Posts

Showing posts from 2013

ENDER'S GAME (The Ender Quintet #1) by Orson Scott Card

Image
I decided to take the plunge and see what all of the hype was about. Originally published in 1985. Winner of the Nebula Award (1985). Winner of the Hugo Award (1986). Ender's Game is a classic and I had not read it until now. Why? I don't know. I was reading a lot of science fiction when it came out, but I just missed it. Of course, I couldn't miss all of the sequels and prequels that came in the ensuing years but I figured that I was just too far behind to catch up.  But, when the movie came out this fall a cousin of mine told me that he had gone to see it because he read it multiple times as a kid and loved it. So, I decided to take the plunge and see what all of the hype was about. The positives: Orson Scott Card. Photo by Nihonjoe -Orson Scott Card creates an interesting, integrated universe to tell this story. It holds together well and has a solid internal consistency. -The descriptions of the command school battles and the way that the command sch

THE DROP (Harry Bosch #17) by Michael Connelly

Image
Published in 2011 by Little, Brown and Company I am a big fan of the Harry Bosch series, having read 15 of the 16 books in the series and given all but one top marks. The Drop continues that excellent trend. This is a gritty mystery story (really, it is two mysteries) with a number of twists and turns and a morally ambiguous ending. Michael Connelly. Photo by Mark Coggins Bosch is part of the D.R.O.P program - the Deferred Retirement Option Plan. This allows police officers to work up to five years past their mandatory retirement age, with the department making the decision as to how long he will work. When the story starts Harry has 3 years left in the DROP program and he is working cold murder cases with a young partner named David Chu.  Harry sees the end of his career coming and he wants to get as many cases solved as he can. When a DNA hit on a rape/murder from the late 1980s points to a convicted child molester who would have been nine years old when the victim was

QUINN CHECKS IN (Liam Quinn #1) by L.H. Thomson

Image
Originally published in 2013. From the opening lines of Quinn Checks In I was hooked. Literally, the opening sequence was so cleverly done that I knew I had see what else L.H. Thomson (new to me, but he has a good-sized list of titles) had to offer in this book.  Liam Quinn is an artist gone bad but then turned back to the good. He used to make money making copies of someone else's art and then selling it as the real thing. But, once he was caught and went to prison he straightened out and now works as an insurance investigator in his hometown of Philadelphia. He does a little bit of everything but he is really on the payroll as the art expert. He is also working off the court-ordered restitution for his criminal past. But, things are not all wonderful for Liam Quinn. His father was a beat cop and one of his brothers still is. It is hard for a cop to have an ex-con brother. But, Quinn keeps on plugging along. Quinn gets a big art case that comes with a big reward for h

DANCE HALL of the DEAD (Joe Leaphorn #2) (audiobook) by Tony Hillerman

Image
Originally published in 1973. Audiobook version released in 2005 by Harper Audio. Read by George Guidall. Duration: Approximately 6 hours. Unabridged. Winner of the 1974 Edgar Award, Dance Hall of the Dead is an early entry in the Leaphorn series and is one of the best. Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police is called into a case that technically occurred on the Zuni reservation but there is a Navajo involved. Ernesto Cata, a middle school-aged Zuni boy and his friend George Bowlegs are missing. All that is left behind is an immense amount of blood that makes it clear that one or both of the boys died. Joe is brought in by the FBI who is coordinating a joint FBI/Zuni/Navajo task force to find the boys. Leaphorn has the feeling that the Zunis think the Navajo boy killed the Zuni boy and he has just been brought in to lead a manhunt as far as the Zunis are concerned. The FBI makes it clear that they think it is related to drug trafficking and they think the boys were ju

REDLINERS by David Drake

Image
Published in 1996 by Baen David Drake is well-known for his various series of military science fiction books. Redliners is a rare stand-alone book for this prolific author.  There is a struggle between humanity and an alien species called the Kalendru. The Kalendru are similarly built to people, more slender and covered with fur. But, unlike people they cannot conceive of the idea that humans and Kalendru can coexist as equals since their own society has no such concept. They have a definite pecking order within their own society and they want to put humans below the Kalendru in the galactic pecking order. Strike Force Company C41 is roughly analogous to an American Special Forces unit - they are elite soldiers, they are sent in when the situation is nigh-well impossible and in this case, Strike Force Company C41 is pretty much used up after an attempt to create a beach head during an aborted attack on a Kalendru planet. The soldiers are tired and suffering from combat fati

HAVANA QUEEN by James Bruno

Image
What will happen to Cuba when the Castro brothers are gone? Published in 2013. James Bruno was a diplomat and a member of military intelligence. He served in Cuba during his career, a fact that makes his current offering pop with a realistic feel (and has irritated official Cuba since their official newspapers have attacked him for this book. See links in blog post here:  link.  ) Havana Queen features a Cuba dealing with the impending deaths of the Castro brothers. Considering that they have been the leaders of Cuba for more than half a century it would not be unreasonable to expect the transition to a post-Castro Cuba to be a rocky one. The book works best when it features the unrest of the Cuban people due to their pent-up demands for food and even the simple the freedom to express themselves about the regime's ability to maintain the infrastructure of the country. The characters to arise from this part of the story - a young military officer, a blogger, a older war

SCARCITY: WHY HAVING TOO LITTLE MEANS SO MUCH (audiobook) by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir

Image
Published by Simon and Schuster in 2013 Read by Robert Petkoff Duration: 8 hours, 47 minutes. I teach in a public high school that is in the midst of transforming from a suburban/affluent to an urban/poverty school. I currently teach Spanish but I am also licensed to teach several social studies classes including economics. While this hardly makes me an economist, it does mean that I know enough about economics to make me dangerous to myself. I always think that it is interesting when economists take on non-traditional topics, like the Freakonomics guys do. In this case Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir look at the effect of scarcity on impulse control, poverty, time management, dieting and lonely people. Kids at my school have a horrible time with impulse control, poverty and time management so I was hooked when the authors started to look at how scarcity affects these behaviors. Through a series of studies (theirs and others) they demonstrate that people who are fina

47 RONIN (audiobook) by John Allyn

Image
Originally published in 1970. Audiobook version published in 2013 by HighBridge Audio. Read by David Shih Duration: 7 hours, 34 minutes. Based on historical facts, the story of the 47 Ronin is a very popular one in Japan that has been told and re-told hundreds of times in books, plays, films, manga and more. A friend of mine that teaches Japanese compared it to the tale of King Arthur in England in that some versions feature magic, some extra characters, some are longer and some are shorter but there are some things that are consistent in every version. Of course, not being Japanese, Westerners often miss some of the power of the story. John Allyn's knowledge of the language, his time in Japan during the Post-World War II occupation and his extensive experience with theater made him a fairly unique talent to present this story to Westerners. Allyn explains quite a bit as he tells the story , including items that would not have to be explained to native Japanese. It is

VIGILANTE (Jessica Daniel #2) by Kerry Wilkinson

Published in July of 2013 by Thomas and Mercer Kerry Wilkinson has done what almost all of Amazon's self-published authors have dreamed of - he has published a Kindle e-book, outsold the established names and got the attention of mainstream publishing houses and won himself a publishing contract.   While this series is not life-changing literature, I found it to be better than the latest offerings that I have read by much more established authors such as Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson. In the second book of this series Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel is searching for a serial killer. But, there are people who don't seem to care too much if she actually catches this murderer since the only people he kills are criminals. While vigilantes are officially discouraged, more than one police officer notes that this murderer is making their jobs easier. The DNA results make everything all the more confusing because the results point to a man who would be a great suspec

JACK IRISH (Set #1) DVD

Image
This will be of interest to fans of brooding mysteries Guy Pearce (the villain in Iron Man 3 ) plays Jack Irish in this Australian mystery show. Jack Irish is a former prosperous defense lawyer who lost his wife when a past client came to his office to argue about how his case was defended in court. Jack Irish tells his wife to leave the office and head for the car and he will meet her after he and his client talk a bit. Instead, the client follows his wife out to the car, shoots and kills her and then kills himself right in front of Irish. Irish's life goes into a tailspin. Now,he spends his time woodworking, drinking,doing a bit of bill collecting and gambling. But, sometimes the right case comes along and he gets motivated to really care about something that matters again... I was honestly not impressed by Guy Pearce in Iron Man 3 , but I thought he hit all of the right notes in his portrayal of Jack Irish. His new (and seedy) friends are there to help as well and t

STAR WARS: JEDI ACADEMY by Jeffrey Brown

Image
  A Unique Entry Into an Crowded Field Published by Scholastic in August of 2013. If you have read the Diary of a Wimpy Kid or the James Patterson Middle School series you get how this book is designed. The twist is that Roan Novachez is a middle school student from Tatooine who really wants to get into Pilot Academy Middle School (much like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode IV ). If you were trying to place this book in the timeline of the Star Wars movies it would be about 200 years before the events of Return of the Jedi based on Yoda's stated age. Anyway, Roan does not get into the Pilot Academy but Yoda extends a special invitation for him to come to the Coruscant Jedi Academy. He is the newest student and has the traditional new student problems at a middle school (finding friends, figuring out your teachers, finding your classrooms and so on) plus he has additional problems such as trying to understand what his Wookie gym teacher is saying and figure out how to

RUSH REVERE and the BRAVE PILGRIMS: TIME-TRAVEL ADVENTURES with EXCEPTIONAL AMERICANS (audiobook) by Rush Limbaugh

Image
Published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. Read by the author, Rush Limbaugh. Duration: 4 hours, 31 minutes This is bound to irritate some listeners of Rush who may not read any more than the simple fact that I was not impressed by this book. Let my establish my bona fides right off. I have been a semi-regular listener to Rush since 1991 when I heard his parody song about Ted Kennedy called "I'm a philanderer" to the tune of Dion's "I'm a Wanderer." I have read Rush's books. I remember his TV show, if you look at my reviews you will see that I'm fairly well-read in Conservative literature and I even have a subscription to National Review. That being said, I cannot say that I was a fan of this book. I am a history teacher and I really have no problem with the history Rush presented. The book is about the Puritans, the Mayflower, their trip across the ocean and their first year in the New World. It was a bit simplistic and did not go into m

THE LIBERTY AMENDMENTS: RESTORING the AMERICAN REPUBLIC (audiobook) by Mark R. Levin

Image
Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in August of 2013. Narrated by Jason Culp. Opening and closing chapters read by Mark R. Levin. Duration: 6 hours, 54 minutes. For the past several years Conservative commentator Mark R. Levin has been laying out his arguments that demonstrate the government is over-reaching its Constitutional limitations in a series of books. He has discussed the Supreme Court in Men in Black , the roots of statist politics in Liberty and Tyranny and pointed out the ongoing actions of statists in Ameritopia . Now, in The Liberty Amendments , Levin details how he would address the problem using a series of Constitutional amendments. Since it is unlikely that the current crop of Senators and Representatives would vote to amend the Constitution and limit their power, Levin urges the states to initiate the process by calling for a national convention. Mark R. Levin His proposed amendments include: -Term limits for Congress (12 years); -Repeal t

OVERTIME in the WOODS (short story) (kindle) by Ryan Sean O'Reilly

  Published in 2013 as an e-short story in kindle format. Estimated length: 29 pages. This short story follows Rich Lacey, a private investigator who often works for insurance companies and investigates people who claim to have been physically disabled at work  but who are actually just fine. He is tracking a man named Rufus Stumford in the back woods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula who is suspected of faking a back injury claim. Usually, Lacey works in the city, but the Stumford case looks so obvious. The problem? He lives out in the real wild country - well out of cell phone range and out of Lacey's comfort zone. But, Lacey has a case to prove. He has illegally placed a homing device on Stumford's truck and has illegally trespassed to get good pictures of Stumford at work at his cabin - splitting and hauling wood. But, what happens when Lacey actually meets Stumford makes him question the justice of what he does for a living... This short story was well done - it

AMERICA'S PROPHET: MOSES and the AMERICAN STORY by Bruce Feiler

Image
Published in 2009 by William Morrow (HarperCollins) I love the premise of America's Prophet - that America has a special connection with the story of Moses beginning with the Puritans and going right up through Martin Luther King, Jr. He lays out the correlations with some skill but, in the end it just started to drag. This review (and the book, to a lesser extent) is helped by a basic knowledge of the story of Moses. Feiler provides the necessary background on Moses and then proceeds to make comparisons. For example, the Puritans saw themselves as fleeing a domineering power (England) and taking refuge in the wilderness (New England) like the Children of Israel fled the Pharaoh and went into the Sinai. The Puritans took comfort in the story of Moses because they believed that they would also be led by God. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the "March on Washington" A slight change in interpretation and Moses becomes an inspiring symbol for the Americans in the

WHO OWNS THE FUTURE (audiobook) by Jaron Lanier

Image
Published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. Read by Pete Simonelli Duration: 12 hours, 2 minutes Computer expert (to say the least, the man was a pioneer in the field of virtual reality and was at the ground floor in multiple Silicon Valley projects and companies) Jaron Lanier discusses possible futures of the economy and the online community in this rambling, interesting audiobook. The author, Jaron Lanier Lanier spends quite a bit of time discussing what he calls Siren Servers. Siren Servers are massive collectors of data such as search engine sites, credit bureaus, the NSA, and some very large retail sites. These servers collect "free" data from you that is provided by tracking your searches, purchases, phone calls or GPS location on your cell phones and sell it to advertisers. Facebook is a sterling example. Lanier believes that you should be reimbursed for this information through a series of hundreds or even thousands of micropayments which would be used to

A FATE WORSE THAN DRAGONS by John Moore

Fair to Middling   Published by Ace Fantasy in 2007 There is a market out there for parodies of the traditional King Arthur/Lord of the Rings fantasy stories. Some are quite excellent, such as the The Princess Bride and the Xanth novels. Some are just so-so, like this one. The book is about Terry, a knight trying to win the hand of Princess Gloria. He actually kills a dragon, but it took place in the wrong kingdom. When he returns home he discovers Gloria is now engaged to the son of one of richest men in the kingdom (his family invented sliced bread). Terry and Gloria decide to fake the kidnapping of Princess Gloria so that Terry can "rescue" her. Of course, none of it works out the way that it is supposed to... The problem with this book is that it is just so-so funny. Not that it doesn't have its moments. The running joke about people being afraid of sliced bread (because it is unnatural, etc.) was cute, but the long discussions about the rules concerning

DOCTOR SLEEP: A NOVEL (Sequel to The Shining) (audiobook) by Stephen King

Image
       A Tour De Force Published in 2013 by Simon and Schuster Read by Will Patton  Duration: 18 hours, 35 minutes I am an occasional reader of Stephen King. When I was younger I used to be an enthusiastic fan of all things Stephen King, but I took a break (about 15 years) and have slowly come back to the Stephen King fold, picking through some of what I missed, listening to his short stories as audiobooks and sometimes reading a book as it comes out. In this case, I am very glad that I did not hem and haw over this one. It is a tour de force of how to write horror, human frailty, human resilience and the power of friendship and love. Throw in the amazing performance by reader (and veteran actor - he is the coach in high school football movie Remember the Titans ) Will Patton and this audiobook is an experience that must not be missed. Stephen King As already noted in the title of this review, Doctor Sleep is the sequel to the classic novel The Shining. I read it many, ma

TIM RUSSELL: MAN of a THOUSAND VOICES (A Prairie Home Companion) (audiobook)

  Published in September of 2013 by HighBridge Audio. Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes Multi-cast Performance NPR's "A Prairie Home Companion" has an extensive collection of audio CDs based on lots of different themes, including skits that highlight certain regular actors on the show. This CD focuses on  T im Russell , an actor with a real talent for mimicking celebrities and an admirable repertoire of original characters to draw upon. He has been a member of the cast since 1994.  This CD has 19 different tracks that were broadcast from 1996-2012. Some are laugh-out-loud funny, some are merely amusing, and a couple are just okay (I am not a fan of "Guy Noir" or "The Lives of the Cowboys" - these are two recurring and popular skits that feature Russell) . To be fair, Russell figures prominently in the collection of highlights featuring fellow cast member Sue Scott and I think she got the funnier bits on her CD.  Altogether, this is still a very solid hou