Project Daedalus - Thomas Hoover

   1991; 368 pages. New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genres: Technothriller; Action-Intrigue.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Sometimes money laundering can be in the best interest of both parties.

 

    For instance, if a sovereign nation, such as Russia, wants to finance a cutting-edge technological research project at a powerful private-enterprise industrial corporation in a different country, such as Japan, it’s best for all concerned that nobody else knows about it.

 

    One common method is to convert millions of dollars into something called debentures, loan certificates that are unsecured.  Pass them through a couple of rounds of unscrupulous bankers’ hands so they can’t be traced, then to the intended receiver, and make sure everybody keeps their mouths shut.

 

    Alas, things go haywire if those debentures disappear during one of those banking handoffs.  If those certificates aren’t found, and in a hurry, heads will roll.  Literally.  But where are we going to find someone with experience in prying into clandestine operations?

 

    How about an ex-CIA agent, Michael Vance, Jr.?

 

What’s To Like...

    There are two main storylines in Project Daedalus: our protagonist, Michael Vance, tries to figure out where the debentures went; and an aerospace corporation works at developing a plane (as shown above in the book cover) that can achieve “hypersonic” speeds of Mach 25 or so.  Eventually the two plot threads converge, setting up an exciting climax.

 

    I enjoyed the various settings.  We start out in Athens, Greece, with a visit to nearby Knossos, Crete.  We also spend time in London, where the money-laundering shenanigans are taking place; and Hokkaido, Japan, where the plane testing is underway.  And let’s not neglect to mention several goosebump-raising trips into the upper atmosphere.  All these places felt “real” to me.

 

    The book was written in 1991, and I chuckled at some of the now-obsolete items.  Messaging was done by telex, and decryption efforts were done via a cutting-edge technological device (for that era): a Lotus spreadsheet program on a 486 computer.  I also liked the mention of the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and was wowed when a plane did a “Mach 3 Immelmann maneuver”.

 

    Everything builds to a sustained, nail-biting ending.  You might have the fastest plane ever, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be brought down by missile-shooting enemy fighter planes and/or the excessive-heat conditions of the atmosphere.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 159 ratings and 48 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.50*/5, based on 193 ratings and 11 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    To begin with, members of the intelligence services of major nations didn’t go around knocking each other off; that was an unwritten rule among spooks.  Very bad taste.  Maybe you tried to get somebody to talk with sodium pentathol [sic] or scopolamine, but guns were stupid and everybody knew it.  You could get killed with one of those things, for godsake.  (loc. 2148)

 

    He slipped off the shirt he’d been wearing in London, happy to be rid of it, and put on the first half of the uniform.  Not a bad fit.  The trousers also seemed tailor-made.  Then he slipped on the wool topper, completing the ensemble.

    “You would make a good officer, I think.”  Andrei Androv stood back and looked him over with a smile.  “But you have to act like one too.  Remember to be insulting.”  (loc. 6585)

 

Kindle Details…

    You can pick up Project Daedalus for free at Amazon right now.  In fact, the other eight e-books Thomas Hoover has tout here are also free.  I suspect this is a “for a limited time only” deal.

 

“If a man owes you a hundred dollars, you have power over him; if he owes you a million dollars, he has power over you.”  (loc. 4250)

    There’s a fair amount of cussing in Project Daedalus; I counted 18 instances in the first 10% of the book, including three f-bombs.  There are several rolls-in-the-hay to boot, since Vance crosses paths with an ex-lover along the way.

 

    There were also a fair number of typos, such as Vanced/Vance, wastin/wastin’, and numerous missing quotation marks.  One recurring error involved the name of the prototype aircraft, “Daedalus I”, which the conversion program often mistakenly rendered as “Daedalus /”.

 

    I’m always happy when words and phrases in foreign languages show up in the text.  Here, lots of Russian, Japanese, and Greek vocabulary was used, which I liked, but they are not languages I’m proficient in.  It would’ve been nice to have translations supplied via footnotes or a glossary.

 

    The main issue though, which several other reviewers also pointed out, was the abundance of technical jargon.  Yes, Project Daedalus is aptly marketed as a “technothriller”.  Yes, that implies there will be passages explaining technical stuff.  But here, those passages are so lengthy, and pop up so often that it slows down the pacing.  And let’s keep in mind, Mach 25 is an impossible speed for an aircraft in Earth’s atmosphere.  The technical details about it are all fictional.

 

    Despite that, I enjoyed Project Daedalus.  I skimmed through those technical speedbumps (what the heck is a “scramjet” anyway?), and refocused when the text got back to advancing the storyline.  There was lots of Action-&-Intrigue to keep me turning the pages, and I was impressed that the Japanese and Russian characters, of which there were many, were portrayed as three-dimensional human beings, not cookie-cutter stereotypes.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  If you look in the Table of Contents, you’ll find there’s an entire chapter missing – Chapter 7.  Now, I know of at least one author who does such a thing; he simply eschews Chapter 13 in any of his books.  And to be fair, I don’t think the chapter is truly missing.  It’s just a counting glitch.  Still, what are the odds of this sort of oversight?

Lost Is The Night - Greg James

   2014; 174 pages.  Full Title: Lost Is The Night: A Grim Dark Fantasy Adventure.  Book 2 (out of 3) in the “Khale the Wanderer” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Dark Fantasy; Time Travel.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Khale the Wanderer is a stranger in a strange land.  He seeks only shelter for the night, and if luck is with him, yon castle will take pity on him and let him sleep in the stable.  The castle guard that is approaching him will hopefully not try to kill him.

 

    “Master Khale, you are welcome to Castle Barneth.”  The guard somehow knows who he is?  Khale’s self-preservation reflexes go on full alert.

 

    “Come with me, if it pleases you.  The feast is begun and Lord Barneth awaits your company.”  Khale's jaw drops.  He, a lowly traveler, is on the guest list?  Surely this is a trap of some sort.  Can things get any weirder?

 

    “The feast is in your honour, and you are missed.”

 

What’s To Like...

    Lost Is The Night is the continuation of the journey of Khale, a sort of “Conan the Barbarian” protagonist.  It is the sequel to Under A Colder Sun, which I read a couple years ago, and is reviewed here.

 

    Despite the feast being already underway, there are priorities.  Khale is caked with dirt and foul odors from his journeying, and requests a bath, which the steward of Castle Barneth readily arranges.  The bathing amenities include Cacea, a beautiful maiden who will do the scrubbing of Khale.  We’ll let you guess whether other services are offered.

 

    The main storyline involves the subsequent adventures of both Khale and Cacea.  The book’s subtitle, “A Grim Dark Fantasy Adventure”, is quite apt.  The fantasy in this book, and indeed, this series, is not lighthearted, nor intended for kids.  Lord Barneth’s sigil is a red wheel with a crucified victim on it.  The tone of the book reflects that.

 

    I enjoyed the gradual evolution of Khale’s character.  He started out in this series a total anti-hero, but here we are seeing him learning to care about others and about the role he plays in the events unfolding around him.  Does he get to make his own decisions when Thoughtless Dark stands before him?  Or is he simply a meat-and-bones puppet on strings, being manipulated by a higher power?

 

    The ending is appropriately grim and dark, highlighted by an exciting fight scene.  None of the plot threads are resolved, but hey, that’s presumably what the next and final book, Hordes of Chaos, is for.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Goetic (adj.) : pertaining to black magic or necromancy.

Others: Xanthic (adj.); Foetor (n.); Benighted (adj.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 52 ratings and 16 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.82*/5, based on 38 ratings and 5 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Good evening, Master Khale.  I am Bartell, his Lordship’s steward, and I will attend to your needs.”

    Khale looked him over.  Dressed in blue-green silks, he looked, for all the world, like an over-embroidered cushion.  The wrinkles in his face wept dry tears of perfumed powder.  When the man smiled falsely at him, the Wanderer saw familiar signs of a life spent eating too many sweetmeats and loqma cakes.

    Rotten on the inside, fragrant as morning on the outside.

    He could taste the sin hanging in the air around this one.  (loc. 180)

 

    Murtagh was speechless as the nightmare thing before him finished pouring the last traces of itself from the bowl where it had been in repose.  The elongated mass rushed at him, a tide of black quicksilver moving across the chamber in a single, sinuous motion that consumed the space between them.  Its lipless mouth opened and continued to open, becoming a gaping wound that muttered to itself in the language of decayed silt and haunted mires.  (loc. 1638)

 

Kindle Details…

    Lost Is The Night sells for $2.99 at Amazon right now.  The other two books in the series go for the same price.  Greg James has several other series and standalone e-books available on Amazon, ranging in price from $0.99 to $2.99.

 

“Slow and predictable,” Khale mocked.  “You fight with too much honour.”.  (loc. 608)

    Surprisingly, I only counted eight cusswords in the first 25% of Lost Is The Night, although five of those were f-bombs.  There are several rolls-in-the-hay and references to three variations of the act of intimacy.  The experience on the red wheel is left to the reader’s imagination but not the outcome.

 

    The editing was good; I espied only one typo, “bows” instead of “boughs”.  As already mentioned, this book takes place immediately after the first book, and there are numerous back-references to events therefrom, so I’d suggest reading this series in chronological order and gearing up that you’re committing to reading all three books in the series.

 

    Finally, keep in mind the books in this series are all short.  The longest book is the first, at a mere 214 pages, and they get progressively shorter as the series continues.

 

    Nonetheless, I enjoyed Lost Is The Night.  It’s a fast-paced action-adventure tale with no slow spots, and the “grim dark fantasy” phrase in the subtitle let me know what to expect as far as R-rated material goes.  I’m curious to see how Greg James manages to resolve all the plotlines in a mere 163 pages of the final book, and will try not to wait two years to read the sequel.

 

    7½ Stars.  One last thing.  You’ll notice “time-travel” is listed as a genre for Lost Is The Night.  When you come to the end of the last chapter, you may, as I did, wonder where the heck the Time Travel was.  Not to worry, you still have the Epilogue to read.

Coffee Tea or Me? - Donald Bain

   1967; 311 pages.  Full Title:  Coffee, Tea or Me?: The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Aviation Novel; Women Biographies; Memoirs.  Overall Rating: 6*/10.

 

    Are you tired of being a poor midwestern girl, stuck in one place?  Do you yearn to travel all over the world, every day?  Would you like to meet suitors on a daily basis?  Could someone show you how to tell which ones are truly eligible and which are already married?  What if you could occasionally meet and talk to some celebrities where you work?

 

    Does nightly partying with your fellow workers sound like it would be fun?  Maybe even have a couple of them as roommates sharing an apartment in some big city.  Wouldn’t it be great if someone was willing to pay you for having such experiences?

 

    Trudy Baker would be happy to tell you how to accomplish this.  She’s already living such a dream.  It’s called being a stewardess.

 

    And of course, she'll also alert you to some of the downsides to this career.

 

What’s To Like...

    There’s no overarching storyline in Coffee Tea or Me?, instead it’s 23 vignettes about various aspects of a stewardess’s life.  The text is written in the first-person POV, Trudy’s.  Some are autobiographical, Trudy is born and raised in Amarillo, Texas, yearns to see the world, and enrolls in a “stewardess school” where she is taught the ways and means of flying the friendly skies.  She also meets Rachel there, who becomes her best friend.

 

    A lot of the chapters give tips and insights about being a happy, outgoing, successful stewardess.  Trudy shares ways to deal with lusty aircraft captains, drunks, womanizers, and hyperactive kids, both the prodigies and the brats.  You’ll learn how male passengers stack up by profession and nationality, and where's the best place to stay with fellow aircraft personnel when you have a layover in various cities.  You’ll even be taught “stewardess lingo”.

 

    Coffee Tea or Me? was written in 1967, the year before I took my first flight, and it was fun to see how things have changed since then.  Back then, there was a 2-drink limit for passengers, although in-flight smoking was allowed.  If you forgot to get a pack of cigarettes at the airport, you could buy a mini-pack from the stewardess.  In-flight meals were standard fare and there was no assigned seating, so you had to tell the stewardess your name during preflight, so she could ascertain that you didn’t sneak on board.  And here's a couple non-flight things that are mentioned which have since disappeared: stationery stores, cigarette commercials, and girdles.

 

    The two final chapters form a sort of ending for the book.  Trudy has developed into a topnotch stewardess, but has become burnt out in the process.  The airline she works for arranges for her to see a shrink, with whom Trudy gets into competition to determine who will be analyzed and who will be asking the questions.  The title of the last chapter is: ”We’ll Give It One More Year. Okay?”, which gives a hint as to things close out.  Wikipedia indicates there are three more sequels to this book, which I never knew, and a TV movie, which I vaguely recall.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Popliteal (adj.) : relating to the hollow at the back of the knee.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 252 ratings and 80 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.28*/5, based on 1,395 ratings and 167 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Ladies and gentlemen, I am truly sorry.  Truly sorry.  In my haste to be . . . to be . . . to be gangrenous . . . Uh, gangre . . .  to give each and every one you gathered here today gift, I violated the sacrilege . . . a sacred by-laws of this wonderful airline, and these wonderful girls here present.  So. If you will be so kind and present, please put all those li’l bottles away and don’t drink not even a tiny weeny drop ‘til we come to our departure . . . ah, destination.”  (pg. 195)

 

    Gravely lacking any background, academic or practical, in the arts of humanities, engineers will try to make chit-chat about the aircraft’s performance characteristics or outer space or why the ball always comes down after it goes up.  It’s best to feign ignorance if you’re interested; engineers hate anyone to know anything about their sphere of knowledge.

    Occasionally, an engineer will have the brains to realize that a stewardess isn’t interested in all that mechanical routine.  This type of individual will say something like, “Have you read Moby Dick lately?”  You’ve got to give him credit for trying.  (pg. 255)

 

You can always recognize a captain from the calluses on his finger from pushing the call button for coffee.  (pg. 97)

    There is a moderate amount of cussing in Coffee Tea or Me?, mostly involving the word “damn”.  We’d yawn at this nowadays, yet I think it was pretty edgy for a lighthearted novel from the 1960s.  Each chapter opens with a sparse sketch, and some of those had nudity in them, but nothing that I’d label “erotic”.

 

    There are a fair number of typos, but keep in mind that this is long before we had computers with MS-Word and Spellchecker to catch such things.  At one point the “couch section” of the plane was mentioned.  At first I thought this was a typo for “coach section”, but now I’m thinking that some first-class sections of a plane back then were equipped with couches.

 

    Chapters 10 deals with homosexual passengers.  Trudy describes them as “fay”, “queer”, “faggy”, and “perverts”.  The term “gay” apparently had yet to be used, and it’s nice to see how far we’ve come since then.

 

    Coffee Tea Or Me? was a light-hearted, quick-&-easy read for me, bringing back memories of airline amenities and hospitality in an era that's long gone.  I have fond memories of flying back in those days, which were my college years and in which I was usually flying stand-by.  Alas, a lot of the experiences recounted in the book are probably make-believe.  See the next section for the aftermath.

 

    6 Stars.  Coffee Tea Or Me? readers received a shock in 2002 when a writer, Donald Bain, revealed that he actually wrote the book.  Bain worked in public relations for American Airlines at the time.  Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones were made-up names, and two Eastern Airlines stewardesses were hired to pose as them on book promotion tours.  Wikipedia says that one of them ended up legally changing her name to the one Don Bain used in the book.  The Wiki article is well worth reading.

Justinian's Empire - Nick Holmes

    2024; 367 pages.  Book 4 (out of 4, but eventually 6) in “The Fall of the Roman Empire” series.  Full Title: Justinian’s Empire – Triumph and Tragedy.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Ancient History; Rome; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    I learned the date in my World History class: The Roman Empire collapsed in 476 CE when the Goths sacked Rome.

 

    Except, at the risk of splitting hairs, that wasn’t its total end.  Yes, the Western Roman Empire was no more.  But the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital of Constantinople, was doing relatively well, at least as long as it was happy to simply maintain its present borders.

 

    True, those pesky Persians kept raiding along its eastern borders; buying-&-selling was throttled by the smallest currency one could use in a solid gold coin; and worst of all, the populace was bitterly divided over whether Jesus was both human-&-divine, or just plain old divine.  But those issues are nothing that a dynamic Emperor can’t fix.

 

    Unfortunately, the present one, Anastasius, is a bit underqualified.  I sure hope the next Emperor is better.

 

What’s To Like...

    Nick Holmes divides Justinian’s Empire into four parts, namely:

    Part 1. New Rome, New Romans:  pg. 26, 12 sections.

    Part 2. The Peasant and the Prostitute: pg. 86, 12 sections.

    Part 3. The Age of Conquest: pg. 147, 15 sections.

    Part 4. Apocalypse Now:  pg. 254, 20 sections.

Those 59 sections cover 367 pages of text, which averages out to about 6 pages per chapter, and means there's always a good place to stop reading for the night.

 

    The book covers the years from 468 CE, the year that Vandal-controlled Carthage destroyed a Roman armada trying to retake the city, to 565 CE, the year the (Eastern) Roman Emperor Justinian died.  The bulk of Justinian’s Empire is devoted to Justinian and his “can-do-anything” military leader, Belisarius.  They’re both introduced around page 100 (+/- 10 pages) and are the main focus throughout the rest of the book.

 

    I loved the degree of detail that author Nick Holmes imparts to this critical time in World History.  The “gold coin” dilemma was solved by the introduction of low-value copper coins called “follis” which were so important to the daily paying of workers’ wages.  I was surprised to learn of the “Late Antique Little Ice Age” in 536 CE, and the devastating Plague in 541 CE, both of which killed millions of people worldwide, with civilizations having no way to defend against their effect.  And I smirked when about the “Nika riots” which prove that athletic games provoking hooligans to urban violence is nothing new.

 

    Justinian is generally hailed as a hero by modern historians.  Nick Holmes assesses this over the last couple of chapters, giving reasons whether the Emperor's various military and economic campaigns were worth it in the end.  In any event, Justinian’s reign was arguably the high-water mark of the Eastern Roman Empire.  The next book reportedly focuses on the efforts of subsequent emperors to maintain that level of glory.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Slanging Match (n.) : a heated argument or quarrel where people insult each other.

Others: Monophysites (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 88 ratings and 5 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.45/5 based on 31 ratings and 3 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Basilicus was a man who, over the last 1,500 years, has received not one kind word from any chronicler or historian.  He was universally detested in the sixth century and he still is.  Indeed, it was truly remarkable that he attained the position of emperor at all, and once he did, he did everything possible to lose it.  His first foolish action was to promote the lover of his beautiful wife, Zenonis.  Unknown to him, but known to everyone else, she was having a passionate affair with a senator called Armatus.  (pg. 44)

 

    Chosroes marched fast into the Roman interior.  None of our sources say whether Antioch was his aim right from the beginning.  But he was certainly going in the right direction to reach the empire’s second most important city.  He avoided the city of Callinicum, where Belisarius had suffered his only defeat, and stopped instead at the town of Sura.  Procopius says he chose Sura because as he passed it, his horse neighed and stamped the ground, which the magi (Persian priests) thought showed it would easily fall.  But the magi made a mistake.  The first Persian assault was beaten back with heavy losses.  (pg. 258)

 

Kindle Details…

   Justinian’s Empire presently sells for $5.99 at Amazon.  Book One in the series, The Roman Revolution is on sale for just $0.99 right now, and Books 2 and 3 cost  $5.99 apiece.  An earlier work of the author, The Byzantine World War is available for $2.99.

 

“The rich Goth wants to be Roman but only the poor Roman wants to be a Goth.”  (pg. 204)

    As was true in the previous book, there is zero profanity and/or adult situations in Justinian’s Empire.  One of the Empresses is mentioned as previously being a prostitute, but I count that as a historical fact.  Heck, similar situations exist in present-day politics, and for the most part elicit yawns.

 

    I only caught one typo.  On page 106, Theodora’s “premature death” is given as occurring in 448 CE, which is certainly premature since that was before she was born.  As the Timeline section in the back of the book notes, the correct year is 548 CE.

 

    The direct links to Footnotes work very smoothly, but when Maps and Illustrations are referenced in the text, they are not set up with active links.  That was also true in the previous book.

 

    Enough nitpicking.  I found Justinian’s Empire to be another great entry in Nick Holmes’ “The Fall of the Roman Empire” series.  It isn’t easy chronicling the events in a world that almost no one, including me, knows much about, and do it in a coherent manner.  Justinian’s Empire succeeds wonderfully in that regard.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  Finding any historical records of the events covered in Justinian’s Empire apparently is quite the challenge.  Nick Holmes’ favorite source is a Greek historian named Procopius, whose “official” account, titled History of the Wars, is filled with oodles of praise for Justinian, Belisarius, and their spouses, all of whom presumably loved this adulation.

    But Procopius wrote a second chronicle of the same events, titled it Secret History, which presented these four characters in a much less favorable light, and which was not made public until they had all died, presumably to avoid retaliation.

    Discretion truly is the better part of valor.

The Closers - Michael Connelly

   2005; 447 pages.  Book 11 (out of 20) in the “Harry Bosch Novel” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Police Procedural; Hard-boiled Crime Fiction; Murder Thriller.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    After three years of retirement, Harry Bosch is back in the Los Angeles Police Department! The chief of police has personally extended the offer to join up again.

 

    Most of the LAPD that were there when Harry retired now welcome him back, but a couple are a bit frosty to him.  One in particular is downright hostile about it.

 

    He’s not getting his old job back.  Instead, he’s been assigned to the Open-Unsolved Unit.  You and I would call it the “Cold Case Department”.  He and his partner, Detective Kizmin “Kiz” Rider, have already been given a case to reopen: an unsolved murder of a high school girl way back in 1988.  And, as one of LAPD's upper brass quips, “New hope for the dead.  Harry Bosch is on the case again.”

 

    The trouble is, Harry’s not sure whether that Captain was being sarcastic or not.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Closers combines two of my favorite crime genres: Police Procedurals and Cold Cases, and is the eleventh book in Michael Connelly’s 20-volume “Harry Bosch” series.  I’ve read a bunch of these books, starting way back before this blog existed.  I do recall the first one, The Concrete Blonde, and being blown away by it.  I’m not reading the series in order, and I don’t think I missing out on much.

 

    Harry’s “unretirement” is further complicated by him having to learn to work with a younger, female detective as an equal partner instead of an underling.  He also has to get caught up on the latest technological advances in things like DNA profiling, wiretaps (via something called ListenTech), and phone call tracing (via something called AutoTrack).  Harry grudgingly acquiesces to all that, but draws the line at using computers to write up reports.  He’ll stick with a good old typewriter, thank you.

 

    Harry, known in the past for his uncompromising brusqueness when dealing with authority figures, now also has to learn to be tactful.  Because this is a cold case, it means two other detectives originally worked the case and failed to come up with anything.  Harry now has to interview them and critique their performances, and hope he finds something they missed.  Good luck with trying to be diplomatic, Harry.

 

    I love this series because Michael Connelly is a master at crafting a complex, captivating mystery, filled with subtle clues, human drama, red herrings, plot twists, and well-developed characters.  There’s just enough thrills and spills to keep the pacing brisk, without the action becoming “over the top”.

 

    The ending is suitably exciting, and is keyed by Harry discovering a subtle clue in a photograph.  It’s a crucial bit of evidence, so tag along with Harry and Kiz as they methodically discover and apprehend the killer(s).  Trying to solve the case before they do will probably be a fruitless venture.  The final chapter gives one last surprising plot twist that will leave Harry and the reader with a heavy heart.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Jonesing (v.): having a fixation on (something).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 22,565 ratings and 1,694 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.19/5 based on 60,485 ratings and 2,470 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “You know who we have to thank for this, don’t you?” Bosch asked.

    She looked at him quizzically.

    “I give up.”

    “Mel Gibson.”

    “What are you talking about?”

    “When did Lethal Weapon come out?  Right around this time, right?”

    “I guess.  But what are you talking about?  Those movies are so far-fetched.”

    “That’s my point.  That’s the movie that started all of this holding the gun sideways and with two hands, one over the other.  We got blood on this gun because the shooter was a Lethal Weapon fan.”  (pg. 35)

 

    “So if I was a defense lawyer,” Pratt continued, “I would have Mackey cop to the burglary because the statute of limitations has long expired.  He would say the gun bit him when he tried it out so he got rid of the damn thing — long before any murder.  He’d say, “No sir I didn’t kill that little girl with it and you can’t prove I did.  You can’t prove I ever laid eyes on her.”

    Rider and Bosch nodded.

    “So you got nothing.”

    They nodded again.

    “Not bad for a day’s work.   What do you want to do about it?”  (pg. 141)

 

“I think you could probably talk a zebra out of his white stripes if you had to.”  (pg. 272)

    There was a lot less profanity in The Closers than I expected: just 7 instances in the first 10% of the book, although five of those were f-bombs.

 

    As is the norm, the author uses lots of acronyms that us civilian readers need to remember.  Among them here are ESB (Evidence Storage Building), PDU (Public Disorder Unit), RHD (Robbery & Homicide Division), and IAD (Internal Affairs Department).  I remembered most of them, but kept forgetting what SID stood for.

 

    I can’t think of anything else to quibble about.  The Closers was a great read for me, with an awesome glimpse into what it’s like to be a big city detective.  I count Michael Connelly as one of my favorite Police Procedural authors; his books never disappoint me.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  The Closers is set in the present, which means 2005, the year it was published.  It was fun to see some long-departed entities in the text, most notably the Yellow Pages and Borders Bookstore.  Those were the days!

Normanghast - Robert Rankin

   2023; 332 pages. Book 9 (out of 9) in the “Brentford Trilogy” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Absurdism; British Humour; Far-Fetched Fantasy; End of the World.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    The end of the world is coming!!  It’ll be via a nuclear holocaust.  And there’s nothing to be done to stop it.

 

    Well, there is one solution, as anyone who reads science-fiction can tell you.  To quote the great Meldrew the Magician, “Create a temporal paradox which might precipitate a causal loop whereby a future event, this being of the now, would influence a past event in such a fashion that the change would alter the future event which had caused it in the first place.”  Yeah, trying saying that three times real fast.

 

    Anyhoo, a slim chance is better than none at all, so why not send a couple guys back in time to create a temporal paradox.  And I just happen to know a duo who have experience in that.

 

    Elvis Presley and Barry, the time-traveling sprout from the planet Phnargos.

 

What’s To Like...

    Normanghast is the ninth book in Robert Rankin’s “Brentford Trilogy” series, or, if you believe the Amazon blurb about it, Book 12 (out of 9) in the “Legendary Brentford Quadrilogy of Trilogies”.  Amazon also lists the order of the nine books in this series, but frankly, you don’t need to read them in that manner.

 

    The author describes his writing style as “farfetched fiction”, and I think that’s accurate.  The main storyline concerns saving the world from nuclear annihilation, but lots of other plot threads quickly pop up.  A need arises for a foolproof way of telling a good person from an evil one.  Brentford’s dynamic duo, Jim Pooley and John Omally, are convinced they’re just a metal detector away from finding buried treasure.  Strange phenomena are happening on a nearby island.  And perhaps most serious of all, Brentford’s favorite pub, The Flying Swan, is in danger of being closed and torn down.

 

    If you’re a rabid Rankin reader, and I am, you’ll be happy to know all of his wacky characters and running gags are once again present in Normanghast.  I was particularly thrilled to see “the lady in the straw hat” have a prominent role in this book.  The storyline is also graced by not one, but two, characters named Elon Musk, much to both of their dismay.

 

    I loved the subtle nod to one of my favorite authors via a slight corrupting of the town’s name to “Brentfforde”.  It was neat to see Douglas Adams’s masterpiece, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, get mentioned as well.  A bunch of music acts also get worked into the text, including Captain Beefheart, The Fugs, Pink Floyd, Cannibal Corpse, Dusty Springfield, and Mojo Nixon.  I am amazed that Robert Rankin, a British citizen, has heard of, and indeed appreciates, that last musician.

 

    The ending is farfetched, fractal, frenetic, unforeseen, and fun.  Like the author, I love stooping to alliterative allusions.  All the plot threads are dealt with, although one of them turns out to be a MacGuffin.  There is room for a sequel, although I get the feeling Normanghast is Robert Rankin’s swan song.  If so, this is a great way to close out his career.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Budgie Smugglers (n.) : a style of tight-fitting men’s swimming attire.  (Google it)

Others: Sweary (adj.); Stonker (n.), Gurning (v.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.50/5 based on 0 ratings and 2 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.50/5 based on 10 ratings and 2 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    The previous incumbent, Augustus Howe, for example.  This unfortunate had become convinced that his body was composed of cheese.  An obsession which had led him to taking many extreme precautions against being eaten by mice.  His doctor had eventually given up all hope of curing this folly and had recommended a nice long relaxing holiday upon a tropical island that was certified free of mice and all other cheese-eating vermin.

    Word had it that Mr. Howe had melted away on a sun lounger in Barbados.  Grilled to perfection.  (pg. 21)

 

    "The pussy cat/buttered toast enigma,” said Norman to Zara.

    “The whatever are you talking about?” said Zara in reply.

    “It is something that Hugo Rune wrote about.  He reasoned that a pussy cat when dropped from a height will always land on its feet.  And a piece of buttered toast when dropped from a height will always land butter-side down.  Therefore if you strap a piece of buttered toast, butter side up to the back of a cat and throw the cat from a high building the cat should just hover in the air.”  (pg. 266)

 

Kindle Details…

    Normanghast presently costs $5.99 at Amazon, but keep in mind this is a new release.  Robert Rankin offers another 3 dozen or so “far-fetched fantasy” e-books for your reading pleasure, mostly in the price range of $2.99-$7.99, plus one autobiography, I, Robert, which costs $9.00.

 

Elvis snored in the key of uh-huh.  (pg. 117)

    The use of profanity is sparse in Normanghast; I counted just five instances in the first 25%.  Later on, a recurring cussing trope is used, utilizing asterisks.  For example: “you ******”, and “and so I kicked the ******* in his ******* nuts”.  I very much like that innovation.

 

    Making sense of the storytelling is an acquired taste.  The “fourth wall” is breached numerous times, and Robert Rankin adheres to the advice of the incomparable Hugo Rune, who once said: “The best way to avoid losing the plot is not to have one in the first place.”

 

    I was surprised to see how often commas were missing when addressing someone in direct dialogue.  This happened ten times in the first 33% of the book.  There was one instance of a missing apostrophe, and I was amused by the chemistry typo of H²O instead of the correct H₂O.

 

    But these are quibbles.  For me, Normanghast was a literary delight.  I happen to love the writing style, and view it as a challenge to keep track of a dozen plot threads at the same time.  If you’ve never read anything by this author before, this probably isn’t the book to start with, but veteran Robert Rankin readers will find it a joy to learn what their favorite characters from earlier novels readers have been up to.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  The book’s title, Normanghast, never showed up in the story, which frankly left me perplexed.  But thanks to Wikipedia, I discovered it is a play on words for “Gormenghast”, a fantasy trilogy by Mervyn Peake.  I have Book One of that series, Titus Groan, on my Kindle.  If Robert Rankin thinks enough of it to give it a titular nod, I really need to read it.