‘Napoleon’s Pyramids’ by William Dietrich is the first novel in the Ethan Gage series of adventure/historical novels. He is introduced to readers as s‘Napoleon’s Pyramids’ by William Dietrich is the first novel in the Ethan Gage series of adventure/historical novels. He is introduced to readers as someone who is more rogue than a serious person, an American who likes to travel. It is 1798 and he does not have any real goals beyond gambling, drinking and women. But his vices mean he is running into other men a lot who have decided he needs to be punished or killed. He is a lucky guy, though, continuously meeting both important people of the historical era as well as sympathetic admirers who end up helping him.
I have copied the book blurb:
”An American ex-pat attempts to solve a 6,000-year-old riddle with a mysterious medallion won in a card game in this swashbuckling historical thriller.
What mystical secrets lie beneath the Great Pyramids?The world changes for Ethan Gage—one-time assistant to the renowned Ben Franklin—on a night in post-revolutionary Paris, when he wins a mysterious medallion in a card game. Framed soon after for the murder of a prostitute and facing the grim prospect of either prison or death, the young expatriate American barely escapes France with his life—choosing instead to accompany the new emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, on his glorious mission to conquer Egypt.
With Lord Nelson’s fleet following close behind, Gage sets out on the adventure of a lifetime. And in a land of ancient wonder and mystery, with the help of a beautiful Macedonian slave, he will come to realize that the unusual prize he won at the gaming table may be the key to solving one of history’s greatest and most perilous who built the Great Pyramids . . . and why?
Praise for Napoleon’s Pyramids“[A] superb historical thriller. . . . Riveting battle scenes, scantily clad women, mathematical puzzles, mysteries of the pharaohs, reckless heroism, hairsbreadth escapes and undaunted courage add up to unbeatable adventure rivaling the exploits of George Macdonald Fraser’s Harry Flashman. Readers will cheer.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“It has a plot as satisfying as an Indiana Jones film and offers enough historical knowledge to render the reader a fascinating raconteur on the topics of ancient Egypt and Napoleon Bonaparte.” —USA Today
“Rich in period detail and ancient mythology. . . . The novel is a big, exciting romp that will keep high-concept thriller fans on the edge of their seats.” —Booklist”
The above descriptions are true, but the book is dragged down a bit from being too much of a historical fiction with well-researched true facts about Napoleon Bonaparte and his invasion of Egypt in 1798 than being a full-throated adventure novel. The writing does have the monotone somewhat of the actual adventure novels written in the 19th century that I’ve read. Dietrich is as careful as Jules Verne was in setting the stage for his writing, except Verne worked very hard to get the science right first, and Dietrich concentrates on getting the history right more than the science. But Dietrich also throws in what are now classic early 20th-century elements of the low-rent adventure/spy novel - exotic locales, constant close calls and near-death escapes, bizarrely obsessive and stereotypical bad guys, a stunningly beautiful woman who tries to kill our roguish narrator before falling for him. To me, the book was a mashup of stories by Jules Verne and the movie versions of Ian Fleming’s James Bond, with a touch of the Star Wars creator George Lucas. I wish Ethan Gage had been more like one of H. G. Wells’ eccentric but kinda brilliant characters instead of somebody who was a Hans Solo type of adventurer the way Solo was before he met Princess Leia, though. Oh well. This is, so far, a good enough beach read series, judging by one book. There are seven more books in the series, so maybe the character evolves, and maybe Dietrich might do so too as a writer, getting better at developing a story with more absurd fun I am wanting from this character and setting? Or more of an intelligent Ethan, given his currently not entirely heroic personality?...more
‘The Lightening Thief’ by Rick Riordan is the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, which consists of 6 books at the moment. Appar‘The Lightening Thief’ by Rick Riordan is the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, which consists of 6 books at the moment. Apparently, there will be a seventh novel in 2024. I think the fact the book is a bestseller, and that it has a special, more expensive, art edition in addition to the regular paperback, speaks to its popularity.
Reviews on Goodreads are mixed. It seems to me that the intended audience is middle-school kids, which may be why reviews are all over the map. I believe if I had read this when I was twelve years old, I would have demanded that I get the entire series! I thought it a fun adventure and an interesting, if very young teen, modern reboot of the Greek myths. The Ancient Greek gods and goddesses are real! And some are living in Manhattan….
There also is a bit of what has become common in young teen novels, those annoying (to me) teaching moments that emphasize by just being yourself you might find you have surprising talents or strengths. However, I believe the exciting adventures of Perseus (Percy) Jackson will overwhelm any underlying or overt messages. I’m not sure if any knowledge of the Ancient Greek gods and goddesses is necessary, but I suspect yes. I also don’t know if some Harry Potter fans will be able to make the adjustment from that dark fantasy series to the Ancient Greek myths that the adventures of Percy Jackson are based on.
Twelve-year-old Percy is a demigod, but a young undeveloped one. He has powers which are appropriate to the Ancient Greek gods and goddesses and critters of Olympus. However, his human mom is currently married to a human, Percy’s stepfather. As a result of growing up with his awful stepfather and abused mother, Percy has daddy issues. His real father is the god Poseidon. But unfortunately, Percy’s mom never told him about Poseidon, or the fact Percy is a demigod, or that sooner or later Percy’s other magical Olympus relatives would come looking for him, and that some of them would hate him. Ancient gods and goddesses have a lot of ancient feuds, grudges and jealousies which have been going on for millennia!
Percy needs demigod training which he hasn’t been getting in an ordinary human middle school. After all, he wasn’t even aware he is a demigod - until the Furies show up trying to kill him….
I have copied the book blurb:
”Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse - Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him.
When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea.
Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends—one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena - Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.”
I liked the book and I think I will be continuing with the series, eventually. I need something to counter the usual dark horrific murder mysteries and adult literary masterpieces full of sad multidimensional commentary about real life I usually indulge in....more
‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ by H. G. Wells is a well-known classic of horror, deservedly so. Although it was published in 1896, in my opinion it sti‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ by H. G. Wells is a well-known classic of horror, deservedly so. Although it was published in 1896, in my opinion it still belongs at the top of TBR lists if a reader has not yet found the time to read it. This is my second time picking it up. I had forgotten some details since the first time I read the novel was decades ago. I can attest to the book’s reputation of shocking drama, horror and thought-provoking pseudoscience (which due to Crisper and other current DNA test-tube manipulations going on today, is no longer total pseudoscience).
Sensitive animal lovers should avoid the book, though. Doctor Moreau has a great passion for the vivisection of living animals.
I have copied the book blurb below:
”On an uncharted South Pacific island, the mad genius Doctor Moreau has found refuge. It’s here, away from London and the civilized world, that the scientist can conduct his experiments on animals without condemnation. When Edward Prendick, the sole survivor of a shipwreck, washes ashore, he bears witness to Moreau’s cruel research and its bloody, inevitable unraveling. In exploring the disquieting crossroads of scientific progress and ethical responsibility, Wells’s cautionary account about the perversion of natural order rattles readers’ sensibilities to this day.”
Wells does not indulge in gory graphic scenes, thankfully. But he does describe enough to cause winces and cringing.
I had forgotten that the book is not only about Moreau’s experiments. Edward Prendick has more horrible adventures than I remembered. The terrible one on Moreau’s island was actually the third act, not the first.
Prendick almost dies in a small dinghy after the ship Lady Vain sinks. The Lady Vain collided with a derelict ten days out from Callao, and all aboard her had to leave or drown. Most of the crew went into a longboat, which was picked up 18 days later by a gunboat. There was a lot of deprivations before the men on the longboat were rescued. But the three men aboard the dinghy had no provisions at all. After eight days of being lost at sea, the two other men with Prendick decided to kill one of the three to drink the blood. Prendick refused to participate in the drawing of lots initially. He could not hold out though, and by the next day he was willing. The man who was selected to die decided to fight. Prendick refused to join the fight between the two other men. They fell overboard while struggling against each other and both sank into the ocean. Prendick never saw either of them again. The situation caused Prendick to laugh a lot.
Some time after this horror, Prendick is rescued by another ship, a trader called the Ipecacuanha. Prendick is extremely sick, near-death, but he is cared for by a peculiar alcoholic, a passenger called Montgomery. Montgomery apparently knows something of medical knowledge and he helps Prendick recover. But it isn’t long before Prendick becomes aware he seems to have been pulled out of a frying pan only to be thrown into the fire! The captain of the Ipecacuanha is a drunken brute, and the crew are also not very nice people.
Montgomery hired the ship to transport wild animals - a puma, dogs, rabbits, a llama, and other caged creatures. The captain hates the animals. The captain and the crew also hate and abuse the weird-looking assistant Montgomery has brought with him to help him.
When the ship arrives at the island Montgomery wanted to go to, the captain decides he will never again transport Montgomery and his animals. Montgomery debarks from the ship with his animals, assistant, and supplies on a launch. Prendick desperately argues with Montgomery to be permitted to go on the island with Montgomery aboard the launch, but Montgomery refuses. After moving away from the island, the captain puts Prendick back on the dinghy determined to abandon a man he thinks of as a non-paying passenger. Prendick is once again going to die from lack of food and water.
Of course, when Montgomery sees what the captain has done, he turns the launch around and rescues Prendick.
But was it a rescue? The horrors awaiting Prendick on the island cause Prendick to wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if he had died.
The awful irony behind Moreau’s creating new forms of life (using flesh instead of dirt and ribs, gentle Christian reader) and Montgomery’s teaching the beast men lessons of moral and proper human behaviors is that they wanted to give the animals an existence resembling the one people have, molding their bodies and minds to be human, ‘improving’ them? Really? Really?
‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ becomes an indictment of Humanity in general, actually. It is people who are terrible throughout the book, again and again. The island is a natural Eden which has been befouled by horrors created by a man, who is supposedly a member of God’s greatest creation. Doctor Moreau is a psychopath, in my opinion, but is he the worst character in the novel? Did God create a horror in creating Man? Is Moreau more than a simulacrum of God? Mankind has without question befouled our Eden, the entire Earth. You be the judge, gentle reader….
The poor animals are clearly victims of every human in the novel, true innocents caught up in the nets of various nefarious despoiling gods of Mankind. Prendick is also victimized over and over, psychologically damaged by his experiences, unable to ever fully recover. He clearly is despairingly aware of Man’s fallen nature(s) and his own guilty participation in Evil in order to live. (view spoiler)[In the last chapter, after he returns to…*ahem*… Civilization(?), he is a haunted man, with symptoms of what we now call PTSD. (hide spoiler)].
I highly recommend ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’!
I am including a link to a 1977 movie trailer of a movie made based on ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ on YouTube, one of many movies made :
This movie version of the book has a lot of A-list actors of the time, but it is a Samuel Z. Arkoff production. If you are familiar with Arkoff movies, well, nuff said. Probably fun to watch…...more
‘Strange The Dreamer’ by Laini Taylor is a beautifully written and imaginative fantasy! There aren’t enough superlatives in English to describe the lush world-building, or the vivid emotional dramas. This book filled every space in my head and heart with the scent and colors of exotic flower gardens, the sweetness of plums, the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, the paintings of Eugene Delacroix, and winged sculptures of Icarus. The book ends in cliffhangers, but many mysteries are resolved, too. I am definitely continuing on to the second novel, Muse of Nightmares
I’d prefer the reader discover the exotic land of Zosma and the mysterious city of Weep like I did, picking up the book without knowing what adventures the lowly librarian, Lazlo Strange, the main character, has, but I have copied the book blurb:
”The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.
What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?
The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?
Welcome to Weep.”
This novel has a lot in common with Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy with operatic emotion and conflict. The book is even more, though, since it also is about powerful gods playing with ordinary people the same as in the story of Job from the Bible, fate, horrific slavery, stifling society conventions and the soaring freedoms of dreams come true. It’s about wondrous magical powers that degrade into poisonous corruptions, love, hate, life and death, as well as about the lives of commoners and aristocracy. Social strivers climb ladders to wealth and respect any way they can, including dropkicking personal morals aside. There are enormously sweeping emotions of love, beauty, pain, and grief, chapter after chapter. But the writing is, over all, what truly makes this fantasy novel phenomenal, the engine driving the beautiful artistry of the story.
I find myself craving a fantastically arty graphic novel, or better yet, an animated movie like “Avatar”, to be designed by the best artists, based on this gloriously imagined, dramatic fantasy novel. It must have symphony music written by Hans Zimmer, of course.
Although the book is primarily a romantic one, it is a Romance in the sense of:
“Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. In most parts of Europe, it was at its peak from approximately 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism, clandestine literature, and paganism.” -Wikipedia
There also is:
Sturm und Drang, (German: “Storm and Stress”), German literary movement of the late 18th century that exalted nature, feeling, and human individualism and sought to overthrow the Enlightenment cult of Rationalism. - britannica.com
“Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson is more cool than I remembered! I last read this terrific adventure story when I was in the fifth grade. A“Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson is more cool than I remembered! I last read this terrific adventure story when I was in the fifth grade. Afterwords, I was eager to go swashbuckling!
I have copied the book blurb:
”Peg-legged pirates, colorful parrots, and plundered riches - they’re all here in Robert Louis Stevenson’s original seafaring adventure.
When young Jim Hawkins decides to follow a map to buried treasure, he must befriend or outsmart memorable characters such as pirate Long John Silver, captain Billy Bones, and island man Ben Gunn. Mutinous plans, mysterious deaths, and a tangle of double crosses keep Jim guessing all the way to the prize.
Inspired by real-life seafarers, Stevenson captures the adventurous spirit of the times and the imagination of readers, young and old alike.
AmazonClassics brings you timeless works from the masters of storytelling. Ideal for anyone who wants to read a great work for the first time or rediscover an old favorite, these new editions open the door to literature’s most unforgettable characters and beloved worlds.”
I am sure there were other pirate stories, but none have influenced the reading public as much as this one has!
Quotes:
“To the Hesitating Purchaser:
If sailor tales to sailor tunes, Storm and adventure, heat and cold, If schooners, islands, and maroons, And buccaneer, and buried gold, And all the old romance, retold Exactly in the ancient way, Can please, as me they pleased of old, The wiser youngsters of today:
—So be it, and fall on! If not, If studious youth no longer crave, His ancient appetites forgot, Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave, Or Cooper of the wood and wave: So be it, also! And may I And all my pirates share the grave”
Young Jim Hawkins, a young teenager, narrates how he went to sea and helped look for a treasure! It all begins with his meeting a pirate who was staying at his father’s inn, The Admiral Benbow.
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest— Yo-ho-ho-, and a bottle of rum!”
This was Captain Bill Bones favorite tune! He certainly bragged of his real murders in this ditty, although no one knew except what remained of the pirate crew he betrayed. Bones was the notorious pirate Captain Flint’s first mate. Bones has a map to a treasure worth 700,000 pounds! He is in hiding and on the run. Unfortunately, he also is a drunken sot, so his health isn’t good.
One of his former shipmates, Black Dog, discovers where Billy Bones is staying. There is a deadly fight soon after! But Jim and his mother have taken possession of the map while looking for money Bones owed them and they have escaped from the inn just before the fight. They find friends in squire John Trelawney and Dr. Livesey, who help them.
It isn’t long after this, one-legged Long John Silver is hired as ship’s cook on the Hispaniola, the ship Trelawney has bought to hopefully go sailing in to find the treasure. Is Silver the same one-legged man Billy Bones told Jim to watch for, and was afraid of? No, it can’t be. Silver is a fun guy, pleasant and charismatic, a friend to all! Isn’t he?
Wait, what? Silver’s parrot is screaming, “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!” Silver has named it Captain Flint! Strange coincidence, that.
‘Pinocchio’ by Carlo Lorenzini, aka Carlo Collodi, is shocking on so many levels for me! I watched the entertaining animated Disney movie several time‘Pinocchio’ by Carlo Lorenzini, aka Carlo Collodi, is shocking on so many levels for me! I watched the entertaining animated Disney movie several times while growing up. This book, the fantasy fairy tale the Disney movie is based on, is darker and mean. The story is chopped up (pun intended) into thirty or so absurd slapstick sketches, each told in one, sometimes in two short chapters. I was strongly reminded of Candide.
Many classic 19th-century children’s books of fantasy (which Disney has edited into genteel children’s movies) inevitably, in dozens of adventurous fantastical scenes which follow each other quickly in chapter after chapter, explain how things supposedly are in the world with vividly terrifying acts of abandonment, betrayal, starvation, torture, enslavement, dismemberment and horrific murders!
‘Pinocchio’ is bringing it, too. There are moral messages behind the entertaining horror and violence. In ‘Pinocchio’, lots of bad things happen, really really bad things, because the wooden puppet boy skips school, avoids hard work and disobeys his parents. Pinocchio always intends to obey his father Geppetto, and later in the book, his foster mother, a blue-colored fairy. But somehow, the lure of a possible adventure, or the promise of money easily earned, or wanting to believe in stories like that of planting a coin will grow into a money tree, or invitations to play rowdy games with other bad boys always wins out over the good advice of his parents. He consistently prefers to goof off, play games, go to the fair, see dead things (I remember the dead things being an attraction like that in my childhood - a squashed animal on the road would get surrounded and poked by sticks by every boy kid on my block).
Pinocchio gets into trouble over and over and over again because he has absolutely no self-control over himself. His noble father’s advice, sacrifice and love is ignored. The fairy’s acts of kindnesses are wasted by him. Pinocchio prefers to believe in the stories the shallow new acquaintances and the sly talking animals, the bedraggled hobos and the other bad boys, tell him. He wants to be convinced to avoid school and work. He wants to believe their lies of only having a little fun (for just a few hours, just this once) if he joins them instead of going to school.
However, he always ends up in hot water - once literally - when he follows the advice of his bad friends. He gets whipped, almost cooked, burned, hanged, beaten, and robbed. In the process of being tricked and abused over and over, he also gives to his loved ones a great many financial losses and emotional pain since he loses what they gift him with. Both Geppetto and the Blue Fairy suffer near-deaths which are down to Pinocchio’s actions.
No matter what your age, I think today’s readers should classify a book like this as a dark fantasy!
I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
”This edition has the full text of the original Pinocchio with a mixture of full-page and spot illustrations in black and white integrated in the text, in pen-and-ink style. The ink is sepia brown.
Once there was a lonely woodcutter named Geppetto who dreamed of having a boy of his own. So one day he carved a boy out of wood and named him Pinocchio.
When the puppet comes to life, it's Geppetto's dream come true.
Except Pinocchio turns out to be not such a nice boy after all. Pinocchio enjoys nothing better than creating mischief and playing mean tricks. As he discovers, being bad is much more fun than being good.
For a while, anyway.
Happily for Pinocchio, he will learn that there is much more to being a real boy than having fun.
A magical tale that has entertained children of all ages for more than a hundred years, this lavishly and gorgeously illustrated new edition is the perfect introduction of a timeless classic to a new generation of readers.
And that's no lie!”
Another so-called childrens’ book, Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, has also been made into a sweetened Disney film. I read ‘Peter Pan’ as an adult and I can’t see reading Barrie’s book to many very young children. For most older children, I think ‘Peter Pan’ would be ok. ‘Pinocchio’ definitely is delivering a strong moral message to young children, while ‘Peter Pan’ did not do so, at least not much of an effort was made to do so as far as I could see. But both books are dark and violent. Yet the stories are told in a breezy lighthearted fun manner, especially ‘Pinocchio’, meant to entertain!
Pinocchio’ is seemingly for younger children than ‘Peter Pan’ is; however, I wouldn’t read it to sensitive kids at all. In some ways, despite the quick breeziness of its tone and the fact that it doesn’t linger over each horror, ‘Pinocchio’ appeared to me to be more murderous and sadistic than ‘Peter Pan’. The numbers of horrific near-death incidents are repetitiously violent in chapter after chapter after chapter.
Very few of the characters in ‘Pinocchio’ are female, probably because we women usually have to work much harder than men as a matter of necessity and harsh unforgiving mores, with very little choice in the matter. Women are not as believable as men are in having the choice to become layabouts! Ok, maybe I’m a little prejudiced. Shut up.
The illustrations were generally PG, and very good.
These famous 19th-century novels for children have given me personally much pleasure to read. I am an adult and I liked them. But I prefer ‘Peter Pan’ over ‘Pinocchio’. ‘When I read the Harry Potter series (start here: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone), I was shocked by how dark the Potter novels actually were, often between the lines so to speak, also. The darkness is less obvious for many Potter fans, I think, than in these two 19th-century children’s books! But I guess a lot more kids of that earlier era saw a lot more raw and brutal life being lived than kids of our century (the exceptions being abused kids, whose lives are wrecked in all eras and areas, as well as those suffering in a war).
I wish you good reading, children! Right? Right?...more
I LOVED 'Sandstorm' by James Rollins! It is pure old-fashioned adventure much like the Doc Savage series by Lester Dent.
Reader, if you love thriller I LOVED 'Sandstorm' by James Rollins! It is pure old-fashioned adventure much like the Doc Savage series by Lester Dent.
Reader, if you love thriller novels which combine adventure, fantasy, and black-ops excitement, I beg you to read once in your lifetime the Doc Savage series beginning with Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze! If you can. Amazon shows these novels are out of print, alas! They are also not politically correct. I don't care! But I digress..
I have copied the book blurb about 'Sandstorm', which IS a politically correct novel:
"An inexplicable explosion rocks the antiquities collection of a London museum, setting off alarms in clandestine organizations around the world.
And now the search for answers is leading Lady Kara Kensington; her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery's brilliant and beautiful curator; and their guide, the international adventurer Omaha Dunn, into a world they never dreamed existed: a lost city buried beneath the Arabian desert.
But others are being drawn there as well, some with dark and sinister purposes. And the many perils of a death-defying trek deep into the savage heart of the Arabian Peninsula pale before the nightmare waiting to be unearthed at journey's end: an ageless and awesome power that could create a utopia... or destroy everything humankind has built over countless millennia."
Almost every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, much like the serials of the 1930's. Omg, gentle reader, I'm in fricking heaven! I'm so glad I have discovered these books! Omg, I hope the rest of the series are like 'Sandstorm! I will be absolutely devastated if they aren't. This novel, anyway, is a throwback to matinee serials like the one starring Buster Crabbe, star of Flash Gordon and the fictionalized novels of other comic books. What others you ask? Ok, nobody is asking me, but I'm going to show you anyway.
Needless to say, they ALL are politically incorrect, but when I was able to get my hands on one of these pulp comics or novelizations I went out of my mind with joy! This! This! This!
*ahem*
Sorry. But these dime novels were the start of my adult love affair, so to speak, with reading, once I found them with torn covers, missing pages, and stained with coffee cup rings in the damaged paperbacks bins at my local Salvation Army store. Originally, it was novels like The Complete Sherlock Holmes series and The Black Stallion series that were my elementary school loves, but it was the silly 1930's pulps which cemented my adoration of reading, discovered when I was in junior high (or middle school to non-baby-boomer generations).
'Sandstorm' was printed in 2004, and it involves an up-to-date team of competing scientists and military teams, but it also includes what are to me the absolutely delightful touches present in the movie 'Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark'
I hope my library has the next one in the Sigma Force series, Map of Bones! I haven't felt this happy since I read Relic!
I love early pulps! And the radio shows, too! Like "The Shadow" , "Adventures by Morse", "The Creaking door", Arch Obeler plays, "CBS Radio Mystery Theater", "I Love A Mystery" - to name my favorites! No, I wasn't born when these shows were on the radio except for CBS Radio Mystery Theater, but there was, and is sort of a cycle of bringing them back every fifteen years or so. A lot of these are available as podcasts today. However, warning they often are not politically correct.
Don't judge me. My life is small.
P.s. Many of these early pulps are terrible, awful. I laugh and laugh!...more
‘The Lincoln Highway’ by Amor Towles is a fantastic road-trip adventure story! That said, while it references a lot of literary themes - coming-of-age‘The Lincoln Highway’ by Amor Towles is a fantastic road-trip adventure story! That said, while it references a lot of literary themes - coming-of-age, storytelling, heroism, American and Ancient Greek myth making, overcoming personal and external obstacles - ultimately, for me, the book failed as a literary novel. But I was enthralled and couldn’t put the book down. I literally read all night to find out what was going to happen next!
The book takes place in June, 1954, so drugs is not the issue. The main characters are eighteen-year-olds, except for the genius child 8-year-old Billy. Everyone has experienced terrible childhood experiences which is derailing them. Emmett, Duchess and Wooly met in a juvenile work farm in Salina, Nebraska. Emmett was released after serving two years for manslaughter and is driven home to his father’s farm by Warden Williams. Unbeknownst to both is Duchess and Wooly are in the trunk of the car!
Emmett’s homecoming is a sad one. His father has died, and their farm has been returned to the bank. His mother left years ago. Billy, his brother, has been taken care of by neighbors, mostly under the care of teenage Sally. Billy is fine, thankfully. Billy has been given hope and guidance through the lessons learned from a book about heroes, especially Ancient Greek heroes. Young Sally is a super housewife and caretaker. She is intensely interested in both Emmett and Billy, caring about them.
Emmett’s dream is to move to San Francisco, California, maybe to find his mother but mostly to begin a career in carpentry. But Duchess spins the plan sideways after emerging from the trunk of Warden Williams’ car where he and Wooly had hidden. He steals the car Emmett had gotten after coming home. Duchess wants to go to New York City. Emmett must track him down, and not only because of the theft of his car. Emmett had hidden $3,000 in the trunk! So with his innocent brother Billy, Emmett begins an epic journey to New York, following the clues of the stories Duchess told in the work farm about what he wanted to do.
The book is divided into ten sections representing ten days. Instead of a countdown of one to ten days, the book begins counting from ten down to one. Each chapter is from the point of view of one of main characters.
There are some humorous situations, but there also is scary violence. Each male character is somewhat desperate and damaged to different degrees except Billy. Sally has obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Although these characters are somewhat artificial as well as literary archetypes, I wanted to know what was going to happen to them. I liked Sally best!
The Lincoln Highway was America’s first transcontinental highway. It is almost 3,400 miles long. The President it was named for was a man with a lot of mythical baggage piled around him. The act of driving fast down a straight highway without any obstacles, seemingly into a promising future and forward-looking adventure, are very much symbolic, gentle reader. However, our travelers are not allowed to do much travel on that highway despite Emmett’s plan. Instead, the characters are forced unexpectedly into other, more problematic byways and endure much personal testing because of many unforeseen obstacles!
I suspect the novel is artfully symbolic and literary in many many ways, but somehow it didn’t quite get there into the major overall-body goosebump zone for me - it was more of an iris-widening tingle. Still, I was involved, staying up all night to finish the book. I am still experiencing a brain full of mud after staying up long enough to see the sun come up. I’m really a night person, so that’s a rarity for me. Sunrises are really nice! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one! ...more
‘From the Earth to the Moon’ is the foremost representative of a Jules Verne novel!
Jules Verne tries very hard to use the actual science facts known i‘From the Earth to the Moon’ is the foremost representative of a Jules Verne novel!
Jules Verne tries very hard to use the actual science facts known in his lifetime to solve speculative science-fiction problems in his novels. In this book, ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ he tackles the tasks of getting a capsule to the moon from earth! The movies that have been made based on this book are truly fun, but the novel itself is written like it’s a work journal a team of engineers wrote about building an extra challenging, never-been-done-before-bridge across a large chasm. The result is more of an automotive-repair textbook than a science fiction novel.
Verne adds into his textbook-novel attractive characters to explain the science and to entertain the reader. Unfortunately, the story is primarily about the blueprints, math and engineering. The main characters are eccentrics and thus very funny, but the solving of the engineering challenges are what they talk about 99% of the time.
This edition has hand-drawn illustrations which I liked a lot. I believe it is two books in one volume. The two parts seem like they may not have been published in one volume originally....more
Don Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes is a very entertaining satirical novel! And a doorstopper, omg.
The millions of pages of 'Don Quixote' are about thDon Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes is a very entertaining satirical novel! And a doorstopper, omg.
The millions of pages of 'Don Quixote' are about the eponymous character Don Quixote, who has chosen to try to live like the knights in books of chivalry which were written in the fourteenth and fifteenth century in actuality. The books mentioned in 'Don Quixote' are all real, but of course, chivalry and those kind of knights were all fictional creations.
Quixote believes these books of chivalry are non-fiction biographies. He wants to be a chivalrous knight and he is determined to make it happen! But his knightly armor and equipment is shabby, his horse is shabby, and his squire, Sancho Panzo, shabbily dressed and educated, is shabby. He does not see this truth or reality at all. It's the seventeenth century, not the fourteenth. Everyone laughs at them, not seeing or feeling what Quixote is seeing and feeling, nor is there any understanding of why Sancho has bought into the fantasy. Sancho sees reality clearly unlike Quixote, but he believes in the visions and explanations and promises of Quixote. Quixote, a fiftiesh-year-old man, rides out on his less-than horse, Rocinanti, from his ranch, determined to save maidens and right wrongs and kill giants and dragons which he believes exist.
Quixote is a noble, and Sancho is a farmer. Both of them are somewhat insane, but Quixote is also startingly very wise in giving advice and in his education, and Sancho is startingly very clever and quick-witted. But Quixote frequently slips without warning into having delusions and hallucinations. Sancho is always confused since he is not delusional, but it doesn't take long for Quixote to convince Sancho often of the truth of his hallucinations. In time, Sancho tries to protect both of them from the consequences of Quixote's delusions. Especially after they both are beaten up badly several times. In fairness, the beatings happened because Quixote destroys the livelihood of several people he meets, thinking he is fighting monsters or rescuing ladies of quality. They also meet people who speak of having suffered real tragedies of romance and horrible losses. The contrast between Quixote's self-centered fantasies and the real suffering of other characters is very stark. Most of these contrasts are made in Book one of 'Don Quixote'. Book two is different in tone and adventures, more subtle in nature. Book one is basically full of pratfalls and juvenile mean girls and boys. Both books are basically a series of vignettes, some of which are lengthy.
Modern versions of 'Don Quixote' consist of the two books which have been conveniently packaged together by most publishers today. In modern times it would have been considered a duology series. Part One was written in 1605. Part Two was written in 1615. Cervantes died in 1616 at age 68.
Cervantes is one of those author's whose biography is more fascinating than anything he wrote, imho.
I feel I must highlight the years he wrote the books in this novel:
1605
1615
Why the highlight? The book has been translated into hundreds of languages today, but it was written in Spanish originally. The English translation I have found to be most accessible is Edith Grossman's, but no matter which translated version you read, gentle reader, Cervantes invented the modern entertaining and fun fiction genre, imho.
I have read other early proto-novels. They often are not entertaining as judged by modern tastes formed by Big Hollywood Action movies or by those books which are approved by current publishers. Early novels often tried very hard to maintain an intellectual level of extreme erudition and education. Authors tossed in quotes and frequent references to ideas and intellectual sayings of every wise super brainy ancient Greek, ancient Roman and early Catholic and other philosophers in their original languages. Printing layout was crude, and punctuation was eccentric. Plot, characterization, and others elements of writing fiction was in its infancy. But almost all critics point to 'Don Quixote' as having changed the entire market for fiction. He also includes references to ancient books, but they are all mythological tales that he references. He created the popcorn-movie fiction genre!
'Don Quixote' reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series -
YouTube now has a warning on this scene, so I hope it clicks through for you. I thought it incredibly funny and in the same class of humor as Cervantes uses in 'Don Quixote'.
Many readers point out the humor in Cervantes could be cruel as well as sophomoric. I agree. But I want to point out the novel was written in the seventeenth century and the Monty Python movie was made in 1975, and both are considered classics of highbrow humor that is masquerading as lowbrow trash.
To me, what readers of Cervantes liked and what we laugh at is much the same, it's only the delivery mechanisms that have changed. Reading 'Don Quixote' can take three months. Watching 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail will take one-hour-and-a-half. The messages are the same in both productions, imho. People are not only hilarious to observe, we don't see the hokum delusions in own eyes while laughing at the hokum delusions in others'.
Our myth-making vs. Reality is the running joke, and despite how some of us take myths too far, it's also about how our story-telling ways are like pebbles dropped into ponds. The ripples keep expanding outward from the original source. Each of the characters in the novel who meet Don Quixote and his faithful servant Sancho Panza are inspired or terrified or mystified depending on their personalities and situation, and observers react cruelly or sympathetically in response. Some are enchanted by the two characters who are acting like characters in a novel (who are actually characters in a novel, hehe) and create their own stories for amusement enlisting Don Quixote and Sancho to play starring roles in new fictional creations - even though Don Quixote and Sancho are unaware they've been placed into someone else's fantasy creation. It becomes sort of a fan-fiction development in Book two! And a Mobius mirror of mythmaking. Don't think about it too hard.
But all of the characters tell and re-tell the story of Don Quixote and Sancho. They all have been entertained to the highest degree, although some are frightened for the safety of Don Quixote or themselves. However, characters from all walks of life and from all economic layers and professions in the book cannot stop themselves from formulating a tale about Quixote to recount to their circles of friends or audience if the stunned storytellers are professional, like the acting troupe and the puppet show who have the misfortune to become the target of Don Quixote's insanity.
We still are telling the story of Don Quixote and Sancho in a million forums and mediums and styles, abridged and rebooted, up to 2021, so far. Ha! Love the novel or hate it, you've been intellectually co-opted by at least one of many forms of the basic story, and the message has shaped your understanding of the world. Ever hear of Comic Con? Or the Marvel or DC movies? But you think dressing up and pretending to be a hero from a comic book is dumb? Ever go to a Halloween party? Or view the pageantry of a royal wedding, enthralled and enchanted by the fairy tale trappings? And immediately decide to buy that exact dress or suit for your wedding? As if you will be, for example, a princess if you dress the part, right? Right? Or follow and try to dress similar to your favorite celebrity or hip-hop entertainer? Got a tattoo that is exactly like the celebrity you admire? Do you wear all black most of the time, or spend hundreds of dollars getting your hair cut like a movie star or music video singer you love? Aren't you hoping to BE that magical celebrity or a character they played, just a little bit? Trying to emulate some ideal or look of your hero or the movie character they acted/invented to be? Do you, for example, sometimes get the Matrix character Neo confused with actor Keano Reeves' real personality, whatever it is? Or Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek mixed up with who Patrick Stewart is in real life? Did you learn Michael Jackson's moonwalking dance? Wasn't it to have some of that glamour, that styling, of being a someone who seemed larger, better, more attractive and talented, than you? Are you crushed when a celebrity or writer turns out to be totally not heroic or in any way a cool person or a believer of what you believe? I mean, where was your head at? You hero-worshipping delusional admirer of a fictional creation?
Anybody reading this review, think about who you wanted to be like, and did you actually model yourself on that person for awhile, and was that person actually a celebrity you knew nothing about as a person in real life. I wanted to BE Emma Peel of The Avengers when I was a kid, and maybe way into so-called adulthood - a lot longer than I usually admitted to myself. Of course, truthfully? When I saw the actress Diana Rigg in interviews, I felt a twinge of disappointment. I still admired her - BUT SHE WASN'T EMMA PEEL! Omg, the heroic image I had somehow still haunting my mind and the hope I had had of being like her if I imitated her mannerisms, or if I became a wealthy upper-class British black belt jujitsu expert! Somehow. Even though I am a lower middle-class American who was an unathletic secretary, and I got winded climbing two flights of stairs even when I was in my twenties. Don't judge me. Or my having a tatoo of a dragon, because I plan on getting a real one as a pet because they just have to be real, right?...more
'The Last Crossing' by Guy Vanderhaegue is considered book two, part of a series of three novels about the Canadian North-West, but I think they are a'The Last Crossing' by Guy Vanderhaegue is considered book two, part of a series of three novels about the Canadian North-West, but I think they are all standalone. The Englishman's Boy, book one, is good, but not as good as 'The Last Crossing'. While both novels belong to the class of novels called Westerns, they are different in tone and subject from each other. Neither is less than literary quality, but 'The Last Crossing' is the superior read. The characters from each of the novels have nothing to do with the other novel - there is no crossover of characters or plot. Now that I've read both, I think readers would enjoy reading 'The Last Crossing' first. In my opinion, 'The Last Crossing' is the more engrossing.
It is 1870, and the cultural borders between immigrant Europeans and indigenous natives of Northern America and Southern Canada are more fluid than either group realizes. Children of White men and Native women feel emotionally hard-pressed in choosing sides sometimes, although the tribes of their Native mothers are more accepting of them. Class divisions and prejudices are maintained by many Whites whether American-born or European, especially by newcomers, despite that all races rely on each other for survival in what is still mostly a land of untamed wilderness. But the Natives are definitely losing land and health. Indians are beset by pandemics caused by infectious diseases brought to them by the Europeans, and they are dying also from ruinous addictions to alcohol. They also prey upon and make war against other neighboring tribes more efficiently, having traded animal skins and meat to the Whites for guns. Later in time there will be even more grievous harms to the Natives from the Whites, but that is in the future, beyond the scope of 'The Last Crossing'.
An upperclass English family, the Gaunts, has been split apart by personality differences and from a father's favoring of his eldest son, Addington, over his other younger two boys. Mrs. Gaunt died in giving birth to the twins, Simon and Charles. Addington is rough, brutish and a womanizer. He takes all the air out of every room he is in. Having been in the British military, he discovered he loved the skills required of soldiering, but not the discipline. He spends his time hunting, fighting and drinking. Simon is a holy fool, my words, overly religious, and sees everything in a numinous fantasy of being created by a Christian God for a reason. He becomes a member of a strange Christian Church unbeknownst to his family - until Charles follows him one day. Charles is an artist, hopeful of recognition as a great painter, but unfortunately he is only a good one. He is level-headed and well-mannered, but insecure, loved least by his father. He can't stand Addington, and he is hurt by the desertion of his twin Simon from his side into this weird church.
Unexpectedly, his father asks him to help Addington track down Simon, who has gone to America. They know he went to Fort Benton in Montana to save Indian souls in preparation for the Apocalypse. Then he disappeared. Is Simon dead? Charles is frightened for Simon, but Addington cares only for the adventure! Neither of them knows very much about America or Canada or Indians. Victorian English mores have not prepared them much for North America, although Addington's sense of privilege and feeling of authority to use violence never wavers wherever he is. Charles feels like the only grown-up, but he is helpless before Addington's vigor.
The journey seems without meaningful direction as Addington alternates between competent organization and aimless tomfoolery. The two Englishmen meet a variety of Americans. Charles becomes curious about the guides they hire and about the people of America. Addington simply wants to kill a grizzly. Both are not aware of the true motivations of those Americans - Lucy Stoveall, a recently homeless woman, Aloysius Dooley, an innkeeper, several guides, especially Jerry Potts (half Blackfoot, half-Scot), journalist Caleb Ayto, Curtis Straw, a wealthy horse seller and ex-Civil War soldier - who involve themselves in the brothers' quest. A love triangle is a secret development. Murders happen that no one cares about and there are others that occur people do care very much about. Everyone, especially the Indians, are both victims and victimizers. In any case, lawmen are not much in evidence - or often much wanted.
The author did a lot of historical research and wove in facts into a very absorbing novel. The protagonists are varied and realistic, and the author gave each one a backstory in flashbacks which instantly fascinates, especially those of the Indian tribes. I often forgot I was reading a novel! These fictional characters are intriguing.
Life is interesting in a raw undeveloped continent full of diverse personalities and cultures. The book is a keeper....more
'Saga' is a graphic science fiction/fantasy comic, book one, vol. 1-3. But the story is much more than a superhero mosh pit! It is exciting, fascinati'Saga' is a graphic science fiction/fantasy comic, book one, vol. 1-3. But the story is much more than a superhero mosh pit! It is exciting, fascinating, and vulgarly overdone in symbolism. It also has attractive space aliens and horrible ugly obscene creatures all done with beautiful art work that is mindbogglingly creative! And oh yes, it's a space opera about a Romeo and Juliet couple on the run from their respective governments!
Marco's people are from the moon Wreath. Alana is from the planet Landfall, around which Wreath orbits. Alana, a winged being, meets Marco, a horned being, whom she is guarding in a prison. Unexpectedly, they fall in love. Alana helps Marco escape. They have sex which no one thought possible. Even more impossible, they have a baby. Both enemy nations see the child as an abomination. Assassins are hired by both sides to track down the couple and kill them and the baby.
The fight is on! This is even harder than you'd think because Marco and Alana have sworn not to kill anymore. Ffs. Still, many deaths happen and are graphically drawn in each chapter. Warning - this comic isn't for children.
The Horns and the Wings would destroy the other's world gladly, but if the moon or planet were blown up, the other world would spin out of orbit. So. Both sides are locked into less explosive murderous warfare that is nonetheless quite lethal with lots of injuries, torture and deaths. They also have outsourced their battles to proxies all over the galaxy, no holds barred so to speak. The war between Wreath and Landfall not only spans entire planetary systems, forcing everyone in the galaxy to take sides, but the war has gone on so long people can't remember how many centuries it has been since anyone was at peace. Many planets and moons have become post-apocalyptic wastelands with survivors who no longer feel anything lighthearted or kindly about any visitors to what's left of their homelands.
Adding into the mix is a world of robots. They are sentient, with human bodies, and a computer monitor for a head. The robots have a royal aristocrat class, and one in particular is having a bad day. The robots are allies of the winged beings. Prince IV has been specifically tasked with hunting down and killing the pacifist couple and their multiracial baby by his father the King. He reluctantly accepts. He was supposed to get two years off to start a family, and he is suffering from PTSD. Nonetheless, he hates the Horns and he can't even understand how a winged woman could bring herself to mate with such ugly 'animals'.
The Wreath, Landfall and the royal robots all have human forms, btw. However, almost no other characters do. Be prepared for shocking and gory images, gentle reader! I love the Lying Cat, partner of a human assassin called The Will, of course.
This should be a totally dark, visually obscene story, but there be jokes, snarky humor and in-law complications as well as pretty drawings and interesting artistic creations. Marco and Alana spar with and adore each other in equal measures. They are fun to watch! Their babysitter, who they pick up in a haunted forest, is a bit creepy, but she is a smart and loyal girl ghost despite missing her body below the waist, intestines draped below her like an interesting hippie skirt. Remember Lady Gaga's meat dress? I think Izabel is a symbol similar to the meat dress. I think. Anyway, that is the kind of joke readers will be constantly seeing.
I want a space ship like the one Marco and Alana find. It's a sentient tree, hollowed out, outfitted with rooms and pilot controls. It's way cool, gentle reader. So is 'Saga'! I highly recommend it....more
Reading 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L.Frank Baum had me in pins and needles! My head felt like it was bulging with astonishing thoughts when I finReading 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L.Frank Baum had me in pins and needles! My head felt like it was bulging with astonishing thoughts when I finally put this book down. I was eating bran cereal - which always makes me feel stuffed. My heart was rattling around in my chest as I pondered strange ideas that were as amazing as the new sights one sees traveling through a foreign territory. I felt my joints stiffening up, though, from sitting so long of a time reading. I quickly drank a mysterious juice from a green square bottle to give myself the courage I needed to attack the writing of a review for this book.
A fluttering sound at my kitchen window startled me. I quickly turned my head and saw it wasn't a monkey with wings at all as I first thought in seeing it out of the corner of my eye, but only a crow. I almost knocked over a glass of water in my fright! That would have been tragic to spill it all over myself.
I got up from my chair and walked in circles over my yellow linoleum, which is artfully covered with a design to look like bricks. Could it be possible 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' has no moral, and nothing to teach me? That the book is one for enjoyment only? The story seemingly had no ax to grind whatsoever. Of course, it maybe was about the value of good friends, but really, was that it? The friends of Dorothy, the main character, aren't even flesh and blood people, but only a scarecrow of straw, a tin man and a lion!
I have it! Each of them wanted to be given a personal quality which would make them happy about themselves! They were unaware each already had that quality! So. Well. What was the rest of the crazy plot for? A wildly imaginative children's adventure story that is mostly just for fun? I didn't know such a book existed!
Ok then! Plus a lot of beasts' heads get chopped off.
I think some children's books written in 1900 as this one was might have been possibly more fun for kids to read, even if it is not exactly as uplifting or nonviolent as what some parents think their kids should be exposed to. I really liked it, but I can be such an evil witch sometimes....more
I am very pleased to find a science fiction series by yet another wonderful book club recommendation! 'The Many-Colored Land' by Julian May is thrilliI am very pleased to find a science fiction series by yet another wonderful book club recommendation! 'The Many-Colored Land' by Julian May is thrilling, exciting and most of all fun! It is new to me, but this novel, the first in a series, was first published in 1981. Familiar character stereotypes populate the novel - but what the hell! It is well-done. Do readers really mind that? What do you say, Star Wars fans?
Misfits and unhappy people compete to be selected for access to a time machine in a basement of a house in France. People like:
Stein Oleson, Viking wannabe.
Richard Voorhees, xenophobic pilot of starships
Felice Landry, viciously competitive athlete
Elizabeth Orme, brain-damaged ex-psychic
Aiken Drum - genius crook
Claude Majewski - grieving exopaleontologist
Sister Annamaria ‘Amerie’ Roccaro - burned out and losing her religion
Entering the machine sends people six million years back (only one way available) into Earth's past - the Pliocene Epoch. The inventor, Professor Théo Guderian, a genius in dynamic-field physics, invented the machine and built it in Lyons, France, in the year 2034.
Scientific interest waned as it was realized its use was limited to one-way trips to a primitive era of earth, but as the decades passed, as did eventually the Professor, Madam Guderian permitted access to the machine to the slowly growing flow of visitors to her house wanting to leave modern Earth and the rest of the scientific advances and races of known universe. As more and more people begged to go back to a period of time where hunting and camping and fighting the wildlife without any benefits of civilization was required, psychological standards were established by official committees after Madam died, using the psychic abilities which had been developed by many exotic races and humans to measure inner minds. Being a misfit was no problem. Misogynists, racists, violent tendencies, etc. are welcome if they are within certain perimeters. Most people intended to live alone by their wits, education and knowledge, and their own skill sets. They knew there probably was some sort of society established after the decades of sending people back, but most intended to live on their own.
However, no one really knows what happened to people or how they were doing after arrival in the Pliocene Epoch. One-way trip only. Anything could be going on. Anything.
*play ominous music here*
Crazy times are in store for our protagonists. They will be tested by the historical earth in a way that is unexpected and much more dangerous than hunting overlarge fauna or in discovering poisonous flora, or in dealing with active volcanos and continents which still are moving into the positions we all know today. Another, alien, life form discovered the Pliocene Epoch of earth....
I loved this novel! It ends in cliffhangers, so going on to the next book in the series is required. However, that is a very pleasant anticipation, gentle reader! May’s book is mostly hard science fiction, but it is slyly mixing in some fantasy elements as well. Most science fiction fans shouldn’t mind. The novel is a grand old-fashioned entertainment of adventure and thrills! Updated to liberal sensitivities, of course....more
'Time Traveling with a Hamster' by Ross Welford is so clever, funny and thrilling, I wish I was reading this book with the fresh eyes of a twelve-year'Time Traveling with a Hamster' by Ross Welford is so clever, funny and thrilling, I wish I was reading this book with the fresh eyes of a twelve-year-old, the intended audience (give or take a year or two in either direction)! Instead, since I am a little older, the story reminded me of the Back to the Future movies. Still, this is excellent and exciting time-traveling adventure even for a reader in their sixth decade! I was very reluctant to put it down because each chapter had me on the edge of my seat. Reading this book during the Christmas holidays (questions like "why are you still reading during family time?!?!?") made for some frustration as you can imagine, gentle reader.
Quoted from the Preface:
"My dad died twice. Once when he was thirty-nine, and again four years later when he was twelve. (He's going to die a third time as well, which seems a bit rough on him, but I can't help that.)
The first time had nothing to do with me. The second time definitely did, but I would never even have been there if it hadn't been for his "time machine." I know--that sounds like I'm blaming him, when I'm totally not, but... you'll see what I mean."
Albert Einstein Hawking Chaudhury is celebrating his twelfth birthday with his mom, stepdad Steve, his stepsister Carly, and his grandpa Bryon. One of his presents is a hamster! Al names him Alan Shearer. Well, actually Steve suggests the name, but Al likes it. Al knows Steve is really trying to be friends, but Al can't accept it, although he is polite. His real dad died when Al was eight years old, he still misses his dad, Pie (Pythagoras).
Pie was a brilliant engineer. In Al's childhood house, under the garage, an air raid shelter had been built by the people Al's parents had bought the house from. And there, in the shelter, Pie secretly built a time machine. He had a good reason for building it. He knew he was going to die soon from a piece of metal in his brain from an accident when he had been a kid. The metal chip was slowly moving towards a vital part of his brain and would kill him one day. Since he couldn't go back to the day of his accident (he couldn't as his adult self be with his young self - a rule of time travel), he was hoping Al could fix things. Al discovered all of this in the letter Al's mother gave him on his birthday along with the hamster.
The front of the envelope says, in his dad's handwriting, "IMPORTANT: Do Not Open This Envelope Until Sixteen Hours After Receiving It. To Be Delivered on His Twelfth Birthday."
So begins an adventure which Al hopes will turn out ok. There are significant obstacles - one being he no longer lives in the house of his earlier childhood. His mom moved miles away into Steve's house when they got married. Al will have to break into his old house now occupied by new owners. The second is Al is only twelve - not a lot of money, no driver's license, watchful adults, neighborhood bullies, school attendence, supplies, etc. Of course, the biggest obstacle is getting his dad's time machine to work. It involves computer skills and following the strange directions his father explained in his letter. But most important, Al is not confident he can overcome the significant obstacles in his way. But if he can change the past! To see his dad again!
Can he do it? Does the machine even work?
I. Could. Not. Put. This. Book. Down! Things do not work as planned. Stuff happens. The worst is AL finds out the things he does changes the future. It's not good. The cliffhangers from chapter after chapter are exciting. Problems mount, mistakes are made, issues happen.
Children of Ruin' is a tour de force of science fiction world-building and imagination! However, one has to pay attention because there are many thingChildren of Ruin' is a tour de force of science fiction world-building and imagination! However, one has to pay attention because there are many things going on! It isn't obvious for awhile, but there are two timelines occurring simultaneously, separated by a thousand years every other section of the novel. Ok, maybe this reveal of the length of the time period of separation is a spoiler, but I wish I had been aware earlier of how many years had passed between the two linked adventures. It would have made the book better for me. So. I am spoiling upfront in regards to this timeline architecture in my review.
Maybe Time IS strange and malleable in physics, but this reader usually requires a minimum of early comprehension, or heads-up, in regards to novel structure and character introductions. I have tackled reading Modern and Post-Modern novels and I have managed to finish most of them, dusting myself off with minimal blood loss from brain bleeds. But the hint of section headings provided in this novel, "Past 1", "Present 1", and so on, still did not entirely clarify what was happening for awhile for me. The world-building and the cultural differences between Human, Portiid and Octopode cultures were challenging enough in keeping up.
Omg. Communication between species WOULD be an extreme exercise of discernment! How DOES one talk to a sentient octopus? How does one MAKE a sentient octopus? How do water-breathing creatures build spaceships? This novel explains...in a strange haphazard journey of Timelines!
>: @
Rant over.
*ahem*
In addition to the uplifting by the Rus-Califi virus (see Children of Time), toss in an ascerbic sentient computer and a strange new deadly lifeform, and hang on to your assumptions of scientific hypotheses!
Author Adrian Tchaikovsky is a genius! I loved this novel. It is in the Universe established in 'Children of Time', and a more exciting book, in my humble opinion. I found it fascinating and exciting, with growing thrills and chills down my back as the book built up to a climax, with me wondering more and more who would survive. Yes, I developed attachments to my favorite characters, so that meant I was perched on the edge of my chair near the end. That is, if I had been sitting on a chair. I read this lying down - but my my stomach definitely was tightening in the final chapters! What a thrilling denouement.
If a reader wishes to read the Lonesome Dove series in chronological order:
1.Dead Man's Walk (1995) 2.Comanche Moon (1997) 3.Lonesome Dove (1985) 4.StreeIf a reader wishes to read the Lonesome Dove series in chronological order:
I read the series in publishing order. I'm sorry I did since the anticipation of what would happen quite disappeared during my reading of 'Comanche Moon', the last book for me. If one reads in chronological order, readers watch the two main characters, Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, change from callow and inexperienced young men into seasoned and tough Texas Rangers and beyond, into old age. But that doesn't mean I am sad about reading the novels in a more mixed up timeline at all. Instead, I am sad there are no more than four books in this series. Every character in the books is fascinating, and many are based on real life people of the time. But whether the books' characters are invented or composites or real individuals of historical repute, they are all awesome and memorable.
'Lonesome Dove' won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In my opinion, it completely deserved to win. The other three novels are small moons accompanying the huge shining star of 'Lonesome Dove', but that said, every book has broken my heart by the last page. 'Comanche Moon' is no exception. Each novel depicts the end of some aspect of the wildness of the American West. It is not hyperbolic to say the overall arc of this series is about the death of the Wild West as it was in the mid-19th-century America.
Western life as portrayed in these novels is harsh and deadly for many, yet it is as fascinating as watching a building on fire for those characters who survived its terrors and hardships as well as for us, gentle reader.
The Indian tribes, Mexican and American adventurers - all were drawn to the quiet beauty and challenge of conquering the vast spaces and empty lands of what we know today as Texas and the surrounding llanos and deserts. Those who loved warfare, adventures and lawlessness thrived in these lands - until they didn't. Usually age, disease, accident or a tougher, faster, luckier warrior bested them. Others died from ignorance of living in a land without much water, or because of a lack of knowledge of plants or how to hunt animals. Tracking, shooting, living off of the land and knowing horses was a must. Physical weakness of any kind was a death sentence. But many men and women were strangely attracted to the challenges in surviving these life-and-death dramas. These were not people who contained themselves wholly within the civilized boundaries of social niceties or accepted and usual moral certainties. They couldn't be and live. Some never knew social boundaries of any kind. However, the individual human mind is a strange labyrinth of hopes, desires and dreams as the author Larry McMurtry vividly reveals through his characters. A lot of outcomes are not predictable when people are permitted to live off the leash as Westerners could.
The toughest American Rangers, ranchers and settlers killed off even tougher Indians and Mexicans, and vice versa, while at the same time acquiring the experience and necessary knowledge of how to survive there in the western territories. The mapping of unexplored lands and the building of primitive small towns inevitably reduced the dangers for less violent and less adaptable eastern folks, who began to invade the Wild West in large numbers. This was the end of the West which author Larry McMurtry brings into breathing reality in these novels. It was both a wonderful and terrible era. However, civilization and its mores was standing by and eager to move in.
I am going to miss Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, Texas Rangers extraordinaire, in more ways than I can say. Somehow author Larry McMurtry has made these two characters and all of their friends and enemies, particularly the fierce and terrible Comanche, be as dear to me as the beats of my heart....more
'Streets of Laredo' by Larry McMurtry continues the story of several characters from Lonesome Dove. I suggest reading Lonesome Dove first because it i'Streets of Laredo' by Larry McMurtry continues the story of several characters from Lonesome Dove. I suggest reading Lonesome Dove first because it introduces most of the characters and backstories included in this sequel. 'Lonesome Dove' also is the better book, a Western classic. 'Streets of Laredo' can be read as a standalone; however, it is like the last few sips of a cup of coffee gone cold while 'Lonesome Dove' is the cup loaded to the brim with hot strong brew. The West itself is on its last few sips during the adventures in this book - all of the legendary surviving characters of the Wild West are aging old men, and the open lawless spaces of the American Western territories are being crisscrossed by new railroad tracks - and civilization.
Captain Woodrow Call has become a Texas bounty hunter. An eastern financier, Colonel Terry, president of a railroad, has hired him to capture a train robber, the psychopath Joey Garza. People did not know anything about the formal categories of abnormal psychology which would later be explored and given names, gentle reader, but to my informal and amateur understanding of psychology, Joey is a psychopath. However, to my eyes, gentle reader, the people in these books are all beyond the usual and modern definitions of normal categories. The 'Wild West' was certainly a place only people who quickly learned to define themselves would survive.
Mr. Ned Brookshire is sent out to Amarillo by Colonel Terry to supervise the capture operation - hiring Call, monitoring and keeping record of expenses. Brookshire is an accountant. He has never been West before and he finds Texas too windy and too empty. Borderless. He has never experienced such a wide open nebulous culture or such unbounded wreckless people that he begins to meet once in Texas. He wants to go back home to Brooklyn and his wife soon after getting off the train in Texas. Nothing is as he expected, especially Call. The Captain is now in his seventies, small and old looking. Is this man really the famous Texas Ranger, the bandit killer?
Call is a man of few words. He clearly knows guns, how to command lesser men, surviving on the plains of Texas, and tracking. He is still tough and hard, a survivor of many gun fights with criminals. But, yes, despite his strength and experience, he is feeling early signs of wearing down. Joints are stiffening. However, Call is not ready to retire. Actually, men like him are never ready to retire. Not even when the time comes that getting out of bed has become almost impossible. These kind of men actually truly hope to die on their horses with gun in hand....
Lorena - ex-prostitute, now schoolteacher - has married Pea Eye - ex-Texas Ranger, now rancher. They have five children. She does not want Pea Eye riding with the Captain! Call has asked Pea Eye to join him on the search for Joey. The money Pea Eye will earn is not enough to change Lorena's views on the matter. PeaEye is not an intelligent man, and he has lost whatever minimal skillset he had ever possessed to be a Ranger. He is sweet, kind, tractable and good with their kids, the best man Lorena has ever known. She is afraid Call will get Pea Eye killed.
Strangely enough, the streets of Laredo, Texas, is not where the characters in the book play out most of their hard and violent lives. Instead, the borderlands between Mexico and Texas are where most of the survivors from Lonesome Dove have ended up. They are trying to find new lives raising sheep and goats on lonely ranches, or in new jobs, but they find themselves struggling with the lawlessness of the remnants of the Old West. The railroads are beginning to change the West, bringing civilization. Eventually. But not yet.
Excellent Western action adventure!
To help get in the mood, I've included a link to a Johnny Cash song:
‘Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone’ by Diana Gabaldon is a frustrating novel! While well written, it is basically a recapitulation of the previous 8 boo‘Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone’ by Diana Gabaldon is a frustrating novel! While well written, it is basically a recapitulation of the previous 8 books in the Outlander series for 700 of the 832 pages!
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Well.
At least a number of small plot threads left over from previous books are neatly wrapped up. And there are the usual detailed descriptions of domestic life in America, this time during the Revolutionary War, which are obviously based on meticulous research.
Readers who are fans of in-depth historical descriptions of daily life in the eighteenth century and who love the style of domestic-genre fiction reads will be ecstatically happy with ‘Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone’. Plus, Claire and Jamie are still powerfully in love despite that decades have passed since they married. Also, a battle takes place between American rebels and British loyalists which is a turning point in the Revolutionary War, which I had never heard of before. But a STUPENDOUS cliffhanger begins in the last hundred pages. The book stops without conclusion in the year 1781…
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Apparently, we fans are promised a book ten, not yet available, which will be the end of the series.
My rating does not reflect my disappointment with this novel, which is HUGE, but instead I am rating it four stars because of my admiration for the author’s research and writing talent. And maybe also because I am irrationally committed to finishing what I started after sticking with the series for so long, irritated as I am with what seems a book to me that simply treaded water for 700 pages….
'Written In My Own Heart's Blood' by Diana Gabaldon is number eight in The Outlander series. There will be a number nine, but so far, it is not yet pu'Written In My Own Heart's Blood' by Diana Gabaldon is number eight in The Outlander series. There will be a number nine, but so far, it is not yet published (I am writing this in September, 2019). The next one is titled 'Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone'.
Gentle Reader, this series must be read in order. It is historical fiction based on facts and research. Every novel is around 1,000 pages. The investment of time to read about the long ongoing adventures of Claire and Jamie Fraser, the main characters, who were young in the early books, and their children and grandchildren, is significant. Maybe the author, currently 67 years old, could die before she finishes. So far, we readers do not yet know the secret of the The Standing Stones at Craigh na Dun, introduced in Outlander, the first book in the series.
All of the foregoing ought to discourage folks from beginning this series! Not only am I not discouraged, I am eagerly waiting for the next installment! This is the only so-called 'romance genre' series that I have ever finished without skimming or tossing before I turn the last page. I hate romances! However, the saga of Claire and Jamie is amazing - a life of perils and escapes from constant dangers with quiet times in between. They somehow end up wherever social turmoil and revolts are occurring from Scotland to England to France to the Bahamas to the Revolutionary War of the United States. Friends, family and enemies die. The couple have been imprisoned and tortured, yet because of their relationship, they pick themselves up and move on despite their losses. They both have PTSD, but they value family life and make a good life for themselves and their friends wherever they end up by the end of the novel. Sometimes it takes time, but the two feel survival is a plus, not a negative. They hang on to their humanity - sometimes only by gritting their teeth, but they have each other at the end of the day.
And, there is an ongoing mystery. How did Claire travel in time from the twentieth century back to the eighteenth? We still don't know, gentle reader. We have learned only a bit more in each book. Although I am definitely frustrated by the slow reveals, the journeys of the Fraser family and the flashes of humor and extremely funny events which occur on occasion keep me involved and reading.......more
aPriL does feral sometimes
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