Friday, July 30, 2021

The Virgin In The Ice - Ellis Peters

   1982; 200 pages.  Book 6 (out of 21) in the Brother Cadfael Chronicles series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Cozy Mystery; Historical Fiction; Murder-Mystery.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    It’s the winter of 1139 AD and civil war rages across England.  The Empress Maud controls sizable areas near the abbey in Shrewsbury, where Brother Cadfael dwells, but King Stephen is on his way with a huge army and a short temper.  Loyalties can change overnight and no one is safe from attacks by those on either side, or from the brigands roaming the countryside robbing, burning, looting and killing anyone they come across.

 

    Refugees fleeing from one town to another are particularly vulnerable, especially if they are young, female, highborn, or any combination thereof.  So when a brother and sister, both teenaged, flee the fighting around Worcester, people become worried about their safety, since he's the heir to a barony and she's...well... a headstrong sort.

 

    They were last seen headed in the general direction of Shrewsbury, accompanied by a nun in her twenties, presumably headed to Cadfael's abbey.  They should have arrived by now, but neither the abbey staff nor the local sheriff have seen or heard of them.

 

    Still, the authorities promise to ask around.  Hopefully the missing youths will be found holed up in someone's abode.  And it would be prudent for Brother Cadfael to be part of the search party; he is skilled in administering medicines and treating the wounded.

 

    Because bandits care little about royal loyalties when it comes to preying on poor, weak wayfarers, two of which are young and female.

 

What’s To Like...

    This is my eleventh Brother Cadfael book and, although admittedly Ellis Peters (the pen name of Edith Pargeter) always adheres to a formulaic plotline, The Virgin in the Ice is unusual in a couple ways.  First, almost the entire story takes place away from Shrewsbury, in and around the village of Bromfield, about twenty miles to the east.  Second, there’s a greater emphasis on armed conflict here, which means less attention is paid to Cadfael’s sleuthing.  Third, a 13-year-old boy plays a major part in the story here, getting almost as much attention as Brother Cadfael and deputy sheriff Hugh Beringar, the two main protagonists.

 

    But those who like the usual formula, and that includes me, need not worry.  There’s still the requisite “amor vincit omnia” romance, and Brother Cadfael does stumble across a  mystery to solve, involving the book's title.

 

    In addition to finding the three missing travelers, Cadfael and Hugh have other plot threads to investigate.  Someone beat another monk, Brother Elyas, to within an inch of his life, leaving him for dead, and Brother Cadfael has to nurse him back to health and find the dirty-deed-doer.  Meanwhile, Hugh’s top priority is to find and eliminate a marauding band of brigands that have been operating with impunity in the surrounding hills.

 

    Ellis Peters (1913-1995) was an English author, so British spellings are used here, including; sombrely, rumours, ageing, wilful, lustre, clangour, and languor, as well as a fair amount of  medieval terms, such as assart, castellan and croft.  A church relic being transported by Brother Eylas caught my eye: the finger-bone of Saint Eadburga, but when I consulted Wikipedia to learn more, no less than four Saint Eadburgas popped up.  I had to look up the meaning of the Latin phrase “nunc dimittis” and was thankflu that the author included a map of the Bromfield environs at the start of the book.  I referred to it often.

 

    The ending unfolds in a stepwise manner.  First the problem of the brigands is resolved, then Brother Elyas’s assailant is determined.  The fate of the three refugees comes next, and finally the romance thread is tied up.  But just when you think it's all over, Ellis Peters throws one last major plot twist into the mix that I guarantee you won’t see coming.

 

    The Virgin in the Ice is a standalone story, as well as part of a series.  All the plot threads get tied up neatly, and while the series has an overarching storyline, both personal (Brother Cadfael’s life at the Shrewsbury abbey) and historical (the series accurately complies with some astounding historical events of twelfth-century England), there is no need to read this series in chronological order.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Hale (v.) : to compel someone to go; to haul; to pull.

Others: Benighted (adj.); Thrapple (n.).

 

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 659 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.14/5 based on 8,195 ratings and 437 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “He must be son or nephew to one of my father’s friends.  I never paid him much attention, nor he never noticed me, I was too young.  But I do remember his face, and I think . . . I think he has been visiting Ermina now and then in Worcester.”  (…)

    “You think she sent him word to come and fetch her?” asked Hugh.  “This was no abduction?  She went willingly?”

    “She went gaily!” Yves asserted indignantly.  “I heard her laughing.”  (pg. 42)

 

    “Who are you?”

    He meant to know.  And for all his present easy mood, if he was baulked he would not mind by what means he got what he wanted.  Yves spent a few seconds too long considering what he had better say, and got an earnest of what might follow obduracy.  A long arm reached out, gripped him by the forearm, and with a casual twist dropped him wincing to his knees.  The other hand clenched in his hair and forced his head back to stare into a face still calmly smiling.

    “When I ask, wise men answer.  Who are you?”  (pg. 110)

 

 

“Truth is never a wrong answer.  We will find it.”  (pg. 177)

    There’s not much to gripe about in The Virgin in the Ice.  Reading books written in English instead of American is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I happen to enjoy it.  Ditto for wading through all those technical terms from the Middle Ages.

 

    There seemed to be a higher-than-expected number of typos in the book, given that this was the mass-market paperback edition published by Fawcett Crest, and including things like winderness/wilderness, stiarway/stairway, and even a misspelling of one of the characters’ last name: Durel/Druel.  Proofreaders apparently could get away with sloppy efforts back in 1982.

 

    Last of all, and by far the most serious, I am appalled that it was worthy to note that the main bad guy was left-handed.  Even his name (this is not a spoiler) alluded to this: Alain le Gaucher.  The fact that I also am left-handed is purely coincidental.  😉

 

    8 Stars.  I should note that The Virgin in the Ice is incredibly “clean”.  I didn’t note any cussing and most of the violence takes place off-screen.  There are a couple “adult situations” alluded to, but nothing that would perturb anyone looking for an entertaining cozy mystery set a millennium ago in England.

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Falling Sideways - Tom Holt

   2002; 406 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : British Humor; Humorous Fantasy.   Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    33-year-old David Perkins vividly remembers his first bout of puppy-love: long ago, on his twelfth birthday in fact, he was smitten by a beautiful 400-year-old witch.  Sorta.

 

    Actually, it was a portrait of a lady from the Middle Ages, painted by that famous Dutch master, Willem de Stuivens, and hanging in an art museum that his mother had dragged him to as a birthday present.  He’d just stood there staring at it until Mum said it was time to move on.

 

    The name of his heart's desire was well-known: she was Philippa “Pippa” Levens, who in 1602, at a tender young age, was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.  What David remembers most about his first-love encounter years ago was this: as he was turning away to follow his mum to the next room in the museum, the face in the painting stuck her tongue out at him.

 

    Now, 21 years later and coincidentally again on his birthday, David is back in the museum back at the painting, and for a good reason.  A nearby auction house has a lock of Philippa Levens’ hair up for sale, and David intends to bid on it, if that’s okay by her.

 

    The grin she gives him is all the approval he needs.

 

What’s To Like...

    The storyline in Falling Sideways abounds in confusing and complex plot twists.  It was a blast to tag along with David as he tries to figure out what’s going on.  In short, the main possibilities seem to be: a.) spacefaring frogs, b.) a one-eyed deity, c.) humans who clone, d.) humans who scam, e.) all of the above, f.) some of the above, g.) none of the above.

 

    Tom Holt is British, so lots of words are spelt funnily (colour, cheque, yoghurt, kerb, grey, cissy) and there are strange names for lots of everyday objects (Bacofoil, Tube train, saveloy and chips, Rawlplug, jemmy, VAT, pillowslip, biro, mushy peas, windscreen).  A few British terms were totally incomprehensible to me; they're listed below.

 

    Having taken two years of Mandarin Chinese classes, I loved the nod to tonal languages,  The word “ma” in Mandarin has an incredible number of meanings, depending on the tone and glyph; here the equivalent case involves the word “uuuuurk”.  I also gained lots of practical tips, including why telling lies is like tiling bathrooms, why riding in a taxi is a wicked indulgence, and the best way to determine the atomic number of beryllium.

 

    The tale is told in 20 chapters, with Chapter 17 devoted to an explanation/backstory for all the strange goings-on, which untangles everything, assuming you can trust the person who’s explaining things, which David realizes he can't.  You’d think that would be the book’s ending, but there are still three more chapters to re-tangle and resolve a couple more of the plot threads.

 

    The ending is convenient, convoluted, and convincing, all of which are positives in a Tom Holt story.  Our hero rides off into the sunset with his true love and his six thousand sisters.  Falling Sideways is a standalone novel, and I don't think Tom Holt ever penned a sequel.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Banjax (v.) : to damage, ruin, or smash as a result of incompetence (Irishism).

Others: Saveloy (n.); Bumf (n.), Nobble (v.); Bolshy (adj.), Shufti (n.); Scudder (n.), Yonks (n.); Buckley’s chance (n., phrase).  (mostly Britishisms)

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.0*/5, based on 40 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.61*/5, based on 1,468 ratings and 87 reviews

 

“Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    David had never touched a girl’s foot in his life before, let alone a bare one, let alone a green bare one belonging to a creature he was responsible for bringing into the world.  (pg. 40)

 

Excerpts...

    “You haven’t been around clones as long as I have, you don’t know what they’re like.  Besides,” he added with a grin, “you’re soft on her.  Go on, admit it.”

    David smiled weakly.  “You guessed.”

    “It wasn’t all that difficult,” John replied.  “In fact, it was pretty obvious.  Actually, a blind, deaf man with a sack over his head—“

    “Yes, right,” David said.  “I get the point.”  (pg. 276)

 

    I have no idea why, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get the idea of a frog-shaped god to catch on with these people.  Gods with wings, yes; gods with horns, gods with crocodile heads and cat heads and thirty-seven different heads all arguing with each other; gods in the shape of every other kind of critter that walks the face of the Earth, in fact, not to mention burning bushes and pillars of fire, but not frogs.  As far as humanity is concerned, God may move in mysterious ways, but He doesn’t hop.  (pg. 324)

 

“Like the old proverb says, a strolling clone gathers no moss.”  (pg. 344)

    Tom Holt is one of my favorite authors when I’m in the mood for wry humor and entertaining satire, so it’s no surprise that there’s little to nitpick about in Falling Sideways.

 

    The cussing is light (13 instances in the first quarter of the book), with most of it being fairly mild, there being but a single F-bomb in those thirteen cusses.  There aren’t a lot of characters to keep track of, although some of them are clones (but are they really?) which kept both David and me addled.  Finally, if there was a reason behind the title of the book, I didn’t notice it.

 

    That’s all I can think of.  If I’ve counted correctly, Falling Sideways is my 20th Tom Holt novel (21 if you include one of his “Lucia” offerings), and I've yet to be disappointed in anything he's written.

 

    8 Stars.  A caveat.  Falling Sideways is one of Tom Holt’s “let’s see how labyrinthine I can make the plotline” novels, and though it succeeds in that regard admirably, I wouldn’t recommend it being your introduction to his masterful storytelling.  Instead, pick one of his mythopoeic ones such as Paint Your Dragon (reviewed here) or Flying Dutch (reviewed here).

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Gator a-Go-Go - Tim Dorsey

     2010; 337 pages.  Book 12 (out of 25) in the Serge Storms series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Florida Crime Noir; Dark Comedy; Stoner Humor.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    “It’s the holidays!  Go out and buy lots of beer and ice, pack it all in the cooler, throw it and a couple changes of clothes in the back seat and hop in.  We’re driving to Florida!!”

 

    “Sounds great.  Where are we going to stay, and what are we going to do down there?”

 

    “We’ll find some cheap motel somewhere and cram in as many people as we can find.  It’ll cut down on expenses.  After that, it’s booze, bikinis, and bongs!”

 

    “Hmm.  I thought it would involve firecrackers, exchanging gifts, or snarfing down turkey.  Tell me again which holiday we’ll be celebrating.”

 

    The biggest one they have in Florida!  SPRING BREAK!!

 

What’s To Like...

   There are three main storylines to follow in Gator A-Go-Go: a.) Serge’s quest to chronicle the history of Florida's famed spring break, b.) a gang of professional killers plying their trade, and c.) a father and son in a federal witness protection program whose cover has been compromised.  It isn’t difficult to see how those last two plotlines converge, the challenge lies in guessing how Serge is going to get dragged into the mix.

 

    There are a lot of running gags in this series, including Coleman’s imparting of stoner knowledge to the huddled masses and his obsession with doing cannonballs in pools; the travails of Johnny Vegas, otherwise known as “the reluctant virgin”; and, most noteworthy of all, Serge’s sense of vigilante justice and innovative executions.  For those who eagerly follow that last one, I counted seven of them here.  Several recurring secondary characters show up to entertain us again, including Agent Mahoney; Serge’s sexy girlfriends: City and Country; and my favorites, the biker grannies, Edith, Eunice, Edna and, Ethel.

 

    We get to go on a nice tour of the Florida party beaches while learning the history of spring break there; presumably most of it was factual.  The story behind how Daytona Beach got its name was equally enlightening.  The excerpt from the children’s book that Serge is writing, called “Shrimp Boat Surprise” was surprisingly well-penned, as were his Christmas letter and his commencement speech at a local kindergarten class.

 

    I enjoyed Coleman’s contributions about proper partying, even if I already knew about the “designated decoy”, and the “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son”, the latter of which is verifiably true.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen Bella Abzug get mentioned, ditto for New Hampshire’s now-defunct “Old Man of the Mountain”, which I saw as a kid before it crumbled.  The chemistry nod (DMSO) was neat; so were the music references to Randy Newman, The Eagles, and one of my favorite groups, The Doors.

 

    Everything builds to a nicely-crafted ending.  You kind of know who’s going to be in the big showdown and how it will play out, but the fun’s in the details of Serge’s carefully-laid plans, parts of which go unexpectedly awry, which I always appreciate.

 

    The last chapter is essentially an epilogue focusing on a number of the secondary characters.  Gator a-Go-Go is both a standalone novel and part of a 25-book series.  I am not reading this series in order, but other than forgetting and having to get reacquainted with some of the recurring characters, I don’t feel like I’m missing much.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 266 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.13/5 based on 2,687 ratings and 215 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Are you ready?  Bet you can’t wait!  Knock-knock!  Hi.  I’m opportunity!”  Serge placed a pile of large, thick-stock white cards on the counter.  He flipped up the top one, covered with Magic Marker handwriting.

    NO SOLICITING.

    The clerk scratched his head.  “You’re soliciting to sell ‘No Soliciting’ signs?”

    “I know!  Can’t believe it hasn’t been thought of before: The perfect mix of product and presentation.  We came in here creating a problem and providing the solution.”  (loc. 304)

 

    “Unfortunately, my plan leaves us trapped without escape from Guillermo’s murderous retaliation.”

    “I usually prefer a way out of that.”

    “Most people do, which is why I added liquor to the Master Plan’s cocktail.  It simultaneously accomplishes both objectives: taking out the target and creating an escape clause.”

    “How does it do that?”

    “Through a potent mix of French cuisine and The Simpsons.  (loc. 3139)

 

 

Kindle Details…

    Gator A-Go-Go sells for $6.99 at Amazon right now.  The other 24 books in the series range from $1.99 to $12.99, with the more recent ones generally having the higher prices.  I don’t think Tim Dorsey has written any other books, other than a short (96 pages) “Selected Articles and Essays” release titled Squall Lines, which will cost you $3.99.

 

“As the saying goes, the difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits.” (loc. 244)

    The quibbles are miniscule.  There’s a lot of cussing (22 instances in the first 10%), some adult situations (though nothing lewd), and tons and tons of drugs and booze.  If these things offend you, you probably will also be aghast at Serge’s vigilante acts.

 

    It’s also true that the stories in this series are formulaic.  Tim Dorsey may shuffle the Florida history lessons, the backgrounds of the perpetrators and their victims, and the places visited in the Sunshine State, but the template is the same: Serge gets obsessed with Florida, bad guys interfere with his obsession by threatening good folks, bad guys are disposed of in innovative ways, good folks rejoice.  Some of us happen to really like that formula.

 

    If there was any sort of tie-in between the story and the book’s title, I never noticed it.  And last and probably worst, someone really needs to update Tim Dorsey’s Wikipedia page.

 

    8 StarsGator a-Go-Go is a fun, fast-paced, ideal beach read with lots of laughs, drugs, and violence, with little or nothing to be taken seriously.  I know what to expect from a Serge Storms novel, and yet again, was not in any way disappointed.

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Cold Storage - David Koepp

   2019; 369 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Thriller; Cri-Fi; Horror.  Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    Forty years ago, Death fell from the sky and nobody realized it.  It was attached to the first US Space Station, “Skylab”, which, after its orbit decayed far enough, fell out of orbit and broke up over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.

 

    The piece carrying Death landed near the little town of Kiwirrkurra (a real place!  Wiki it.), where it remained undetected and almost completely dormant for a decade.  But it grew, slowly and surely, began to spread, until what started out as a plague-carrying fungus infected the entire community.

 

    Major Roberto Diaz and Lieutenant Colonel Trini Romano were dispatched to Kiwirrkura to resolve the situation.  They did it in spectacular and effective fashion – a plague/fungus may be tenacious and lethal, but it’s no match against a nuclear bomb.

 

    Before the detonation, a small sample of the fungus was collected, sealed in tube, and brought back to the US where it was “put to sleep” by deep-freezing it, and placed in a deep underground military repository, where it was then monitored round-the-clock.  Take that, killer fungus!  Nothing can go wrong.  Those safeguards are foolproof.

 

    Yeah, that’s what they always say, right before disaster strikes.

 

What’s To Like...

    The overall plotline of Cold Storage is similar to Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, so if you liked that book, you’ll enjoy this one.  Here however, David Koepp fleshes out Crichton’s premise: the characters are more fully developed, the fungus attains a certain degree of sentience, and a subtle strand of humor is deftly instilled into the tale.

 

    The book’s back-cover blurb implies that Roberto Diaz is the primary protagonist, and he certainly plays a key part.  But the main characters are a pair of coworkers at Atchison Storage where the fungus is still stored: a nerdy 34-year-old nicknamed “Teacake” and his aloof romantic interest, Naomi.  There aren’t a ton of characters to keep track of, but they include a challenging number of bad guys and losers, plus a couple of neat animals in the form of a cat named Mr. Scroggins, the Rat King, a deer that can use the elevator, and a cockroach.  Yeah, try working those into a storyline sometime.

 

    Chemistry works its way into the story several times, which is always a plus for me since I’m a chemist by profession.  I can’t tell you much about the reaction of polysaccharides and sodium palmitate, nor what the properties of fluoroantimonic acid are, but I can tell you that the part about sulfites being added to wine coolers is spot on.

 

    I liked the musical nod to Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The Reaper, and chuckled at Mooney’s views about God and where/how he got that nickname.  Roberto is a married man, but not immune to at least one bout of flirting and Teacake is a bit of a peeping-tom.  I'm partial to slightly-flawed heroes.

 

    The ending is appropriately exciting, but not very twisty, and a bit over-the-top.  Most of the bad guys get whacked, most of the good guys survive, the fungus gets funged.  Naomi and Teacake ride off into the sunset, and Roberto moves contentedly into retirement.  Cold Storage is a standalone story and I would be surprised if a sequel or series was made from it.

 

Ratings…
Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 936 ratings.

Goodreads: 3.66*/5, based on 7,601 ratings and 1,455 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Endosymbiont (n.) : an organism that forms a symbiotic relationship with another cell or organism.

Others: Fulminations (n., plural).

 

 

Things That Sound Dirty But Aren’t…

    “Don’t put your fingers in there,” she said, but he didn’t answer, because they were this far, and there was no other obvious, easy way.”  (pg. 57)

 

Excerpts...

    Armillaria solidipes spreads across the landscape at a rate of one to three feet per year and can take thirty to fifty years to kill an average-sized tree.  If it could move significantly faster, 90 percent of all botanic growth on Earth would die, the atmosphere would turn to poison gas, and human and animal life would end.  But it is a slow-moving fungus.

    Other fungi are faster.

    Much faster.  (pg. 1)

 

    Headless, dehydrated, and dying, it had climbed 323 feet, straight up, on a slick surface.  Given its tiny size, this feat was the human equivalent of climbing Kilimanjaro on your knees right after going to the guillotine.  The tiny roach had performed perhaps the greatest act of physical conquest in the history of earthly life.

    Then a car parked on top of it.

    C-nRoach1 died with a squishy pop beneath the right rear tire.  (pg. 205)

 

“You can’t leave a dead deer by the side of the road with three broken legs, a bullet in its stomach, and four more in its head.”  (pg. 117)

    The quibbles are minor.  The pacing felt slow, but perhaps that’s inherent when you’re dealing with a sentient zombie fungus.  Similarly, the “trapped with a monster in a confined space” trope has been done to death, but how else can you keep the protagonists from simply running away from the slow-moving danger?

 

    There’s a fair amount of cussing – 32 instances in the first 20% of the book – but I thought it fit the tone of this type of tale.  Unsurprisingly, there were also references to several adult situations.

 

    The big problem were the WTFs.  There are some incredible coincidences that get our heroes to out of hopeless jams, including a timely appearance of a pistol-packing grandma and a jaw-dropping door-dropping desperation gunshot by Roberto.

 

    Still, I have a vague memory of a James Bond movie where he (Roger Moore, IIRC) jumps parachute-less out of a plane about to crash, lands on some flat, movable object, and snowboards down an alpine mountain (or maybe Mt. Everest), coming to a stop just in time to catch a toddy at a trendy outdoor coffeeshop.  Somehow, that daredevilry didn’t bother me a whit, and I think it was because it was in a movie, not a book.

 

    So perhaps it would be best if Cold Storage were made into a film.  I have a sneaking suspicion that's the author’s ultimate intent.  See below.

 

    7 Stars.  This is David Koepp’s first published novel, but, per Wikipedia and the book’s “About the Author” blurb, he is a celebrated screenwriter, credited with writing the films Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Mission Impossible, War of the Worlds, Angels & Demons, and many more.  I'm impressed, and I think that’s why Cold Storage reads like a movie script.

Thursday, July 8, 2021

The Witcher: The Last Wish - Andrzej Sapkowski

   1993 (in Polish), 2007 (English translation); 281 pages.  Translator: Danusia Stok.  Book 1 (out of 8) in “The Witcher” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Fantasy; Anthologies; Sword and Sorcery.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    I hear your question: what's a “Witcher”?  A wizard?  A druid?  A healer?  A sorcerer?  A cleric?  None of the above?  All of the above?

 

    Well, anyone who asks that must be living under a rock.  Netflix airs a TV series of it, and I’m 99% certain the book cover image to the left is from there; the show's one of their many megahits.

 

    The Netflix shows are based on an 8-book series that started it all, penned by Andrzej Sapkowski.  If he’s not your cup of tea, there are a bunch of spin-off books by other authors (with Sapkowski's permission) set in the same fantasy world.  If you prefer pictures with your reading, there’s also a line of Witcher comic books/graphic novels.

 

    Even if reading isn’t your shtick, you still have lots of options: there are video games, role-playing computer games, and even card games and board games, all based on the Witcher universe.  So the question is: how could anyone NOT know what a witcher is?

 

    Well, I didn’t.  That’s why I read the first book in the series, titled The Witcher: The Last Wish.

 

What’s To Like...

    The title The Witcher: The Last Wish is a bit misleading – the book is actually a collection of six short stories, all set in the Witcher world, with a seventh tale interspersed throughout the book in a “Frame Story” format.  What is a frame story, you ask?  Well, think of a Canterbury Tales or 1001 Arabian Nights format, where a bunch of "mini-tales" are set within a larger, overall “frame” story.

 

    To answer the question posed in the introduction, a witcher is primarily a hired monster-eliminator.  In most cases, that means slaying the critter, but our protagonist witcher, Geralt of Rivia, seems to specialize in finding more humane methods.  That’s of great importance if, say, the monster is really your daughter who’s been transformed by an evil curse.

 

    Geralt knows a modicum of magic – mostly reciting incantations while doing a finger-manipulation to make “signs”, such as the “Sign of Axii” (good for calming horses), the “Sign of Heliotrope”, etc.  But a witcher usually prefers fighting with a sword instead of a wand, and wizards and witchers mostly don’t like each other.  Indeed, witchers don’t get along with most people.

 

    There’s no shortage of fantasy creatures in these tales,  We meet dwarves, elves, strigas, rusalkas, vampires, a kikimora (already dead, thankfully), a deovel (devil), plus many others at least getting mentioned.  No hobbits/halflings have shown up yet, but I fully expect them to.  There are also gods and goddesses, although the only one here is a goddess called Melitele.  We also get a few references to well-known fairytales such as Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin, Aladdin, and the Troll Under the Bridge

 

    So what separates these Witcher stories from the other gazillion fantasy books out there?  Well, here, monsters can talk and be polite.  Dandelion, Geralt’s bard buddy, prefers to play the bagpipes, not some stringed instrument.  We learn some words in Elvish, admittedly a nod to the Lord of the Rings, but here it was even more fun to learn to cuss in Dwarvish.


    The title of the book, which is also a name of one of the short stories, references the “third” of three wishes that every genie is forced to grant if you gain possession of him.  And what I liked most of all in these stories was the subtle strand of humor running throughout all the fantasy "epic-ness".

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Voivode (n.) : a military leader; a warlord (Slavic).
Others: Rosace (n.); Castellan (n.); Demijohn (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 19,823 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.12/5 based on 227,899 ratings and 15,250 reviews

 

“Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    Carrypebble! Into the cesspool with the monster!”  “As you command.”  (loc. 1344)

 

Excerpts...

    “Two years ago peasants from some godforsaken hole near Mahakam were plagued by a dragon devouring their sheep, They set out together, battered the dragon to death with stanchions, and did not even think it worth boasting about.  But we in Wyzin are waiting for a miracle and bolting our doors every full moon, or tying our criminals to a stake in front of the palace, praying the beast stuffs herself and returns to the sarcophagus.”

    “Not a bad method.”  The witcher smiled.  “Are there fewer criminals?”

    “Not a bit of it.”  (loc. 237)

 

    “They’ve gone completely mad – the villages are teeming with girls, but they want humanoids.  Another asks me to kill a mecopteran and bring him a bone from its hand because, crushed and poured into a soup, it cures impotence-“

    “That’s rubbish,” interrupted Dandelion.  “I’ve tried it.  It doesn’t strengthen anything and it makes the soup taste of old socks.  But if people believe it and are inclined to pay-“  (loc. 2700)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, The Witcher: The Last Wish sells for $7.99 at Amazon.  Book Three in the series, Blood of Elves, sells for that price as well; the other six books in the series each go for $9.99.  Andrzej Sapkowski has also penned the first book in a new fantasy series called “The Hussite Trilogy”, The Tower of Fools, and it goes for $9.99, and Book Two of that series, Warriors of God, is scheduled to be released this coming October 19.

 

“I hope you die, you son-of-a-catfish.”  (loc. 3626)

    There are some quibbles.  I’m not the first one to pick this book up, expecting an epic fantasy tale, only to find out it’s a bunch of short stories.  Furthermore, to be honest, the first one left me unimpressed, and I was wondering what all the hoopla about this series was, and whether the rest of the books were also going to use this “frame story” template.

 

    Even worse, the seven tales are not story-chronological.  I suspect they’re in the order that Andrzej Sapkowski wrote them, and it made for some confusion.  An example: early on, Geralt bemoans the parting of the ways between him and a backstory-less female named Yennefer.  Then, much later on, we read about when the two of them first meet.  The timeline of Geralt and Dandelion meeting and teaming up is similarly non-linear.

 

    But the stories get longer as the book progresses, and the writing (translating?) gets better as well.  And although Book Two in the series, Sword of Destiny, is also a collection of short stories, the other six books are in standard epic-fantasy format.  I’m tempted to skip directly to Book Three.

 

    7½ Stars.  Despite the quibbles, The Witcher: The Last Wish accomplished exactly what I desired: it gave me a “feel” for the Witcher universe.  Most of the praise I’ve heard about it references the Netflix series (though I’ve been warned that its storyline is also non-linear), and I’m now prepared to give it a try.  But I still prefer reading to spectating, so I’m still going to be on the lookout for a discounted e-book or used paperback version of the third book, Blood of Elves.

Saturday, July 3, 2021

Stiff - Mary Roach

   2003; 292 pages.  Full Title: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Medical Research; Death; Forensic Medicine; Science; Non-Fiction.  Laurels: “Best Book of 2003” by San Francisco Chronicle; “Best Book of 2003” by Entertainment Weekly; Amazon’s 2003 Editor’s Choice; and oodles more.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    It’s an important question that none of us ever want to consider: what is to be done with our earthly remains after we’ve shuffled off this mortal coil?

 

    For some, it’s simply a choice of being cremated or buried.  Both are expensive, neither is particularly eco-friendly.  The technology for a third option - composting -  is in the works, but it's not fully viable yet..  Once it becomes available, choosing it means you can help a rosebush or a tree grow.

 

    Becoming an organ donor is another consideration.  It’s a great idea if you happen to die when young, but is of diminishing value as you age.  Who wants an 80-year-old’s eyes, heart, or liver?

 

    So how about donating one’s whole body to science?  That sounds great, as long as you don’t ask: what exactly are the scientists going to *do* with my cadaver?  The general answer is: lots of different things.

 

    The detailed answer can be found by reading Mary Roach’s excellent book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.

 

What’s To Like...

    Stiff is another one of Mary Roach’s one-word-title, research-oriented science books, this one with the overall theme of what happens to our bodies after we’re dead.  It opens with a 10-page introduction from the author, detailing her thoughts and emotions while researching Stiff, followed by 12 chapters covering all sorts of topics, namely:

    Ch. 01: Plastic Surgery Practice

    Ch. 02: Dissection

    Ch. 03: Burial, Embalming, and Cremation

    Ch. 04: Automobile Crashes

    Ch. 05: Plane Crashes

    Ch. 06: Bombs & Bullets

    Ch. 07: Crucifixion

    Ch. 08: Organ-Donating

    Ch. 09: Head Transplants

    Ch. 10: Cannibalism

    Ch. 11: The Compost Option

    Ch. 12: The Author’s Choices

 

    My favorite chapters are marked in pink, but frankly, I enjoyed them all.  Each one starts with an attention-getting photograph, followed by a clever title-&-subtitle, and seasoned with lots of footnotes that are both witty and informative.  This is my fourth Mary Roach book, and each one has been a enlightening experience.  Here, for instance, you’ll learn things like:

 

    History.  When dissection was a sentencing option.  How and when necrophilia laws changed over the years (you’ll be surprised).  What caused TWA Flight 800 to crash, and how they figured it out.  How they determined if the Shroud of Turin was real or a hoax.

 

    Medicine.  What a “flail chest” is and why it happens when you break your ribs.  What the maximum capacity of the human stomach is (it’s listed in the Guinness World Book of Records).  What a “beating-heart cadaver” is (my wife, who works in the medical field, already knew all about this).

 

    Chemistry & Engineering.  The four stages of cadaver decomposition (can we call it organic chemistry?).  What “plastination” is.  How gelatin is manufactured (my company was involved in that). The mechanics of a hit-and-run (you get “run under”, not “run over”).

 

    Weird.  Why guinea pigs were once subjected to a “vertical catapult” in the name of research.  Grave-sharing in Sweden.  Evidence that Thomas Edison was “loopy”.

 

    The book has an ending – somewhat unusual for a non-fiction “science-y” tome, and I thought it was deftly done: after all her research, Mary Roach reveals her thoughts about what to do with her remains when she departs this world.  I daresay you'll be surprised by her postmortem wishes; I was.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 3,947 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.05/5 based on 186,286 ratings and 14,365 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    In exchange for their experiences, these cadavers agree to a sizable amount of gore.  They are dismembered, cut open, rearranged.  But here’s the thing: They don’t endure anything.  Cadavers are our superheroes.  They brave fire without flinching, withstand falls from tall buildings and head-on car crashes into walls.  You can fire a gun at them or run a speedboat over their legs, and it will not faze them.  Their heads can be removed with no deleterious effect.  They can be in six places at once.  (pg. 10)

 

    Intestinal gas is a waste product of bacteria metabolism.

    The difference is that when we’re alive, we expel that gas.  The dead, lacking workable stomach muscles and sphincters and bedmates to annoy, do not.  Cannot.  So the gas builds up and the belly bloats.  I ask Arpad why the gas wouldn’t just get forced out eventually.  He explains that the small intestine has pretty much collapsed and sealed itself off.  Or that there might be “something” blocking the egress.  Though he allows, with some prodding, that a little bad air often does, in fact, slip out, and so, as a matter of record, it can be said that dead people fart.  It needn’t be, but it can.  (pg. 66)

 

For a former doctor whose job now entails diapering and dressing cadavers, he has an admirably upbeat disposition.  (pg. 97)

    There’s really nothing to gripe about in Stiff.  The text is incredibly clean – I only noted a single “damn” in the entire book, and IIRC (I didn’t jot down the page number), it was when the author was quoting someone.  I saw only a single typo: “piece” instead of “peace”.

 

    I was impressed with the “tone” throughout the book: somehow Mary Roach finds just the right balance between respecting the loved ones who have passed on and the objective reality of subjecting the cadavers to all sorts of tests and analyses to further the knowledge in fields such as forensics, accident investigation, and anatomy.

 

    This is one of Mary Roach’s most popular books, and the high accolades it garnered are fully justified.  After reading this book you can’t help but ask yourself: what instructions, if any, should I leave for my own earthly remains?  Give it some consideration.

 

    9½ StarsStiff was my fourth Mary Roach book, and I’ve yet to give a rating of less than 9 Stars for any of her works.  Two more remain in my TBR stash – Packing For Mars and Spook.  I have no doubt that they will be just as fascinating and enlightening as the ones I've already read.