good guys are poised to attempt to liberate the Chithiid homeworld, and I liked that the bad guys have some tricks up their sleeve as well.  Things once again close with a deft little plot twist that I didn’t see coming and which I’m sure will impact our heroes’ chances of success against the Ra’az.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 388 ratings and 30 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.39/5 based on 333 ratings and 32 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I still don’t think she believes you about me, though.”

    “I know, but she will.”

    “You talking to the invisible me again?” Sarah asked, her doubting eyebrow held in a high arch.

    “Told ya so.”

    “But she’s real,” Freya interjected.  “She’s you, Sarah.  Well, not you, you, but you who has experienced what the other you hasn’t.”

    She stared at Daisy disbelievingly.

    “Do you guys really expect me to believe you have a little piece of me living in your head?”  (loc. 15939)

 

    “Hi, Finn,” Sarah said, stepping out from behind a large equipment mover.

    The jovial chef nearly choked on his cookie in shock.  The other Vali crew were likewise floored by her sudden appearance.

    “But…” Doctor McClain managed to blurt while the rest of the crew remained stunned and speechless.

    “But I’m dead.  Yeah, I know,” Sarah said with a little laugh.  “And let me tell you, being dead sucks.”  (loc. 17648)

 

Kindle Details…

    Chasing Daisy costs $3.99 at Amazon right now.  The other four books in the series are each in the $0.99-$3.99 range, and there is also a bundle of all five books for only $7.99, which is the format I’m reading.

 

“Fire it up, Freya.  Let’s do the time warp again.”  (loc. 15234)

    There’s a moderate amount of profanity.  I noted 15 instances in the first 10% (first 4 chapters, actually) of the book, which is fairly normal for this series.

 

    Once again, the ”Planning-versus-Doing Ratio” is heavily weighted towards the former.  But I suspect this is inevitable for any “in-between” book in a series.   And kudos to whoever did the editing on Chasing Daisy.  I noted only two typos, both of the effect/affect ilk, which is always a tough call.

 

    These are quibbles.  I’m enjoying The Clockwork Chimera series, but I’ve yet to figure out what that series' title references.  And yes, this is your typical “save the post-apocalyptic world” storyline, but somehow Scott Baron is managing to put a unique spin on that trope.

 

    Everything is now set for the ultimate showdown with the Ra’az.  I’m eager to see what the Planning-versus-Doing Ratio will be for the final installment in this series, Daisy’s War.  And to repeat, I strongly recommend investing in the 5-book bundle detailed above.  This is one series that's definitely better when read in order.

 

    7½ Stars.  Oh yeah, one last thing.  One of the plot threads in Chasing Daisy is left unresolved.  A fascinating character named Arlo makes a grand entrance around the halfway point of the book, bearing an urgent message for Daisy.  But who is he, how did he know where to find Daisy, who sent him, and is he a White Hat or a Black Hat?  I am looking forward to finding out in the next book.