The Better Mousetrap - Tom Holt

    2008; 345 pages.  New Author? :No.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Time Travel; Satire.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Wouldn’t it be great to own a time machine?

 

    You could go back into the past and observe great events, while being careful, of course, not to do anything to change history.  Computer simulations should avoid that.

 

    Or you could go forward in time, watch some future Super Bowl or World Cup tournament, come back, and bet on the winners.  Although that might draw unwanted attention to your rapid monetary gains.

 

    But the smartest thing might be to do what Frank Carpenter does.  Get a job with an insurance company, go back in time, and prevent fatal accidents to clients which would result in huge payouts on their life insurance policies.  Insurance companies would gladly pay you a portion of the premiums and you would get rich without attracting attention.

 

    It is/was/will-be a foolproof plan.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Better Mousetrap is the fifth book in Tom Holt’s 8-volume “J.W. Wells & Co.” series, of which I’ve read half, although not in any particular order.  I read Book 1, The Portable Door, way back in 2012 (reviewed here, so I appreciated the author inserting a recap of that plotline into this book early on.  J.W. Wells & Co. specializes in providing magical items, beings, spells, and full-fledged sorcerers to their clients, although by the time of this fifth book, the corporation was pretty much defunct.

 

    The storyline commences with a relatively easy task for Frank: go back in time and prevent a girl named Emily Spitzer from falling out of a tree to her death while trying to rescue her pet cat.  Emily’s in the pest control business, meaning she gets tasked with removing pests such as trolls, hydras, goblins, and dragons from our dimension.  She’s good at it, so it’s weird that an easy-peasy act of falling from a tree proves to be her downfall.  Frank adjusts the timeline, saves Emily, but she dies again shortly thereafter.  Hmm.  This smells of evildoers determined to snuff her out for some reason.

 

    As is true for all Tom Holt novels, things rapidly get more complicated.  Frank’s dog disappears.  Frank colleague disappears.  A dying dragon seems to value a small artifact more than the millions of dollars he’s nesting on.  Office politics threatens to turn deadly.

 

    As is also true of any Tom Holt novel, the writing is replete with wit, absurdity, and fascinating characters; all of which keeps the reader turning the pages.  Please note that the book is written in English, not American, which leads to weird spellings (such as tyres and chequebooks), and weird words, a couple of which are given below.

 

    Everything builds to a surprise ending, via the entire final chapter, which somehow manages to tie up all the plot threads.  Well, with one exception, which involves a surprise visit by two new-yet-recurring characters.  This may or may not be a teaser for Book 6, May Contain Traces of Magic, awaiting my attention.

 

Excerpts...

    ”I was round at your office just now.”

    “Oh yes?”

    Nod.  “When I say just now,” he went on, “I mean about an hour and a half in the future.  You hadn’t shown up for your lunch, you see, and I was . . . Well, anyway, I asked if you were in your office and they said no.  Actually, they said that you’d been killed.”

    She took it quite well.  True, her eyes widened and her mouth fell open like the tailgate of the lorry off the back of which all good things fall, but she didn’t faint or scream or any of the things he was fairly sure that he’d have done in her shoes.  “Oh,” she said.  (pg. 146)

 

   “Hello, are you there?”

    En route to the kettle, Frank stopped and watched Emily.  She’d gone ever such a funny colour, and she seemed to have forgotten about breathing and stuff.  Then she smiled.

    “Mr. Gomez,” she said.  “I’m glad you called.  I’m going to kill you.”

    “What?  It’s not a terribly good line, you’ll have to speak—”

    “And when I’ve done that,” Emily went on, “I’m going to chop you up into little bits and feed you to the piranhas in Sally Krank’s office.  Oh, and I quit.  Goodbye.”  (pg. 242)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Pipped to the post (phrase) : overcoming a strong competitor in a sporting event.  (British slang)

Others: Doddle (n.); Moggy (n.); Havered (v.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 534 ratings and 28 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02*/5, based on 1,232 ratings and 76 reviews.

 

When you’re Amanda Carrington you don’t need to be subtle, in the same way elephants don’t need wellington boots.  (pg. 209)

    There’s not a lot of cussing in The Better Mousetrap.  I noted just 8 instances in the first 10%, all of which were variations of the common four-lettered cusswords.  Later on, the “female dog” term showed up about a half-dozen times.  I don’t recall any adult situations.

 

    I spotted only one typo, and strangely it occurs on the back-cover blurb, not in the book itself.  There, a damsel named June is touted as a major character, but she never appears in the story.  It turns out “June” is really the character “Emily”, and who knows when and why her name was changed.  I'd blame this on the English-to-American conversion, except I was reading the British publication.

 

    Overall, I thought this was one of Tom Holt’s best efforts at Absurdist Fantasy.  I loved that fact that, where most authors in this genre caution doing anything that will change our historical timeline, Tom Holt seems to revel in doing so.  I’m gradually working my way through Tom Holt’s existing novels, the latest of which came out in 2023.  Wikipedia lists his age as 64 as of the writing of this review.  Here’s hoping that he is working on his next bestseller.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  On page 176, there’s a passing mention of a writer named Hasdrubal.  I proud to say that’s also my literary son’s name.  Kewlness!

Curses! - Aaron Elkins

    1989; 198 pages.  Book 5 (out of 18) in the “Gideon Oliver Mysteries” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : International Crime-Mystery; Mesoamerica; Forensic Anthropology.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    The excavation was started in 1980 at an ancient Mayan ceremonial center in Yucatan, called Tlaloc.  It was both the high and the low of Gideon Oliver’s archaeological career.

 

    The highlight was finding an ancient Mayan codex in almost pristine condition.  It was only the fourth Mayan codex ever found.  It made all that digging worthwhile.

 

    The lowlight was the excavation’s director stealing the codex and fleeing with it while the others slept.  The Mexican government was furious.  They shut the project down immediately.  That was in 1982.

 

    Almost a decade has passed since, and only now has the government of Mexico allowed the excavation to start back up.  Dig deeper.  Into an earlier time.  Maybe find another codex!  And now Gideon has been invited to rejoin the effort.  You know he’ll jump at the opportunity.

 

    Who cares about some sort of Mayan curse protecting their sacred site.

 

What’s To Like...

    Curses! is the fourth book I’ve read in this series, and I’ve loved the settings chosen for each one: Egypt, France, England, and now the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.

 

    Since I’m a history buff, I enjoyed the story being set in an ancient Mayan ceremonial center called Tlaloc.  ANAICT, the site is fictional, but the name is that of the Nahuatl god of rain, and M. Todd Gallowglas’ worldbuilding for such a place was convincing.  Lots of real Mesoamerican places and gods are injected into the story, including Quetzalcoatl, Popol Vuh, Teotihuacan, Palenque, and my favorite: Chichen Itza.

 

    The book’s title refers to an ancient curse allegedly imposed on anyone who disturbs the site.  It was dismissed as primitive superstition by all but one in the excavation team.  Attitudes changed somewhat when each of the five steps in the curse starts to come to pass.  Was the superstition true, or is some mortal deliberately setting up incidents to fulfill the prophecies?  Hmm.

 

    The mystery aspect was well done.  A set of bones is unearthed, and Gideon, aka “the Skeleton Detective of America”, is called upon to determine the Who, When, and hopefully Why the corpse came to be buried in the temple.  A murder occurs, and the reader gets to tag alongside Gideon and try to determine the perpetrator before he does.  I failed miserably.

 

    The ending logical, twisty, and did not go down as I expected.  Gideon comes within an eyelash of dying, due mostly to his not examining the details of the final prophecy seriously enough.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,281 ratings and 61 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.05*/5, based on 1,990 ratings and 101 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word…

Cenote (n.) : a natural deep sinkhole or pit.

Others: Pelves (n.) : the plural of pelvis.

 

Excerpts...

    “Just what is a codex?  A manuscript?  A book?”

    “That’s right.  From the Latin caudex, meaning a split block of wood, kind of like a shingle, which the Romans coated with wax and then inscribed.”

    She looked at him quizzically.  “You know the damnedest things.”

    “I,” he said with dignity, “am a full professor.  My mind is replete with scholarly arcana, some of which, I can safely say, are even more useless than that.”

    “I know.  It’s ruining our social life.  Nobody wants to play Trivial Pursuit with us.”  (pg. 35)

 

    Many years before, when he had nervously turned in the first draft of his dissertation to his doctoral committee members, Abe had penciled in some comments across the title page: “Very inventive.  Considering the lack of data, the inconclusive results, and the ambiguous statistical analysis, you did a wonderful job.  Not everyone can make two hundred pages from nothing.  I predict you’ll go far.”  (pg. 94)

 

Kindle Details…

    Curses! sells for $8.99 right now at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series cost anywhere from $5.49 to $9.99, with the prices generally higher for the books in the latter half of the series.  Aaron Elkins has several other Mystery series for your sleuthing pleasure, with the e-books generally in the $3.99-$7.99 price range. 

 

“You have to live your own life.  You can’t let the creeps and cruds of the world run it for you.”  (pg. 120)

    The profanity level is light.  I counted ten instances in the first 25% of the e-book, all of which were of the milder, four-lettered variety.  Later on, several Spanish cuss of a more powerful ilk are used.  We’ll let you google them for their translations.

 

    I don’t really have any nits to pick about Curses!  The pacing is good, there are no slow spots, and in this historical mystery, M. Todd Gallowglas gives just as much attention to creating a spellbinding whodunit and he does to the worldbuilding and character development.  The wannabee-archaeologist part of me loved it just as much as the wannabee-detective part of me did.

 

    9 Stars.  One last tidbit.  In addition to the “Kewlest New Words” listed above, I also learned the proper word for the inhabitants of the Yucatan peninsula.  They’re called “Yucatecans”.  Who'd've thunk it?

Language and Responsibility - Noam Chomsky

   1975; 192 pages.  New Author? : No.  Interviewer: Mitsou Ronat.  Genres : Linguistics; Interviews; Language.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    Hey, let’s read a book about Linguistics, the study of Languages.  I know the difference between an etymologist and an entomologist, and do crossword puzzles, so how difficult can it be?

 

    And I’m not messing around with any third-rate vocabularian (yeah, that’s a real word; it’s just very uncommon); I’m going to read something by the grammar guru himself, Noam Chomsky.  He’s written more than 50 books about Linguistics over the course of 60+ years.  I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about.

 

    Besides, how difficult can a study of languages be?  You just look up the history of a bunch of words, assemble them into a coherent system, and voila!  You’ve got yourself a book on linguistics, amiright?  Let’s open one of Chomsky’s books, Language and Responsibility, and see what jumps out at us.

 

    Omigosh!  What the heck is Syntactic Structure??

 

What’s To Like...

    Language and Responsibility is divided into nine sections, plus an introductory “Translator’s Note” (see the end of this review).  The sections are:

    01. Politics

    02. Linguistics and the Human Sciences

    03. A Philosophy of Language

    04. Empiricism and Rationalism

    05. The Birth of Generative Grammar

    06. Semantics

    07. The Extended Standard Theory

    08. Deep Structure

    09. Universal Grammar and Unresolved Questions

My favorite chapters are highlighted in blue.  Yours may vary.

 

    The book is mostly formatted as several interviews by Mitsou Ronat, posing questions to Noam Chomsky, but frankly, it felt scripted to me.  That’s okay though, the other book I’ve read of Chomsky’s, reviewed here, was in the same format, so maybe this is the style that Noam is most comfortable with.

 

      The vocabulary is challenging.  I struggled to understand terms such as Syntactic Structures, Phonological, Generative Grammar, Anaphoric Relations, Logical Form, Deep Structures, Generative Semantics, and Sociolinguistics, just to name a few.  To be fair though, my Spellchecker app took a look at that list, and said it was familiar with all of them.

 

    As you’d expect in a scholarly presentation, there are a bunch of footnotes.  The numerical ones reference the cited writings and can be ignored unless you want to find and read the original papers.  The alphabetic ones give further discussion of the topic, and/or the translating challenges encountered.  Those are definitely worth your time.

 

    I enjoyed learning the history of universities gradually adding Linguistics graduate classes to their curriculum.  Noam Chomsky apparently was a key catalyst in that endeavor.  The “Politics” chapter might seem to be off-topic, but it gives readers new to Noam Chomsky a glimpse at what to expect in his many books on that subject.  And it was fun to see just how much debate can be generated in trying to understand the “Deep” in the phrase “Deep Structures”.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 307 ratings and 28 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.81/5 based on 1,074 ratings and 60 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Noam Chomsky: These empiricist hypotheses have very little plausibility, in my opinion, it does not seem possible to account for the development of commonsense understanding of the physical and social world, or science, in terms of processes of induction, generalization, abstraction, and so on.  There is no such direct path from data that are given to intelligible theories.  (pg. 69)

 

    Noam Chomsky: Many structural languages and many philosophers—Quine, for example—claimed that grammar concepts must be defined on the basis of scientific notions.  For example, that the concept of phoneme must be defined in terms of synonymy . . .

    Mitsou Ronat:  Which means saying that r and l are different phonemes because ramp and lamp don’t have the same meaning . . .

    Noam Chomsky: Yes, that’s one example.  (pg. 136)

 

Kindle Details…

    Language and Responsibility is half of a two-book Kindle bundle titled On Language, which Amazon describes as “some of Noam Chomsky’s most informal and highly accessible work.”  I will read and review each book separately.  The e-book bundle costs $14.99 right now.  ANAICT Language and Responsibility is not available separately in e-book format, so the Ratings given above are for the bundle.

 

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.  (pg. 137)

   Needless to say, there aren’t any cusswords or R-rated stuff in Language and Responsibility.  There were a number of typos, mostly involving spacing or punctuation, but these looked like they occurred at the Publishing stage.

 

    I found the writing style somewhat vague.  Time and again Chomsky expresses his disagreement with tenets put forth by other linguists.  That’s okay, but he doesn’t provide any specifics, and, like most readers, I’m not familiar with the other linguists’ work and am not motivated to read their treatises just to confirm Chomsky’s critiques.

 

    But the big problem I had with the book was its rationales, and it is best exemplified by noting a phrase which occurs ten times in the text: “a priori”.  Which means, and I quote, “knowledge, reasoning, or assumptions formed independently of experience, observation, or experimentation. It relies on logic, deduction, and intuition to determine truths before investigating the facts”.

 

    In other words, conclusions are presented as valid without any examples or facts needed, as long as you can formulate a logical argument.  Noam Chomsky has a low regard for Empiricism.  See the first excerpt, above, for proof of this.  I’m a scientist by trade, which means I’m an empiricist, which means I have a high esteem of empiricism.

 

    Despite those drawbacks, I liked Language and Responsibility.  I’ve read and enjoyed several books about the history of the English language, but the truth is I know little or nothing about the mechanics of Linguistics.  I’m hoping I just picked the wrong Noam Chomsky book to start with, as I have two more sitting on my Kindle.

 

    6 Stars.  One last thing.  The book’s “Introduction” section notes that the text was subjected to two translations.  It started in English (1976), was translated into French (1977), and then for whatever reason was translated back into English (1979).  You’d think that means the text ended up back in its original form, but apparently that wasn’t the case.  Sheesh.

Academ's Fury - Jim Butcher

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

    But what if the Vord are more powerful?

 

What’s To Like...

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

Excerpts...

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

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

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

    Max beamed.  “I noticed that, too.”

    “There’s a reason people hate you.”

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

 

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

    “Oh dear?” Bernard asked.

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Isle of the Dead - Roger Zelazny

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

What’s To Like...

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

Kewlest New Word ...

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

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

 

Excerpts...

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

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

 

    “A penny for your thoughts,” I said.

    “What is a penny?”

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

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

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

 

Kindle Details…

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

The Spellmans Strike Again - Lisa Lutz

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

What’s To Like...

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

Kindle Details…

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

 

Excerpts...

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

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

    “Ouch,” the inspector replied with mock injury.

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

    “I want to be more than enemies.”

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

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

 

    “What happened here?” David asked.

    “Feng shui,” Mom replied.

    “Gesundheit,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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