Book Review: Libriomancer, by Jim C. Hines

This was the first book by this author that caught my eye.  I've grown tired of waiting for the next Dresden Files book to come out.  Skin Game came out three years ago and there is no sign of a release date for Peace Talks yet.  I miss the days when there was a new Dresden book just about every year.  I had a need to feed my fantasy appetite with something similar.  During my search, the first book I came across was Black Spark, by Al K. Line.  It was difficult to get into at first, but got much better by the end.  My review is here on my blog:

The second series I discovered was Magic Ex Libris, to which Libriomancer is the first book.  The concept intrigued me - I'd never seen anything like it before.  The fact that a major author like Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind) enjoyed this book and found it original helped fuel my desire to read it.  I read a sample chapter and found it interesting.  Then I came across a blurb somewhere which made a reference to Goblin Quest, also by Hines.  In this blurb, it was mentioned that Wil Wheaton (yes, Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and host of the Tabletop web series on Geek & Sundry) called Goblin Quest, and I quote:  "Too f***ing cool for words!".  I immediately had to shift gears and check this book out.  I enjoyed Goblin Quest immensely, and my review can be found here.

Afterward, I got distracted by a few other books, and when I came across a reduced price for Libriomancer I grabbed it immediately.  It does not disappoint.  The magic employed by the central character Isaac Vaino and his fellow Porters is very unique indeed.  I like to think of this book as a cross between The Dresden Files and Silverlock (or for modern day readers, perhaps Ready Player One, but change the video game references into references to fiction novels).

When you were younger, did you ever dream that elements of science fiction novels or films were real?  Did you ever wish you could wield Luke Skywalker's light saber from Star Wars?  Or use a phaser from Star Trek to vaporize a Klingon on the warpath?    Or wield King Arthur's legendary sword Excalibur?  Or have your own pet Mogwai from the Gremlins film?

Well, a libriomancer could live out such fantasies.  Put simply, a libriomancer has the ability to pull objects, and sometimes small creatures, from the pages of a book, and use them in the real world.  As long as it is smaller than the pages of the book, it can be pulled from the book and used.  This is an amazing concept!  And, we quickly start to learn that while this type of magic is useful, it is also incredibly dangerous.

The story started off a little slowly, but rapidly picked up speed and wouldn't let me go.  Someone has been killing Porters and vampires, seemingly in an attempt to start a war.  Isaac pairs up with a dryad named Lena Greenwood to try and learn who is behind the murders.  We learn some amazing things about Lena and her origins, about libriomancy and the Porters in general, and about the large community of vampires in the Michigan area.  I found the ideas in this book just as interesting and engaging as anything I've read in The Dresden Files series.

This book even contains a bibliography at the end which includes many of the books referenced (though certainly not all of them).  I'm hoping the additional volumes do the same thing.  A few other novels which are referenced include:

•    Dune
•    The Odyssey
•    The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The bibliography also lists references to fictional novels which were invented by the author for use in the story.  I went hunting for one of them, because the concept sounded cool, and I couldn't find it.  I learned later that the book was fake from its appearance in the bibliography!

This was a fantastic read and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed The Dresden Files and feels that Jim Butcher is writing too slowly.

As always, if you have read this book, I'd be happy to hear from you.

Book Review: Tsuchigumo: A Kaiju Thriler

On Amazon, this book is listed as "A Kaiju Thriller", and more specifically as a "Project Arachne novella book 1" and was first published in November of 2015.  Since then, the author has released two other books:  Blue Moon (a Jeremy Walker Thriller), and Kaiju Epoch (described as "Blue Moon side stories").  A new author tackling More than one series at once?  That's pretty ambitious.  I wonder if there is some influence from Jack L. Chalker (who I think was the reigning king of running multiple science fiction series simultaneously for a long time - James Patterson might be the current king in thriller-land these days), Philip Jose Farmer, Jim Butcher, or Jeremy Robinson.  But none of them did this right out of the gate - they published a few standalone novels first.  As of the writing of this post, Titan's Unleashed (Jeremy Walker #2) was recently released, and it looks like the second "Project Arachne novella", titled Chimera, will be released sometime in 2018 - I can already say I'm going to want to read it when it comes out.

Tsuchigumo is your typical giant monster movie (in the tradition of Godzilla - but this takes place in America) in book form.  If you look at the cover closely, you can tell that the monster is a giant spider (you may need to enlarge the image).  The author is a HUGE fan of Jeremy Robinson's Project Nemesis series (as am I).  Originally, Blue Moon caught my eye on Amazon, but then I noticed a comment from the author that Tsuchigumo is his best reviewed book, so I took a chance on that one first.

I did enjoy this story, the characters, and the fact that it mostly takes place near Roswell, New Mexico.  While the story itself does not break much new ground, there were original elements to the story that kept it entertaining.  There are several interesting aspects to the monster - some of them were very unexpected for me.  I will also state that it is very obvious that this is the authors first novel - there are many spelling and grammar mistakes throughout the book, but the story was engaging enough that I was able to easily overlook these issues.  That is saying something - even with all those errors, I was still interested.  Over the years, there have been many books, some of them considered "classics", or on occasion they were Hugo or Nebula award winners, that I have given up on when less than 50% of the way through - they just couldn't keep me engaged.

While a giant spider isn't exactly an original monster form, the "character" of the monster *is* very original, which makes this unlike any giant monster book or film that I have experienced, so some credit is due here.

At this point, this is the only book by this author that I've read, and I hope that his writing continues to improve in future books.  I know it's possible, as other authors have gone through this experience.  Read the foreword to Jeremy Robinson's The Didymus Contingency - then go on to read the whole book, because it's great!

At some point I expect to be checking out Blue Moon, but it may be a while before I get to it.

Book Review: Pandemic, by A.G. Riddle

I have not yet read The Origin Mystery Trilogy (The Atlantis Gene, The Atlantis Plague, and The Atlantis World) by this author, but in 2016 I read his book Departure, which was an excellent science fiction story.  I've been meaning to read the first book of the Origin Mystery for quite a while, but I've had a bunch of other books on my reading list already.  However, when I saw Pandemic about to be released, I knew I had to read it right away.  This sounded like a major story.

The premise sounds simple.  First, a mysterious sunken submarine is discovered by the US Coast Guard near Alaska.  The submarine has no identification, and has been there for decades.  The boarding party suspects they will find evidence that could change the course of human history, and they do find something.  Second, there is an outbreak of a deadly new pathogen in Africa, specifically in Kenya.  The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) send experts to investigate and provide aid.

Pandemic incorporates story elements of several films that I've seen over the years and seamlessly weaves them into an extraordinary thriller.  First and foremost is Outbreak, starring Dustin Hoffman - this seems pretty obvious.  A team is sent to investigate an outbreak, and to try to contain it, followed by the discovery that this is a new pathogen that has a very near 100% mortality rate and spreads very quickly.  The second film that comes to mind is the Ben Affleck vehicle Paycheck, which is based on a Philip K. Dick short story by the same name.  It might seem strange that this story comes to mind, but keep reading - it will make sense shortly.

The final element that Pandemic draws on is what I will call "the search" - films and other stories where the main characters are on a quest for knowledge to solve a mystery that is tied to the past of the characters on the quest, or to the history of the world.  Too many films and stories fall into this category to enumerate them, but one that immediately leaps to mind is Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (if you have some favorites in this category, please comment on this post; my mind is blanking, but I know many exist).

The central character we encounter first is Peyton Shaw, an epidemiologist with her own mysterious past.  She is sent to Kenya as the leader of a team from the CDC which will attempt to contain the outbreak.  Upon arriving in Kenya she quickly learns that the disease they are dealing with is strange and does not fit the typical pattern of an outbreak.  Things become more complicated as she gradually learns that this outbreak somehow seems to be linked to her past.

Desmond Hughes is the second primary character we encounter.  His story is the one that reminds me of Paycheck.  He wakes up in a hotel room in Germany with the dead body of a man who was apparently there to do him harm.  Most of his memories missing, but he has left himself several clues about what is going on.

The characters are well developed, and most of them have very interesting backgrounds, which contributes greatly to the story as the novel reaches its climax.  The flow of the tale remains interesting throughout, as more of the truth is revealed while following the actions of several additional characters.  In the final third of the book there are numerous revelations that I didn't see coming, and we learn more and more about what is really going on.  Of course, we can guess that things won't be resolved a the end - the outbreak won't be stopped.  After all, this is the first book of a planned trilogy (book 2, titled Genome, will be released in October of 2017).

Pandemic is almost 700 pages in length, and is filled with so much story, all of it satisfying, that it boggles my mind that there are two more books coming - I'm assuming with an equivalent length.  I can't wait to see what happens next!  This is the kind of story that should be turned into a TV show - I think it would work better than The Event, which had some similar themes.  I think this would work better than Under the Dome, which was fantastic until the very end.

I have to say that Pandemic is one of the best books I've read this year, and I'm looking forward to many more stories from Mr. Riddle in the future.  If you like the films I mention above, or if you have enjoyed his previous novels, I think you will like Pandemic - check it out.

As always, I would love to hear from people.  If you have read this book, feel free to comment to get some discussion going.

Book Review: Goblin Quest, by Jim C. Hines

There are plenty of fantasy books that involve a party of adventurers who are either on a quest for treasure, or are on a mission to defeat some great evil which is invading their world.  This group of adventurers is typically multi-racial (human, dwarf, elf, halfling, etc), includes a wide range of character occupations (warrior, wizard, thief, cleric, monk, druid, etc), and more often than not contains both male and female members.  The focus of these stories is always around the adventurers themselves, their great companionship, and their ultimate victory in the end after encountering many hardships throughout the story, and sometimes, maybe losing one of their companions at some point during their quest.

  Some good examples of these stories are:

• The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Dragonlance Chronicles, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
• The Guardians of the Flame series, by Joel Rosenberg
• The Belgariad, by David Eddings
• The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen R. Donaldson

I'm sure there are many others that fit this story pattern which I have not read or which I can't remember, and probably many more that I have probably never even heard of.  And, I'm sure that some of them are very good, some are bad, and others are just pale imitations of some other much better work.

Goblin Quest fits the pattern of this type of story, but is actually quite different, and I came across it entirely by accident.  I saw a recommendation for a book titled Libriomancer, by Jim C. Hines.  The concept for this book was unlike anything I had seen before, and I read a sample chapter of it in an effort to feed my longing for the next Dresden Files book.  While researching the book further, I came across a blurb from Wil Wheaton (yes, Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and host of the Tabletop web series on Geek & Sundry) about a book which he referred to as:  "Too f***ing cool for words!"  This got my attention in a big way.  I had never heard of this book before, but since I enjoyed the sample chapter of Libriomancer, I decided to read a sample chapter for Goblin Quest, after which I was immediately hooked.

The story focuses on a goblin named Jig who is pretty much the runt-of-the-litter.  He is small, weak, has bad eyesight, and is treated badly by his peers who never let him come on raiding parties with them.  Jig has a pet, which is a fire-spider named Smudge.  Fire-spiders become hot when agitated or afraid - hot enough to cause things that they are touching to burst into flame.

According to the blurb on the book, Jig ends up guiding a group of adventures who have captured him and as a result he "encounters every peril ever faced on a fantasy quest."  Naturally, the adventurers are on a quest for a very powerful magical artifact which they must recover at all costs.

The whole story is told from Jig's point of view.  As he spends time assisting the adventurers, he learns about himself and his race of fellow goblins, finding that the wider world is not what he imagined.  For example, he used to think that all it took to be an expert warrior was being in possession of a magical weapon.  During the course of his adventure, he ends up learning that most of what he has believed for his entire life is wrong.  He learns things about himself, his own people, and his fellow Goblins.  Eventually, he proves his value not only to himself, but to the party of adventurers.

Goblin Quest is a wonderfully entertaining story, filled with adventure, thrills, and humor, and the reader encounters many surprises along the way.  I could not see where the story was heading, and it was a pleasure to read.  As it it turns out, Smudge the fire-spider was familiar - he is the pet of the main character in the book Libriomancer.  It will be interesting to learn more about that crossover.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an original, funny, dungeon crawl adventure.

If you had read and enjoyed this book yourself, I'd be happy to hear from you - feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

Book Review: Europa Journal, by Jack Castle

This is a particular type of science fiction story that I enjoy.  Humanity finds something unexpected, followed by something that would seem to be impossible, and then people are on a quest to find the truth of what they have found.

In Europa Journal, humanity finds something very mysterious indeed.  In the year 2168, out on the moon Europa, which orbits the planet Jupiter, a five-sided pyramid is discovered on the ocean floor.  The pyramid seems similar to those found on Earth.  Within the pyramid, the body of a World War II pilot is found - a pilot who disappeared in 1945.  The pilot is holding a journal which details what happened to him after he and his crew were abducted by aliens.  To make things more complicated, the names of some people currently present on Europa are mentioned in the journal.

Shortly after this discovery, Mac O'Bryant and her team are transported through a wormhole to a strange planet, where they encounter many strange things.  As the book progresses, two stories unfold simultaneously:  the events which take place involving the pilot after his abduction, and the events which take place involving Mac and her companions, and eventually their paths cross.  There were times when it was initially not clear to me what was happening, or even *when* it was happening, at the start of a new chapter started, but this usually got resolved pretty quickly.

Elements of this book are reminiscent of stories I have read in the past, or even movies that I have seen.  The world that Mac and her team end up exploring reminded me very much of the book Helix, by Eric Brown, where the characters encounter some very interesting forms of life.  From a strangeness perspective, I would say that this story has some elements of Larry Niven's Ringworld as well.  There are also some elements that reminded me of the film Stargate (and the 11-season TV series spinoff).  And, of course, other familiar story elements like alien abduction and the Bermuda Triangle play a part as well.  All of these elements come together to weave a somewhat different story.

This was a refreshing twist on these familiar elements, and was an engaging read throughout, and I was pleasantly surprised that I could not see where the story was heading.  If you are looking for some different treatment of familiar science fiction themes, I would check this one out.

Book Review: The Silver Ships, by S. H. Jucha

This was an interesting read.  I found this book available to read for free in the Amazon Prime Reading offering, and the blurb about the story was interesting.  Two colony ships leave Earth to build new civilizations elsewhere.  After 700 years, they meet again - under disturbing circumstances.  Alex Racine rescues what appears to be a derelict alien ship passing through his civilizations system, and he risks his life to capture it.  Initially, his goal is to be able to claim the ship as salvage before anyone else can get to it.  Ultimately, the ship is very damaged, but ends up not being a derelict:  it contains human passengers who are all in stasis, and an artificial intelligence named Julien.  After working to restore the ship, and interacting with the humans on board, it is revealed that the two colony ships experienced very different histories.

The passengers on the ship, who call themselves Méridiens (naturally named after their colonized world), arrived at their destination and built their colony with relative ease, and achieved significant technological advances (including FTL communication and travel). Their peaceful civilization is called The Confederation, and is made up of numerous colonies across many light-years of space.

Alex's civilization never reached their desired destination and experienced a sequence of disasters that reduced the colony ships population to less that 2,000 people before they were able to recover and start growing again on their new home world which they called New Terra.  They have recovered to the point where they have begun creating an outpost on another planet in their solar system, but have not advanced much further than that.  They rely on capturing asteroids for water and resources, to avoid destroying their environment like they did with Earth (which is why the colony ships left in the first place).

Eventually we learn why the Méridiens ship is in such bad shape. They were unexpectedly attacked over 70 years ago by a strange silver ship, which managed to cripple a freighter in minutes, and seriously damage their ship before they were able to use their FTL to escape. The damage to the ship required crew members to enter stasis to be able to survive.

As it turns out, neither group of humans has the ability to deal with the threat of this silver ship. While the Méridiens are technologically advanced, due to the peaceful way of life that technology has not been focused on military offense and defense. The state of the Confederation is unknown, and their ship requires major repairs. The first half of the story is about the rescue of the Méridiens, and the second is about the two groups of humans working together to prepare for future conflict, while getting the Méridiens back home.

Alex Racine is a very interesting character. He is a genius, and he has a good moral compass. He is always interested in helping, and he almost immediately sides with the people he has rescued. Alex's interaction with the Méridiens, and with Julien, is a major part of the story. Each of the major characters grows as their trust in each other increases.

Julien is an excellent artificial intelligence, and he grows just as the other characters do, when he starts taking a liking to Alex and how he thinks.  Julien is referred to as a SADE (Self Aware Digital Entity), which is a term I've never heard before.

I also thought that the social structure of the Méridiens was interesting. If I understood it correctly, it is similar to the great houses from Frank Herbert's Dune series - just without the conflict and backstabbing (of course, this is all just learned from dialogue with the Méridiens). Although, their society is not perfect, and there are those who don't agree with certain things. They have an interesting solution to dealing with those that do not follow the orders of their House.

This is a good start to the series. It kept me interested, and I liked the characters, but for some reason I don't consider this an easy read. It's not that the language is complicated, but for some reason I could not read this as quickly as some other books that I have enjoyed. It may have been the level of dialogue in this story. But, this is still highly recommended.

Book Review: Anomaly, by Peter Cawdron

This is a first contact story that I found in the Amazon Prime Reading library.  The idea interested me immediately.  The description reminded me a bit of the novel Dragon's Egg - essentially, first contact between two species that are so vastly different, the main question is:  how would they communicate?  In Dragon's Egg, the Cheela are a race of beings the size of a sesame seed which inhabit the surface of a neutron star, and they develop a million times faster than human beings - essentially moving from agriculture to advanced technology within the span of a month on the human calendar.  More information about Dragon's Egg can be found on Wikipedia here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg


The story for Anomaly sounded somewhat similar, but in this scenario humanity is in the position of the Cheela.  An alien ship lands in Manhattan, and humans can't even recognize it as a ship initially.  The alien intelligence is described as being millions of years ahead of humanity.  Ok - sounds appealing.

The original cover of Anomaly (pictured right) contains a portion of the plaque that was attached to

the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft.  This plaque is mentioned in the story, and leads the primary character, David Teller, a grade school science teacher, to initiate communication with the alien ship.  I have also included a picture of the full Pioneer Plaque, which was attached to the Pioneer spacecraft, immediately below it.   David almost immediately gets paired up with Cathy Jones, a reporter who has been sent on site, and they both assist occasionally with the many scientists who are investigating the ship.

Additional information about the Pioneer Plaque can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque

I have to say that the ship is unlike anything I have seen before, and the process of establishing communication, while it mirrors what I've seen in other stories, is fairly unique in Anomaly.  I also liked the fact that the breakthroughs made in learning about the ship don't just come from genius scientists, showing that anyone can contribute an interesting idea that may progress the situation.

This story covers many subjects:

• Slow progression of communication with the anomaly - trying to communicate when the difference in evolution is measured in millions of years is not easy.
• A debate about the anomaly with religious figures from many faiths who see the anomaly as a threat (and some who don't).
• International implications of first contact, and the jealousy and suspicion of other nations who feel that they aren't getting a fair chance at participation, feeling that the United States is fully in control.
• An exploration of what can happen when dealing with the unknown (riots, etc), and how people in large groups can be motivate by fear to different ends.  I think I first witnessed this kind of thing in the film The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original version from 1951).
• An examination of how peoples opinions of each other can change when they are thrown into a situation way out of their control.

I found Anomaly to be a very interesting and engaging story, although I found the ending to be somewhat underwhelming, in the vein of the film Contact (based on the book by Carl Sagan - while details of the story were interesting, the major buildup led to an incredibly small payoff involving faith).  Desite this, it did not rob me of the pleasure I had reading the story, but I was disappointed it didn't go further.  This isn't the first story that falls into that category, and it certainly won't be the last.  In Anomaly, the major payoff is in the journey to the final breakthrough in the attempts to communicate with the ship.

I would highly recommend this story to anyone who enjoyed Contact, or any number of other first contact stories (including the film Arrival, which I just saw this year).  I'd also like to say that if it wasn't for the Prime Reading program on Amazon, I probably never would have seen this book.  I'd be interested in hearing from others who have read this book, and hear what they thought of it - feel free to comment on this review.  I'd be happy to hear from you.

Book Review: R.I.P.D. by Peter Lenkov

Once again, this was a graphic novel I had never heard of until the movie came out - same as my experience with Hellboy and Men in Black.  In the case of R.I.P.D., I recognized the flavor of the material and suspected it was based on a comic, and a quick search confirmed that.  The trailer for the film looked interesting and amusing (the scene of James Hong using a banana as a gun made me smile, and I typically like Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds), but then it got really bad reviews from critics.  Reviews similar to The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and I lost interest in seeing it.  But, I was interested in its origins as a comic, so I hunted around for it.  It was very difficult to find in hard copy, and after a while I gave up - it wasn't available anywhere.  I recently came across it as a Kindle offering and checked it out.

So, what did I think of it after spending some time hunting for it several years ago?  Well, on the surface, it is a very similar story to the one told in the movie Men in Black.  An older agent who will be retiring soon starts training a new agent to protect the Earth.  Whereas the "Men in Black" are human agents who operate above the law using alien technology to protect Earth from bad aliens, the Rest In Peace Department are law enforcement men who have died and work for Heaven, protecting Earth from demons from hell and their human recruits - apparently they serve for 100 years and then can move on.  Heaven, and the R.I.P.D. is represented in a fashion similar to that of the Albert Brook's film Defending Your Life.  Essentially, it is a lot like Earth - there are offices, people stand in lines, etc.

I found this story to be readable, but rather ordinary and seemingly mediocre after seeing the films for Hellboy and Men in Black.  (IMO the Hellboy film was more entertaining than the graphic novel, and definitely contained much more humor - can't speak to Men in Black, since I haven't read the comic material, and I can't speak to the R.I.P.D. film because I haven't seen it yet.)

It was interesting that Satan makes an appearance in the story, but even that was relatively uneventful.  And, no, the Head Honcho of Heaven does NOT put in appearance (this is pretty consistent with most works that involve Hell and Satan - in fact, deceased humans appear to be the only population in heaven; I don't recall any Angels).  Overall, I didn't find this story to be very engaging, and while there were a few original ideas, ultimately it wasn't enough to keep this story from being underwhelming for me.  Perhaps I've seen and read too much  that was similar to this story?

Despite all of this, reading this book has at least given me a desire to see the film, as bad as it may be.  It looks like they added a new wrinkle to the story in the film - the men who work for the R.I.P.D. do not exist in their own bodies.  Jeff Bridges appears as a blond bombshell, and Ryan Reynolds appears as the elderly James Hong - seems like a recipe for humor to me, which I felt was rather absent from the graphic novel.  Perhaps the film will be similar to The League of Extraordinary Gentleman - mostly awful with a few redeeming and entertaining elements?  I have the R.I.P.D. film set up to record, so hopefully I'll be finding out at some point soon.

Book Review: Fluency, by Jennifer Foehner Wells

This is another book that I came across due to the new Prime reading program on Amazon.  I initially had mixed feelings about it.  First, I was excited, because the theme is one that I really enjoy:  First Contact.  In the 1960's, NASA detects an alien ship in the asteroid belt.  After decades of observation, a mission is sent to attempt to bring the ship back to Earth.  The trip itself is not part of the story - it starts off with the ship Providence approaching the derelict.  There are a few flashbacks to events where the main characters are selected for the mission - in particular, Jane and Alan, and their early interactions, where Alan is an engineer/astronaut from NASA who has been sent to recruit Jane for the mission to the ship, which NASA has been referring to as The Target for many years.  Jane is needed for the mission because she is a world expert on extinct or nearly-extinct language - NASA feels she would have the best chance of deciphering an alien language.  These were all the good expectations.

My hesitancy stemmed from a few things:

• This was an author I was not familiar with.
• There are lots of first contact stories - many of them not very good.
• While this book had many rave reviews, there have been other "free" books available through Prime that had rave reviews, but I didn't think much of (The Galapagos Incident being one of them - lots of boasting about great reviews, but it was kind of slow).
• Several reviews said that this book was a 50/50 split of space adventure and romance.

So, I definitely had some reservations going into this.  While I've read many science fiction stories that contained some intimacy, certainly 50% of the story was not what I would consider to be romance.

From the first sentence, the story pulled me in, and I will say that once the flashback to crew member recruitment started, my concern about the romance aspect started to grow - but that didn't last long.  For me, the relationship that develops between Jane and Alan is not 50% of the story - I felt the level was on par with other things I've read (Robert J. Sawyer's trilogy The Neanderthal Parallax leaps immediately to mind).

For me, this was a really good read.  The derelict ship, and what they find there, was very interesting, and I felt that while there were some elements similar to stories I've read in the past, there was still a good amount of original material here.  It reminded me of several things:

• Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama when I was in college.
• The Infocom text-adventure (yeah, I said "text-adventure") Starcross.
• The novel Saturn Run, by John Sanford, which I read last year.
• The novel The Engines of God, by Jack McDevitt

The ship is filled with interesting technology and dangers, and there are a few nice surprises that I didn't see coming.  There is some new terminology as well, related to the crews experiences on the ship.

Why is the ship here?  Why has the ship been dormant in the asteroid field for decades?  Is the ship empty?

By the end of the book, we get answers to all of these questions, although the story ends somewhat abruptly.  My assumption is that book two picks up precisely where this one leads off, but I'll find out when I get around to reading it.

I'd like to congratulate Jennifer Wells on a job well done.  Not only was the story interesting and well paced, but the writing style keeps the reader engaged.  When I was younger, I remember reading more books like this - books that you just didn't want to put down because you wanted to know what was going to happen next, and the style was very easy to read.  Novels like this are becoming scarce these days.  For example, I enjoyed the first three Game of Thrones novels.  When I got to book four, I spent over 350 pages waiting for something to happen - it just wasn't interesting.

I would suspect that fans of the novels I listed above would enjoy this story.  The romance part is not mushy and actually leads to some interesting moments in the story - I also thought it was fairly realistic.

If you have read this book, whether you enjoyed it or not, I'd like to hear from you.  Please feel free to leave a comment to this review.

Book Review: Hellboy: Seed of Destruction by Mike Mignola

I had never heard of Hellboy when the film was first released in 2004.  But, it took one line in the trailer to hook me - Ron Perlman saying "...skip to the end, how do I kill it?"  I enjoyed this film immensely (the sequel The Golden Army - not so much).  Ron Perlman was perfect for the role, John Hurt was most excellent (when is he not?) as the aged Trevor Broom, Rupert Evans was great as Agent Myers, Jeffrey Tambor was perfect as Tom Manning for the comic relief, and Karel Roden made it all work as Grigori Rasputin (his voice was amazingly perfect for this role as well).

I had no idea that this came from a comic story - although, knowing that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Men in Black, and R.I.P.D. all share this origin, I should have been able to guess the same was true for Hellboy.  I did come across some of the graphic novels a short while after the film came out, but I wasn't very impressed with the look of the content - especially given the price tag for such short books.

Recently, I was able to obtain the first story, The Seed of Destruction (basis for the film) for free via Amazon Prime for Kindle, so I decided to read it - I thought it would be interesting to compare the original work with what I thought was a great film.  I have to agree with sentiments that the film is very loosely based on the graphic novel.  Surprisingly, reading the book is almost like reading a different story.  It is a bit darker and was lacking much of the humor that was in the film, and it didn't really flesh out most of the characters very well (although, I think it may have done a better job of explaining the origin of Abe Sapien than the movie did - the film was confusing for me in this area).  So, for me the film was a superior product.  If I'd read the book first, I would say it was a good starting point which was made much better.

A positive of reading the book is that events in the book clearly scream for resolution, which must be revealed in later volumes, and I will say that I am interested in learning more.  I believe I've heard the elements of at least two later graphic novels were used as base material for the second Hellboy film:  The Golden Army.

All in all, this is a story worth checking out, and I think it will be interesting to see if elements of the film, such as the humor, start to appear in later volumes.  As most are aware, films are typically inferior to the books that they are based on.  For me, this is one of the major exceptions.  The book is ok as a starting point, but the film is vastly superior.

If anyone else has enjoyed the film or read the books, let me know what you think.  Which was better for you?

For those who have enjoyed the first film but have not read the books, here a are a few minor spoilers for the book in a list of differences that I observed.  If you aren't interested - STOP HERE.

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

<SPOILER SPACE>
<SPOILER SPACE>

Ok, here's a list of things that I noticed were different from the film.

• Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm is hardly in the story, and his demise is somewhat different.
• Karl Ruprecht Kroenen is a peripheral character - he is only mentioned and plays no part in the story at all, though he makes an actual appearance at the end.  I thought he was a fantastic edition in the film.  I have no idea how much of an appearance he makes in later Hellboy books.
• Ilsa Haupstein, Rasputin's lover, is also missing from the story, making a minor appearance at the very end.
• Hellboy is ultimately not needed to open the gate and free the Ogdru Jahad - Rasputin is able to use the power from Liz to attempt to accomplish this.
• Sammael is a frog monster, and has none of the powers exhibited in the film - much cooler in the film.
• Liz plays a very small part in the story, and there does not appear to be a relationship between Liz and Hellboy.
• Most of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is not in the story - certainly not Meyers or Manning (at least, not that I noticed).
• Most importantly, Hellboy does not fight one of the seven Ogdru Jahad (which I believe is what came forth from Rasputin at the end of the film).  In the book, they aren't even released from their prison.

That's about all I remember off the top of my head without referring to the book again.

Book Review: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

All right, this was a strange choice for me.

I have read children's books in the past, but the last one I read was the fourth Harry Potter book (Goblet of Fire), and I was feeling that the series was very quickly becoming much darker and falling more and more into the realm of young adult or adult fiction.  I have always been a fan of science fiction, and to a more limited extent, fantasy.

Growing up, I never read any of the Oz books, but I have always been a big fan of the MGM film which was released in 1939.  I used to watch it on TV every year with my brother when we were young children.  In 1989, I even watched the 50th anniversary airing of the film, which included an extra hour of behind-the-scenes material.  When the mini-series Tin Man first aired in 2007 I watched that as well (very dark, less well-imagined, and also less entertaining than The Wizard of Oz).

So, what brought me to read the original novel by L. Frank Baum now?  Naturally, it coincides with another TV show based on Oz.  I am referring to Emerald City, which premiered on January 6th, 2017.  I've seen the first two episodes and while it seemed very slow, it was entertaining, and I realized that the writers must be drawing on other aspects of the Oz series (there were characters I did not recognize), and it made me wonder what the original story was like, compared to the film The Wizard of Oz.  I was aware that the Oz series was popular enough that the following authors (among others) either wrote Oz stories, or incorporated details from Oz into some of their works:

• Philip Jose Farmer - A Barnstormer in Oz
• Robert A. Heinlein - The Land of Oz appears in his book The Number of the Beast
• L. Sprague de Camp (editor of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories) - Sir Harold and the Gnome King
• Tad  Williams - Otherland, where Oz exists as a virtual reality.

The fact that popular authors included Oz in their own work rounded out my interest, so I did some looking around and was able to acquire the entire series as a Kindle book for free, so I started reading the first book.

I remember years ago reading the foreword to Stephen King's expanded edition of his novel The Stand.  He made a few comments regarding the making of novels into films that, as best as I can recall, are something like the following:

• Movies have a diminishing effect on works of fantasy.
• The film The Wizard of Oz is an exception to this rule.

I have to say that I agree with both of these sentiments.  When I see a film based on a book that I've read, the book is almost always better.  In fact, there are a few other films to that list of exceptions, alongside The Wizard of Oz (to name just a few):

• The Lord of the Rings trilogy from the years 2001 through 2003 - far superior to the books in my opinion.  I was very glad that Tom Bombadil didn't make it into the first film.
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - the James Mason version from 1954.  While interesting, the book was a snooze fest compared to this film - after the appearance of the squid, I couldn't even finish the book.
• Treasure Island - the Robert Newton version from 1950.  The novel was boring and I couldn't even finish it.
• The Silence of the Lambs - the book is a great place to start, but the Academy Award winning film is amazing.
• Misery - I loved this Stephen King book, but the film with James Caan and Kathy Bates (in an absolutely disturbing portrayal of Annie Wilkes) is a winner.

Now, back to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  How does the original story compare with the film?  Well, this may seem strange, but they are both winners, and they are both very different stories.  Despite the fact that this is a children's story first published in 1900, significant portions of the story needed to be removed in order to fit the material into a film that was approximately 90 minutes in length - footage that was shot was in fact cut from the film because it was running too long.

Most people are aware of the significant changes made to the story to make the film (much of this is from the 50th anniversary special with the behind-the-scenes material):

• Dorothy's trip to Oz is actually a dream - Oz it not a real place.
• Her three companions in Oz (the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion) are established as farm hands on her families farm in Kansas.
• The Wizard is established as Professor Marvel in Kansas.
• The Wicked Witch of the West is established as Miss Gulch in Kansas.
• The silver shoes which belonged to the Wicked Witch of the East were changed to ruby slippers.

But, there are many, many additional differences in the story.  One thing that really stood out for me was the claim that one of the writers of the film had Dorothy realize "there's no place like home".  In the book, Dorothy states this to the Scarecrow shortly after they meet, so I wouldn't consider its placing in the film particularly original - but it does fit in nicely with the whole thing being a dream.

Without revealing too many other details (minor spoilers here), the following are also differences in the book:

• The Land of Oz is a real place, and is surrounded on all sides by great deserts which are impassable.
• The North, South, East, and West are all separate "countries";  Gillikin Country to the North, Quadling Country to the South, Munchkin Country to the East, and Winkie Country to the West.  Dorothy travels everywhere but to the North (the Wicked Witch of the West rules Winkie Country, which is never mentioned in the film).
• Glinda is the good witch of the South;  in the movie she lives in the North.
• The flying monkeys aren't exactly the servants of the Wicked Witch of the West - their purpose is much more original than that, and they play a much larger role in the story.
• The trees which speak and throw apples at Dorothy and Scarecrow in the film are quite different in the book, and appear during a different part of the story.
• Much more happens on the journey to the Emerald City, and during their mission to kill the Wicked Witch of the West.  And the Wizard *does* tell Dorothy to kill the Wicked Witch - not to bring him her broomstick.
• The Wizard has separate audiences with Dorothy and her three companions, and the Wizard has a different appearance to each of them (effective for the time, but I like his dark personification in the film).
• The Tin Man has a large backstory which makes his desire for a heart much more convincing.
• The Scarecrow was built and placed in the cornfield the day before Dorothy meets him.

There are even more differences that I won't mention.  Altogether, this makes for a very good story, and begins weaving a tapestry that leaves plenty of room for the future books in the series to flesh things out further.  While I enjoyed learning the new elements of this story, I didn't find this book to be an easy read, which I found odd for a children's book.  There is a lot of prose and very little dialogue compared with the film, and the writing style took some getting used to, but it is definitely worthwhile read, and I see it as an excellent start to a series which has been popular for over 100 years.  I wonder if children are still reading these books today, with so many other choices available?

If you read this series, as a child or as an adult, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on it.  Please feel free to leave a comment.

Book Review: The Hatching, by Ezekiel Boone

This book immediately caught my eye at the bookstore.  I haven't read a horror book in a while, and this sounded a bit different.  I loved the movie Arachnophobia, and this book involves an ancient race of spiders, so I was interested, and this story sounded darker than that film.  This is a new book by a new author, so I took a chance on it.  I wasn't sure I was going to like it when I first started reading, but it quickly grabbed my interest.

This is a very different story from Arachnophobia, which involves a South American spider which ends up being transported to a small, rural town in the United States, which ends up producing offspring which are extremely poisonous - if you are bitten, you die in something like 10 seconds.  But the action is restricted to this small town, with the threat of the spiders territory expanding and dominating the country.

The Hatching involves an ancient race of spiders which seems to appear in several parts of the world simultaneously.  They are about the size of tarantulas, move in swarms, and have a very different way of killing their victims.  I was reminded very much of the Arachnids in the movie Starship Troopers (though, the Arachnids are the size of a cow).  The life cycle of these spiders is more horrifying than the spiders in Arachnophobia - it is somewhat reminiscent of the movie Alien, but definitely different.  These spiders are unlike anything you've seen before, and do things that are unlike real spiders.  The book ends with the tension of the scientists starting to glimpse how the life cycle of the spiders works, and the horror of not knowing what is coming next, but knowing that it will definitely be worse than what has already been seen.

The story follows several different characters in different parts of the United States:  The President and her staff (yes, it is a female President), a spider expert at a University laboratory, a special agent who works for The Agency (I don't recall if this was every revealed to be the FBI or some other organization), a few Marines, and some survival fanatics who are prepared for a zombie outbreak or nuclear war.  As the story progresses, some of these characters meet due to relationships between various other characters.  I feel that the characters are all portrayed very realistically, as are the relationships and problems of some of the characters.

The story moves at a good pace, always keeping the potential threat of the spiders within view.  I feel that this was an excellent first effort from a new author, and I would recommend this to anyone interested in a solid read with an entirely new treatment of spiders.

Book Review: Black Spark, by Al K. Line

This is the first book in the Dark Magic Enforcer series.  I noticed it was available to read for free with Amazon Prime, so I took a chance on it.  I'm a big fan of The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, and those books are taking quite a while to come out these days (2.5 years since the last one came out, probably at least a year until the next one comes out), and I've been hungry for similar reading fare since May of 2014.  This seemed to fit the bill, so I decided to try it.

First off, this is VERY different from The Dresden Files.  The setup of the world is similar:  there are different councils, there are vampires, imps, fae, trolls, witches, and other magical creatures, but things take place in the real world.  The terminology for similar things is different.  In this series, all magical creatures and users of magic are called Hidden, and the usage of magic has some consequences.  There are a few other similarities, and perhaps story structure (sidekicks, friends, etc), but that is where the similarity ends.

The protagonist is not a detective, he is a Dark Magic Enforcer, and his name is Faz Pound.  His job is to track down troublemakers.  The story is told in the first person, and there is a ton of what I refer to as narration, for lack of a better word.  The protagonist speaks to us.  And speaks to us.  And speaks to us.  It isn't simple narration - it is like Faz is having a casual conversation with the reader.  He asks questions, and ultimately answers them on his own, or acknowledges that the reader doesn't know what he's talking about.  While explaining something, Faz frequently goes off on various tangents and explains those, and these tangents don't necessarily have much relevance to what is currently happening in the story.  It seemed like there was no dialogue at all in the first several chapters, and when dialogue did appear, it was very brief.

I found this writing style very irritating initially, and I had to take frequent breaks from this book.  With the lack of dialogue, and all of the prose, the story did not progress very quickly.  Things finally start to pick up, interestingly enough around the halfway point.  Some characters who will likely be around for some time in future stories turn up (an imp, a potential love interest, etc), and then some details begin to become clearer.  Things start to happen more quickly, and there is more dialogue - but the long sections of narration continue to intrude.

When I first started this book, I was thinking I was not going to finish it. The pace was very slow. After completing it, I can say that I was glad I read it.  The story was different enough from The Dresden Files, and the details of magic usage and the world are different and interesting, and there were some nice touches.  Enough of the world has been introduced that I am interested in seeing more.

My hope is that future volumes flesh out the character a bit more, and have more actual story content and less of the continuous monologues from Faz, and more dialogue and action.  It seemed like it took 50 to 100 pages to accomplish a single task of visiting someone due to all the monologue.  It occurs to me that this may be why so many people did not like the theatrical release of the movie Blade Runner - many found the narration of Harrison Ford to be irritating (myself, it didn't bother me, because there wasn't much of it, and it made it like an old-style detective story - but I like both the original and the Director's Cut).  At some point I will check out volume 2, and I hope that it captures my interest more.

Book Review: Armchair Safari, by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

This showed up as a recommendation on Amazon, and it had lots of good reviews, so I took a chance on the Kindle edition.  I saw some reviews that referred to this work as:  "an inferior implementation of Neal Stephenson's REAMDE".  I have not read REAMDE, so I can't speak to that.  But, I took a chance on it - anything that involves a virtual world sounds interesting.  My initial reaction to this book was that it would be something like Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, but the only similarity is the online game.

I have to say, I had some trouble getting into this, but I stuck with it.  The description of the book refers to the character Megan and her exploits in the multi-player online game called Armchair Safari.  Her character becomes involved in a quest to obtain a major jackpot which will free her from crushing debt.  Initially, the story jumps around between several different characters, and much of it seems unrelated to the description of the book.  At the start of the story, there is very little content about Megan.  Gradually, she becomes more involved in the story, but it is really unclear as to how everything else is related to Megan and Armchair Safari, and I have to say the book was not holding my attention for the first 50 to 100 pages, and I considered giving up.

Somewhere around the halfway point, things started to become clearer and more interesting, and then with each chapter I wanted to see where the story would end up.  There were a few surprises, and you do learn how everything is connected, so the story ended up in a good place for me.  I'm not sure why the first half was a struggle to get through, but this ended up being a rewarding read.  Was the writing style different?  Maybe.  Did it change halfway through the book?  Maybe.  Did I have difficulty because I was expecting a story like Ready Player One?  I don't know.  Is the story similar to REAMDE?  I won't know that until I get around to reading it.

There are a few things that really stood out for me.  First, there are some characters that are kind of nasty, and do some nasty things to other people - be warned.  Second, the game Armchair Safari had some really interesting elements to it, and the characters in the game had some really interesting ideas regarding protecting their fortunes in the game.  Third, there are some story elements that I totally did not see coming, which is always nice when an author can pull it off.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes stories with many complex elements which end up being woven together into a complete story - it just takes a while to get there.

Lost at Sea, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

I was originally on the fence regarding reading this one.  The graphic novel Seconds was the first work I read by Mr. O'Malley, and I really enjoyed it.  I found it to be as engaging and appealing as Scott McCloud's The Sculptor.  After reading Seconds, I learned that he was the author of the graphic novel series that the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was based on (a film which is on my "to see" list, but I still have not gotten around to watching).  So, I read that entire series and enjoyed it.

I was looking for whatever else this author had written, and found only Lost at Sea (although Snotgirl was being worked on, but was unreleased at the time).  Immediately, the book didn't look as appealing to me, and I waffled about getting it for quite some time.  In the end, I broke down and got it in paperback.  I figured it must be just as good as his other works.

I figured wrong - at least for me, since this does seem to be a highly regarded story.  The recommendation on the back cover is:  "If you've ever been eighteen, or confused, or both, maybe you should read this book."

Well, I've been both, and now I've read it, but in the end I just couldn't identify with Raleigh.  For me, the story just wasn't as engaging or interesting as Seconds or Scott Pilgrim.  This is in line with my initial reaction to the story in this book - but, I frequently take a chance when I am hesitant about a book, because more than half the time it does pay off.  In this case, it didn't.

I'm not saying this is a bad book, because I do see how others could identify with this, but it just didn't work for me.  Perhaps I'm too far beyond the age of 18 to identify with it?  I don't feel that should be the case.

Anyway, I will end with saying that this story is extremely different from Scott Pilgrim and Seconds as a warning to potential readers that this book just might not be for you if that is the kind of story you are looking for.  Or, you can take a chance like I did, and maybe it will work out for you.

Book Review: Deck Z: The Titanic: Unsinkable. Undead. by Chris Pauls and Matt Solomon

This is the second story I've read that uses the Titanic disaster as the backdrop to a horror story.  The first was Carpathia by Matt Forbeck, which involves vampires.  This one involves a zombie outbreak.  I have to say, for some reason seeing how an author mixes a story like this into the timeline of the sinking of the Titanic is interesting and appealing.

The story starts in a similar way to James Cameron's film Titanic - people on a submersible are collecting relics from the wreck at the bottom of the ocean, and they come across a flask.  Then, the story steps back to 1912 to a German scientist who flees with a virus that he is concerned elements of his government are trying to weaponize.

Ultimately, our protagonist attempts to escape on the Titanic, hoping to hide and develop a cure.  But..as the proverb goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Ultimately, things don't go as he plans and the virus ends up spreading through the ship shortly after it sets sail.  He comes to realize that some people have been infected, and he enlists the help of the Captain to put a stop to things.

I have to say that this story was very appealing, and was very engaging right up until the end.  There were some nice surprises along the way, and I was really interested in seeing how this story would map to the real events that took place on Titanic, as reported by survivors - I didn't see how it could be pulled off.

In the end, aside from a few relatively minor changes (such as the reason why the final boilers were lit to speed up the boat - it wasn't to arrive earlier than expected to prove that Titanic was truly the fantastical ship of dreams), there is little impact to how Titanic encounters the iceberg.  I was expecting there to be more of a connection.  I had to assume that anyone who knew anything about the zombie outbreak simply would not be among the survivors, which would explain why the knowledge of the outbreak was not known.  For the most part, this is the case.

The story wraps up rather suddenly, which was a bit of a surprise.  As I mentioned above, I expected there to be more of an explanation of how events impacted the voyage of Titanic, and perhaps even contributed to its encounter with the iceberg, but my expectations were not met.  The ending leaves things open to a potential sequel.

While the story itself ultimately fell short of my expectations, I did thoroughly enjoy this story.  The writing style was engaging, and the origin of the zombies was new and different.

Book Review: The Wrenchies, by Farel Dalrymple

Ok, let's get the good stuff out of the way first.

As Mike Mignola (author of Hellboy) says, the artwork is beautiful.  It is dark, gritty, and relatively unique (and, apparently, water-color, which I would not have guessed, but this is what the author page on Amazon states).  I've seen something like it before, probably many years ago, I'm guessing on the pages of Heavy Metal magazine.  I found the world interesting, and some of the characters were interesting.

That's pretty much where my enjoyment ended.  When I first saw this book, I did notice the mixed reviews.  But, there has been very little graphic work I've read recently that I haven't enjoyed on some level, so I took a risk.  In this case, it didn't pay off for me.

While I enjoyed the artwork, in the end the story just didn't work for me.  The main problem was in trying to understand just what exactly is going on.  A few times, I felt that I was starting to understand it, and then another curve ball would be thrown.  By the time I reached the end, I had no idea what had happened.

I have to say, this was one of the more disappointing reads this year, but I have to assume that the point of the story just slipped past me.  I did not make it through this particularly quickly - I had to take several breaks from the story, and in the end that may have contributed.  But, the story was not engaging enough to keep me reading through it in larger chunks.

Book Review: The Man Who Folded Himself, by David Gerrold

I've never read anything by this author before, which is amazing to me.

When I was a child, I used to love the Sid & Marty Krofft TV show Land of the Lost (anyone else remember Doctor Shrinker, The Lost Saucer, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Wonder Bug?).  Mr. Gerrold was responsible for the creation of the Sleestak race on that show (unclear whether he was also responsible for the character Enik, whose race ultimately turns into the Sleestaks).

I also liked the Star Trek:TOS episode The Trouble with Tribbles.  Mr. Gerrold was responsible for that as well.  In the foreword to the book, Robert J. Sawyer confirmed my suspicion that the Tribbles were actually a homage to the Martian flat cats in Robert. A Heinlein's The Rolling Stones juvenile novel.  Mr. Sawyer - thank you for this validation.

In the past, I have sought out books by authors responsible for various movie scripts and TV episodes.  So, the fact that I've never read anything by Mr. Gerrold is very strange indeed.  Perhaps this is due to these things being from my childhood, which seems very far in the background now.

A friend recommended this book several years ago, and stated it was his favorite time travel story.  At the time, I didn't feel like shelling out $12 US for a book that was less than 150 pages in length.  Recently, I was able to get this book for under $3 for my kindle, so it got moved to the front of my reading list.

The story starts off in a very interesting way, and reminded me of Philip K. Dick's Paycheck short story - there's no introduction to any characters, and we just jump right in.  You could say that the story begins in a confusing way.

It begins with this line:  IN THE BOX was a belt.  And a manuscript.

Then there is a divider in the text - three dots - and the story begins with the central character, Daniel talking in the first person about his Uncle Jim.  I had to assume that this text was the start of the manuscript, and I didn't think much of it.  But then, there are several areas where the divider of three dots appears in the text.  I still didn't think much of it, assuming that these were like chapter breaks, and I just kept reading.

The story had several unexpected turns, and deals with time travel differently than many other stories I've read, particularly in the realm of paradoxes.  I found the escapades of this time traveler very interesting and entertaining.

And then...somewhere around the middle of the story, things started to get strange.

If you have read the book:  I'm not talking about the sexual themes that develop.  Back in 1973, when this book was first published, these themes must have been pretty controversial.  In my book, this adds Mr. Gerrold to the "pushing the envelope pioneering ranks" (Bravo!) alongside Philip Jose Farmer (for some of his stories in Strange Relations, such as The Lovers, and his Secrets of the Nine series with Doc Caliban and Lord Grandrith - pastiche's of Doc Savage and Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, respectively), Ursula K. Le Guin (for The Left Hand of Darkness, which includes a race of hermaphrodites), and Robert A. Heinlein (for Stranger in a Strange Land, with its free love and communal living aspects).

I've never had any problem with this kind of subject matter in novels.

No, I'm referring to the point in the book where it started to became somewhat difficult for me to keep straight what was going on.  And I started having questions about who wrote this manuscript, and I even started to wonder if there was actually more than one author.  It was getting a little surreal, and it was becoming difficult for me to determine what these chapter separators indicated.

Anyway, I continued reading, and the story became even more complex, and covered some really interesting territory.  Ultimately, I felt I could see where this story was going to end up, and as it turns out, I guessed right, so there wasn't much surprise for me when the end was reached.

I did enjoy this book quite a bit, but by the time I finished, I felt that there were some unanswered questions with regard to the manuscript itself, and I had difficulty understanding how it ended up being written.  The treatment of paradoxes in the story might help explain some of this, but I couldn't wrap my head around it.  It may be that I was just very tired when reading this portion of the book, but I found it very confusing.

But, I suppose this can be expected with a time travel story.  I've read many time travel stories over the last several decades, including Downtiming the Night Side, by Jack L. Chalker.  This was also a very involved, and potentially confusing story.  In the Authors Note, Chalker called out the complexity of the story as the main reason he would never write a time travel story again.

Something I really liked about this edition of the book is that it was updated in the 2000's.  The description of some of the events that Daniel witnesses occurred decades after this book was first published, and it adds a nice touch to the story.

Ultimately, this was a good read, and no reader will be able to see the direction in which things are heading for a while.  If you like time travel stories, this is a good one to try to wrap your head around. and this one contains a very unique and original treatment of time travel that I expect will be very different from anything you have seen or read before.

Book Review: CyberStorm, by Matthew Mather

This book was not what I expected, and that is not a bad thing.

With a name like CyberStorm, and the words "full scale cyber attack" on the back cover, I immediately had visions of the movie Live Free or Die Hard.  That is, a hacker bent on revenge is slowly bringing down the Internet and the power grid.  Enter Bruce Willis, who works with Justin Long and Kevin Smith to put a stop to the villains master plan, complete with over-the-top action sequences and the impossible physics of gravity defying stunts.

This is not that kind of story.

Well, it really is - but not told from the perspective of a Bruce Willis action-hero character.  This story is told from the viewpoint of an ordinary man in New York City.  A man who tries to survive this attack with his family and friends - with a major snowstorm occurring a the same time.  I don't believe there have been many attempts to tell a story like this before, in a novel or in a movie (I haven't seen the film The Day After Tomorrow, but that might be close - though without the cyber attack).  This was quite a different tale from anything I've read before.

Imagine the scenario.

First, your smart phone is no longer able to access the Internet consistently, and it gets slower.  Next, you are unable to send/receive text messages or listen to voice mails.  You can't reach your spouse on the phone, and their "errand" is taking way longer than you expected.

Then your internet connection on your laptop is slow and flaky, so you have no access to email and either limited or non-existent access to web pages, so you aren't getting any news of what is going on.  Then you realize that you have now lost contact with your spouse for several hours and a major snowstorm has begun.  Then the news starts reporting plane crashes, virus outbreaks, and there are rumors of non-US vehicles in US airspace.  Of course, you can verify none of this - you can't tell what is happening outside due to the storm.  All you have is the vague speculations being reported on CNN.

Then, things get even worse.

The power goes out.  It briefly comes back, but then goes out for good.  The storm becomes a blizzard.  Now you are trapped in your Manhattan apartment with no heat, limited food, and no access to information aside from the vague, unverifiable reports you get from the radio.

The snow starts to accumulate to a depth of 1 - 2 feet and is not showing any sign of letting up.  The temperature drops much lower than expected for the time of year.  There is widespread panic, and nobody seems to know what is going on.  As if things weren't bad enough, let's heap a little more misfortune on the characters - at the same time, you start to have family problems, leading to trust issues, adding an additional dimension to the survival challenge.

Would you be prepared if this unlikely scenario occurred tomorrow?  And, to make matters worse, you live on Manhattan Island with millions of other people.

This story contains elements of The Walking Dead TV show.  No, not the zombies!  (Story idea:  Zombie Cyber Apocalypse - words that have never been strung together before!)  No, I'm referring to the drama of survival.  Trying to survive in competition (mostly for resources like food, medicine, and heating fuel) with others who are also trying to survive - perhaps at the expense of others.  In this case, people who live in your building, perhaps on the same floor, or on a different floor, and the people you might encounter on the street.  Who do you trust?  Who do you really know?  Who can you count on when the chips are down?

This was a great read involving a new kind of war - Cyber War.  A cyber attack that takes out the entire infrastructure of the United States.  This is a horrifying concept.

One of the things I really liked about this story was that there were no John McClane hero-type characters.  These are everyday, ordinary, fragile, people who are concerned about their family - just like those of us in the real world (I think this is one of the reasons that The Walking Dead is so popular - the characters aren't heroes, and they have real problems).

This story reminds me of a statement that was made in the James Cameron movie The Terminator.  The character Kyle Reese states the following about who started the war in his future:

"Defense network computers.  New...powerful...hooked into everything, trusted to run it all."

This was back in 1984.  At least ten years ago, if not longer, a friend tried out a new oven that was Internet accessible.  You could place it in refrigeration-mode, put a turkey inside, and leave it there.  Hours later, you could connect to it via a web browser from your office and start the cooking process so that it would be ready when you got home.  Within the last 5 years I have also seen commercials for applications that you can use from your smart phone to turn off the lights and lock doors to your house from a remote location.

So, if baby monitors with wireless cameras can be hacked, then why not these applications?  If the entire power grid and defense network is Internet accessible, why couldn't that be hacked as well?

The Internet was originally designed back in the early 1990's - but not with security in mind.  Security has evolved as a bunch of features added on top of the Internet structure for decades, but security issues continue to be found (Windows 10 just had a security vulnerability revealed recently by Google).  Attaching critical systems to a network like this seems like a really bad idea.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to be on the edge of their seat while witnessing this terrifying world of speculative possibility.  At the time of the writing of this review, Twitter and several other services were taken down by a Distributed Denial of Service attack on the Dyn DNS servers, which have apparently been probed for months to determine potential weaknesses.

It kind of makes you wonder - is CyberStorm just a work of fiction?  Or could this nightmare scenario actually be played out someday?

Trashed, by Derf Backderf

This cover of this book immediately caught my eye in the bookstore.  It just seemed like it would be an entertaining read, and it definitely was.  But this book is more than just entertaining.  This book draws on the authors prior experience as a garbage man in the years 1979 - 1980, and attempts to raise awareness of the huge problem that garbage has become in our world.  That's not something you would normally expect of a graphic novel.

First, let's talk about the story itself.  J.B, the central character, starts the story being harassed by his mother to take the garbage out.  He ends up making a mess out at the curb and decides that the garbage man can take care of it.  Little does he know that this will come full circle - he ends up becoming one of the two new garbage men in his town, and needs to deal with messes more disgusting than the one that he left for the previous garbage man.  He quickly quickly comes to realize that it is a thankless job, and that there are major problems with our waste management strategies.

The escapades of J.B. and his cohorts are very entertaining, funny, and sometimes they are downright nasty (after reading this, you won't want to piss off your garbage collector).  The story line in general is fairly familiar, and somewhat parallels the movie Backdraft (a rookie firefighter has a rough time after starting out, gains experience in a very traumatic way, and ultimately becomes a seasoned firefighter, and ends up right where he started, ready to show the ropes to the next rookie).

Second, there is the factual part of the story, which is provided in sections throughout the book.  This is the most sobering part of the story, and I found some of it very disturbing.  One of the first disturbing facts is that not much has changed in waste management since 1980.  This book was published in 2015, so let's call it 2013 to allow time for writing - that is still 30+ years with very little advancement.

When I was a young child, we used to take yard waste to the dump in my town, which had its own incinerator, and for years everything was burned.  I don't remember when, but at some point that changed.  The incinerator was shut down and was simply used as a collection place, and all of our waste was trucked to another town and that was pretty much all I knew about it - I assumed it was being burned in an incinerator in another town.

After I graduated from college and moved out of my parents house, I learned that our garbage went into a landfill.  It is interesting that I learned this once my town started curbside recycling.  This was the year they first came out with those small blue bins, and there were many restrictions on what could be recycled (I remember bottled drinks like the coffee drink Capio being a particular pain, since the bottle caps left a metal ring around the bottle which you needed to clip off before it could be recycled).  Anyway, MASSPIRG (Massachusetts Student Public Interest Research Group) came around with a petition for people to sign, because they found out that recyclables which were now being picked up separately from garbage were actually still going into a landfill instead of being recycled.  That was the first I had heard of a landfill, and I was in my early 20's.

This book revealed details that I never would have guessed.  I know that over the least 20 years we

have increasingly become more of a "throw away" society - you see it everywhere (if you can name it, there's probably a disposable version of it).  But, apparently we started this process way back in 1960 - over 50 years ago!  It hadn't taken full hold yet when I was a child.  I remember getting milk delivered in glass bottles, which then got exchanged for full bottles at the next delivery - they may not have been recycled, but they were definitely reused.   We also used to get Charles Chips potato chips (see picture) in a big metal tin, which I imagine must have been recycled back then (or at least reused).

But, just take a look at how things are today:

• Plastic bags are used by most stores (particularly grocery stores, but CVS, book stores, department stores, etc. all primarily use plastic).  If not recycled, they end up in a landfill, and lets face it, remembering to recycle them is a pain.
• Soda/seltzer/juice bottles are all plastic - you need to take them back to be recycled, or recycle them at your curb, or they end up as garbage.  Many of these do get recycled, but at various events involving many people in a public place, they most likely just get thrown out.  It is getting better, but not where it should be.  Note that hundreds of millions of these bottles get used, and they have been around a long time.
• Plastic utensils, plates, cups - all of which are recyclable.  But, when you attend a party, how much of this do you see get actually get washed and recycled rather than being thrown out?
• Everything is made disposable these days - plastic razors, condiment packets and bottles (ketchup, mustard, relish, BBQ sauces), toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, etc.
• Food scraps - we should be keeping these for compost, but much of it ends up in the garbage or down the sink disposal system.

Things are improving, but slowly.  These days, we have large bins (30 - 50 gallon size) that we leave at the bottom of our driveways for both trash and recycling, which get picked up by a semi-automated truck.  We recycle more and more every year, but it barely makes a dent in the amount of garbage we are producing.  As of a 2013 study, we are only recycling 29% of our 389 million tons of garbage produced every year.  Check out the pie chart to the left to see the distribution of our garbage.  An alarming amount of it - almost 30% - is just packaging that most of our stuff comes in.  Some of that can be recycled, but packing materials like Styrofoam, or those plastic bubbles that are filled with air, cannot be recycled.  The percentage of materials that cannot be recycled is also alarmingly high - over 20% consists of things that cannot be recycled, like diapers.  But, another 20% called "durable goods" contains items that can be recycled to some degree - but not if they are left out at the curbside to be collected by the garbage man.

Some other interesting facts (I won't reveal them all):

• Wealthier people produce more garbage (this is somewhat counter-intuitive, but is apparently true).
• The average person produces 5.06 pounds of garbage every day, which amounts to 1,874 pounds every year.
• Roadkill is included in garbage pickup in many areas - 129 million dead critters every year.  I had no idea this was handled by garbage crews.
• Garbage collection is the 6th most dangerous job (the top 5 include loggers, fisherman, pilots, roofers, and iron workers, in some order).  It is interesting that policeman and fireman don't make the top 6!
• Yellow torpedoes. I won't reveal what this one is - either read this book or research it on your own, but it is a major problem in many states.
• Landfills can be up to 400 feet deep, and one of the largest covers over 2,000 acres of land.
• Many landfills don't have sufficient regulation and safety precautions, and all of them (even the most recent ones) are leaking toxic chemicals into the environment that could poison a water supply.

Ultimately, the only way to put a major dent into the amount of garbage produced is to stop producing so much, meaning buying and using less stuff, and recycling what we do use.  It seems clear that there is a long road ahead of us.  Can we make things better?

This book is an alarming testament to our legacy of destruction on this planet, and reveals things that most of us have no clue about in our daily lives - we take it for granted that things are properly handled.  This is an entertaining story that opens your eyes to the harsh realities of the world we live in.  I think this is a story that everyone should read.