DWD's Reviews

Wow. I Was So Primed to Like This Book... Published in 2002 by Perennial (HarperCollins) But...I should have read the back cover a little better. Right at the top is the Ring around the rosies children's nonsense song: Ring-a-round the rosie, A pocket full of posies, Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down. This is followed by the assertion: "a children's rhyme about the Black Death." Sadly, this is not true and I have known this since the late 1980s when I was doing my undergraduate studies at Indiana University. Why sadly? Because this would have been such a cool fact! I am a high school history teacher and it would be great to able to say, "Look! Here's a children's rhyme we all know and it has this collection to the Black Plague - see how this historical event reverberates through time and even touches our lives now?" Yeah. That would have been cool. And it is a fact that Norman F. Cantor (1929-2004), a leading medievalist shoul

Originally published in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction in 1938. Re-published in e-book format by Galaxy Press in 2010. On the internet you can find rumors that this was L. Ron Hubbard's first science fiction story. Purportedly, the editor was looking for something that was breezy, funny and easy-to-read. I have no idea if this really true, but this short story is certainly all of those things. Sadly, it's just not a very good short story. Dr. Henry Mudge has worked out the mathematics of how to transport oneself instantly from one place to another just by imagining that place. He calls this formula Equation C. But, controlling your mind enough to use this technique is difficult. Try not to think of a place when you hear someone talk about it. So, when someone says a place to Dr. Mudge he goes there, including the moon and Mars. Meanwhile, he is supposed to be giving a major presentation at his university to a group of professors if he can just get there

Originally published in 1938 in "Five-Novels Monthly" magazine Re-published by Galaxy Press in 2011. I read this as a kindle e-book, which seemed sort of appropriate considering L. Ron Hubbard's standing as a world class science fiction author. When this story was originally written in 1938 my standard-issue Kindle HD tablet would seem to be nothing short of science fiction.  You may not be aware that Hubbard wrote plenty of westerns back in the days of pulp serial magazines (and long before his name became synonymous with Scientology). His familiarity with western life came from his childhood in Montana when Montana was still only a few steps away from its rough-and-tumble cowboy past. Branded Outlaw is an all out Western adventure with all of the familiar elements fans of Westerns are readily familiar with. Lee Weston is coming from Wyoming after being summoned by his father to his ranch in New Mexico. When he arrives he finds his father dead and a smolderi

Published in 2013. In his sophomore effort author James Blakley introduces a new character but stays in familiar territory. His previous book, The Steel Deal , featured a private investigator that stumbled into something much larger than he had imagined when he took a case, In The K-Frost Caper  Luna Nightcrow, a Cherokee insurance investigator from Oklahoma, is sent to Miami to look into a suspicious life insurance application. It seems that the company paid out life insurance money a few years ago for the drowning death of a man with the unlikely name of Kelvin Frost. His body was never recovered and now a person was applying for more life insurance in Miami with the same unlikely name.  The Miami Skyline. Photo by Marc Averette The company, Charmed Life Mutual, already sent one investigator but he has dropped off the grid so Luna Nightcrow is sent to investigate this Kelvin Frost person and find the other investigator. But, when she arrives in Miami she discovers that t

Just Does Not Live Up to the Promise of Its Title Published by Endeavour Press Ltd. in 2013 Estimated length: 361 pages I am a huge student of the Civil War. I own more than one hundred books (fiction and non-fiction) on the topic, a fact that my wife tolerates but only sort of understands. I think that there is something to be learned in well-researched historical fiction as well as the history texts because excellent historical fiction has the ability to place the reader in someone's shoes at the moment. Taking on the topic of the Civil War in historical fiction can be a thankless undertaking - misstate the caliber of a weapon and the purists are all over you. Go on about slavery too much and the revisionists are after you. Fail to mention it at all and everyone else is after you. I thought Frye did just fine with all of those aspects in this book. I read nothing that did not seem correct as far as the details went.  The book is about a Confederate General named Willi

This is a list of the best of the best of the 101 books and short stories that I read or listened to in 2013. They did not have to be released in 2013. I broke the books into several categories. The reviews are linked.  * indicates the best book in that category. Fiction books: * Breaking Point (Joe Pickett #13) by C.J. Box His Majesty's Dragon (Temeriare #1) by Naomi Novak Suspect by Robert Crais Unthinkable (Jane Candiotti and Kenny Marks #4) by Clyde Phillips Short Story: * That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone Overtime in the Woods by Ryan Sean O'Reilly Sledge by Ernie Lindsey Cage Life by Karin Cox Non-Fiction books: * Under the Wire: Bestselling World War II of an American Spitfire Pilot and Legendary POW Escape Artist  by William Ash and Brendan Foley A Dream So Big: Our Unlikely Journey to End the Tears of Hunger by Steve Peiffer with Gregg Lewis A Portrait of Jesus  by Joseph F. Girzone Blood and Smoke: A T