NATURE’S BEST HOPE – Douglas W. Tallamay

Posted by Daniel on March 27, 2020
Posted in: NON-FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’ve read a few books that bring to light environmental concerns with proposals for how to turn things around. But usually those plans are larger than I’m comfortable taking on, or, I’m sad to admit, more time-consuming than I’m really willing to give.

In Douglas W. Tallamy’s Nature’s Best Hope, the answers to to restoring an eco-system are right in our own back yards. Literally.

A good portion of the book is Tallamy addressing the problems and how the problems started (no surprise – it’s us). While intellectually I knew some of this (home yard care and looking good for the neighborhood, for instance) it was a good reminder as to what kind of havoc a little vanity might be causing.

The biggest problem that I usually have this kind of book is that they tend to be depressing … problem, problem, problem, we’re in trouble … and then the ‘solutions’ are typically out of reach for the average person, or they involve an extraordinary change in one’s personal behavior or habits. But while the problems are well addressed (in this layman’s eyes, anyway) here and thorough, what I appreciated most were some of the potential solutions to the problems.

While the idea of “Homegrown Nation Parks” is a little bit gimmicky, the idea is easy to remember and is ultimately a useful tool.  The idea is, in a nutshell, to restore our yards to to their natural environments. But just in case even this is too much (or possibly forbidden by homeowners associations), Tallamy encourages taking a corner of a yard and putting in native plants even if they aren’t the prettiest (or what the local landscaper recommends). The native plant could bring back native insects, which bring back native birds and wildlife.

It’s a pretty simplistic approach but that’s precisely what I like about this book.  It isn’t filled with doom and gloom and it presents a do-able plan that should make us feel good about doing something positive.

Looking for a good book? Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy is a backyard, encouraging, can-do environmental book.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard

author: Douglas W. Tallamy

publisher: Timber Press

ISBN: 1604699000

hardcover, 256 pages

WHAT HAPPENS AT THE TAVERN STAYS AT THE TAVERN – Jennifer Levine, editor

Posted by Daniel on March 25, 2020
Posted in: OTHER, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Erotica.  Epic fantasy (ala Robert E. Howard, or Lin Carter, or J.R.R. Tolkein). Encounters in a tavern.  What’s not to like?

I’ve only read a little bit of erotica and most of it has not been very memorable. This caught my eye because of the fantasy element.  I’ve been a fan of this kind of fantasy (we used to refer to it as Sword & Sorcery) since I was in high school, though I haven’t read much in the genre recently.

The focus here is really on the erotica and the tavern/fantasy element is really just a gimmick to write some sex stories. … But that’s okay, because it works.

It’s a thin book at just over 125 pages, and there are only six short stories included here, but if you enjoy erotica, or are even curious about it, and you also enjoy fantasy books, then consider giving this a try.

This book contains the following:

Introduction

“Encounter at the Lonely Dragon” by Elinor Gray : This is a male/male erotic story, which is a very interesting way to start an anthology, because that’s definitely not of interest to me. The writing is good, but the subject just didn’t work for my tastes.

“Orin’s Strand” by Vivien Jackson : Possibly my favorite story in the collection.  A ‘seer’ knows how to use her body, combined with her powers, to attract and hold a lover.

“Paget and the Princess” by Kierstin Cherry : This felt a bit obvious.  A knight is sworn to protect the virtue of a princess, but can’t resist her himself. The attempt to make this unique by creating more of a fantasy background for the characters doesn’t really help.

“The Place Where Heroes Are Made” by Sarah Ellis : This was interesting and clever.  A family-run tavern with a long history of serving and servicing the wandering warriors with every possible sexual delight so that the doomed warriors won’t leave the earth childless.

“Crystalline Sorcery” by Julie Cox : A female warrior has experienced battle as a man would, and now wants to experience sex as a man would. This story features female/female sex as well as human/elf sex (is that a taboo?). Actually a pretty clever story and well done (I’m a guy, and the lesbian angle didn’t bother me the way the male gay sex story did).

“Flings and Arrows” by Andrea Trask : We follow Alleria, a woman who just might be able to fulfill a noted prophecy.  But to do so, she must be a virgin. Is she?  Can she stay that way? This story builds up sexual tension.

While I still think erotica is basically just porn with a fancier name so that people don’t feel weird about reading it.  But this collection shows that even erotica/porn can be moderately well written (even if the ultimate goal of the story is to have a big sex scene, described in detail.

Looking for a good book? If you want to test to try reading erotica, and you like the heroic fantasy settings in your fiction, then you should check out What Happens at the Tavern Stays at the Tavern, edited by Jennifer Levine.

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What Happens at the Tavern Stays at the Tavern: Epic Fantasy Quest Erotica

editor: Jennifer Levine

publisher: Circlet Press, Inc.

ASIN: B00A8PYU1C

ebook, 135 pages

MICROPHONES AND MURDER – Erin Huss

Posted by Daniel on March 23, 2020
Posted in: MYSTERY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Liv Olsen, and her stepsister, Camry Lewis, start their own podcast, Missing or Murdered, and for their first episode, they investigate the ten-year-old case of Amelia Clark, who went disappeared after an embarrassing video of her went viral a decade ago. Money for a first episode is pretty tight and they don’t have a lot of time to spend researching the old case, but when they start getting threats warning them to back off, they suspect that they are getting too close, which of course gives them more incentive to stay on the case.

The idea of using a podcast as motivation for researching old cases is certainly clever (it seems that most mysteries have a ‘gimmick’ that gets people looking in to cases that are typically reserved for police detectives) and unique (in my experience). Not being a podcast listener however, it didn’t really catch my interest as much as I had hoped.  I would have liked to have gotten a little more background on what it means to be a podcast – how do they get the word out? What does it take to produce content?  How often do they plan to produce a new episode?  Some of this is here, but it’s a mystery and most of the book is focused on answering the mystery questions.

Liv has the enthusiasm and wide-eyed innocence of a lot of modern mysteries that I’ve read. The rest of the characters blended in a bit – nobody really stood out as a unique and interest character.

Overall this was a fine read, but generally a very average fine read. I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to another book in the series, but I wouldn’t be eagerly watching for the next volume, either.

Looking for a good book? Microphones and Murder by Erin Huss is a fine mystery, but there’s not much to distinguish it from so many other fine mysteries.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Microphone and Murder

author: Erin Huss

publisher: Henery Press

ISBN13: 9781635115635

paperback, 280 pages

LIKE TO DIE – David Housewright

Posted by Daniel on March 20, 2020
Posted in: MYSTERY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

If you like hard-boiled detective fiction…. If you like the Spenser books of Robert B. Parker…. If you like good mysteries…. If you like good, solid storytelling…. Then you really should read David Housewright’s Like To Die.

Rushmore “Mac” McKenzie is a former St. Paul police detective who retired early after collecting the reward money for solving a a case while still on the force.  Now he works as a PI and helps out his friends from time to time. It is helping out friends that brings him to his next case when a poker buddy asks Mac to help a friend.

Erin Peterson is the owner of Salsa Girl Salsa, made locally and rising in popularity. But someone doesn’t seem too happy with her success. The sabotage has been simple but effective … locks around the building and on the delivery trucks have been filled with superglue. It doesn’t seem like much, but even a single day late on deliveries could mean significant losses in income for a small business trying to go big. Is it a rival business trying to keep Salsa Girl Salsa small? Is it a jealous lover? A left-in-the-cold partner? McKenzie, who takes a liking to Erin Peterson, takes on the case, but what he finds is bigger than anyone expected and Mac is going to call in a lot of favors just to stay alive.

I found this to be a really great hard-boiled detective story. McKenzie comes across as the classic tough-guy PI in this book. He gets beat up pretty hard and almost seems to enjoy it. But we have brutish thugs, car chases, explosions, and snipers in the middle of a well-plotted who-dunnit mystery. I was reminded of the Spenser novels of Robert B. Parker – tough, intelligent, with connections on the police force, connections outside the law, and a beautiful girlfriend with an unbelievable amount of trust.

This is one of the better, more exciting mysteries I’ve read in awhile now, but I did have one small issue with the a plot point.  As wise as McKenzie is, he has just a little too much trust in his client. He admits he doesn’t know anything about her, and we are reminded by another character in the book that he doesn’t know anything about her, yet he continues to work blindly for her. Even the first time it came up it raised a red flag for me, and a very clear warning when it was brought up another time.

Still, this has made me want to read all the Rushmore McKenzie novel I can get my hands on now.

Looking for a good book? If you like hard-boiled detective fiction, with tough protagonists and bad-as-can-be villains, then you really should read Like to Die by David Housewright.  It’s wonderful.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Like to Die

author: David Housewright

series: Mac McKenzie #15

publisher: Minotaur Books

ISBN: 1250094534

hardcover, 310 pages

THE PARISIANS – Marius Gabriel

Posted by Daniel on March 18, 2020
Posted in: HISTORICAL FICTION, ROMANCE, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

The Parisians by Marius Gabriel is one of those books that really took me by surprise.

Taking advantage of the Kindle Unlimited program, I often look for books that I am not sure if I would enjoy or not, but for one reason or another catch my eye. With the Kindle Unlimited program I feel I can try a book and if I’m not enjoying it I can easily stop because I haven’t made a commitment to read it. I have recently discovered that many of the books available through this program also give me access to the audio version of the book. That was the case with The Parisians and I listened to it primarily on my work commute.

Olivia Olsen is an American art student, living in Paris in the 1940’s. Although talented, she hasn’t been able to sell enough of her paintings to make a consistent living, even though one young man commissions work from her that he can hardly afford.  Meeting up with the young man at his home – he lives with his mother – Olivia accepts the friendship of the man and his mother, and her relationship with him develops into something more.  Olivia accepts the mother’s offer of help to take on a job and Olivia goes to work as a chambermaid at an elite Parisian hotel.  One of the long-term hotel guests is Coco Chanel.

Despite the French chatter of standing up to the oncoming German forces (this is set during World War II, mind you), the Germans invade and take over the hotel as their living quarters.  Olivia, has refused to leave because of her love, now, for her art-admiring boyfriend (who happens to be a French Resistance fighter). She is provided a Swedish passport, and thanks to her upbringing, speaks fluent Swedish as well.

Hermann Göring is the leading German in Paris, and he takes a liking to his Swedish maid, Olivia.  But when her boyfriend is cruelly murdered during his interrogation, Olivia joins the Resistance and feeds them information and photos from the paperwork left out in the rooms that she cleans.

Slowly, Olivia falls in love with her contact, an American she knows only as ‘Jack.’

I had no expectations going in to this book, other than I was looking forward to reading about an American studying art in Paris. What I got was a really wonderful combination of love story, historical fiction, and war thriller.

This could have been written purely as a romance, and at times the romance was just a little (a very little) too much, but the story around Olivia had her interest in the men in her life was grounded so well, and the war so dark and violent, that the romance doesn’t take over. It is, however, essential to the story.

There are two side stories going on here as well … that of Coco Chanel, and that of French actress Arletty, who falls in love with a German officer and is seen as betraying her country. I didn’t always feel the need for these stories, but they do offer interesting, different views of the war, and they broke up the story of Olivia nicely (Olivia does interact with Coco).

I listened to the Audible version of this book and I was a little surprised at how caught up I was with the story.  That speaks highly of the work of both the the author, Marius Gabriel, and narrator Karissa Vacker.

Looking for a good book? The Parisians by Marius Gabriel is a well-written historical fiction/romance set in Paris during World War II. You are likely to get caught up in the lives of the the three women featured.

I borrowed this book through the Kindle Unlimited program.

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The Parisians

author: Marius Gabriel

narrator: Karissa Vacker

publisher: Lake Union Publishing || Brilliance Audio

ISBN: 1503905047

paperback, 368 pages || 13 hours, 19 minutes

FOUNDRYSIDE – Robert Jackson Bennett

Posted by Daniel on March 16, 2020
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Anyone who wants to write fantasy really should read this book.  Study this book. This is how you capture a reader’s attention, and hold on to it by building a dynamic story.

Sancia Grado is a young, tough, very talented thief. She is on a job to steal a scribed device. ‘Scribing’ is a cross of magic and science. It essentially convinces the properties of an object to be other than what they are. Sancia is particularly skilled as a thief because she can communicate, on a primitive level, with scribed devices. Touching a wooden floor and she might learn about a recent murder because of the blood that has pooled in the cracks. Touching a brick wall and the bricks may tell her which ones are loose enough to pull out.

Sancia doesn’t know anything about the object that she steals, and in order to create enough of a distraction to make her escape, she brings about utter destruction of an entire warehouse district. This doesn’t sit well with the son of one of the Merchant House leaders, and this son, a celebrated war hero isn’t likely to stop searching for the thief until she’s dead.

While she regularly faces dangers due to her line of work, Sancia doesn’t have any idea of the value of the object she’s stolen – it looks like an ordinary key – …until it speaks to her. But the key seems more surprised that Sancia speaks back.

Unlikely partnerships will be forged as Sancia and others discover that the very forces of nature may be changed if the key falls into the wrong hands. But how do you fight an enemy that can change the properties of any and every item around you?

This book is utterly fantastic. I was drawn in with the very opening sentences and I was hooked the entire way. Author Robert Jackson Bennett is an absolute master at storytelling. Every page is filled with either heart-racing action, important character development, or story revelations. This sounds like it should be obvious in any book, but it’s not, and when you read this, you will notice what you’re missing in other books.

While over 500 pages in length, this book moves along so well and I was so absorbed in the story that it was over too quickly. I really wanted to stay in Tevanne with Sancia and Key. Fortunately, the next volume in the series is out and I’m really looking forward to it.

Looking for a good book? Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett is an outstanding fantasy and should be required reading for anyone who wants to write fantasy.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Foundryside

author: Robert Jackson Bennett

series: Founders #2

publisher: Crown

ISBN: 1524760366

hardcover, 505 pages

A VOICE IN THE NIGHT – Jack McDevitt

Posted by Daniel on March 13, 2020
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, SHORT FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

I am only somewhat familiar with author Jack McDevitt through his Alex Benedict series, which I have really been enjoying. When I saw the opportunity to read a collection of McDevitt’s short stories, I was eager to take advantage of it.

Most of the stories here have been published previously in a variety of magazines, the earliest being in 1986 and the most recent in 2017. Thirty years of solid science fiction is quite impressive!

I was mostly impressed with McDevitt’s writing.  While I typically don’t go in for ‘hard’ science fiction, and I’ve always imagined Jack McDevitt as a hard scifi author, I really just found a lot of good stories, scifi in nature. The stories were interesting, with themes that caught my attention.  I did notice that a number of the stories relied on a ‘surprise’ ending, but that’s probably not too unusual with short stories.  My favorite story was probably “The Play’s the Thing” – which is probably not a surprise to those who know me – in which a highly authentic AI version of William Shakespeare is created and writes some new plays, including a comedy (in the Renaissance sense) of women living on the moon.

Overall this was a really solid collection, and unlike a lot of anthologies, there wasn’t anything here that I disliked. If you want to break up your novel reading, consider these stories.

The title story is an Alex Benedict story, but, as a fan of the book series, it didn’t really excite me.  It was fine a a short story, but I didn’t see anything special about it being part of the Alex Benedict series.

This book contains the following:

Jack McDevitt, History Builder by Martin L. Shoemaker
“Searching For Oz ”
“The Law of Gravity Isn’t Working on Rainbow Bridge”
“The Adventure of the Southsea Trunk”
“Combinations”
“It’s a Long Way to Alpha Centauri”
“Lucy”
“Listen Up, Nitwits”
“Midnight Clear”
“The Lost Equation”
“Blood Will Tell” (Co-written with Tom Easton)
“Blinker”
“Friends in High Places”
“Maiden Voyage”
“Waiting at the Altar”
“The Play’s the Thing”
“Oculus”
“Good Intentions” (with Stanley Schmidt)
“Molly’s Kids”
“Ships in the Night”
“The Pegasus Project”
“Cathedral”
“The Last Dance”
“Excalibur”
“A Voice in the Night”

Looking for a good book? A Voice in the Night is a collection of short stories by Jack McDevitt.  It is a good, solid set of short stories that really ought to be enjoyed by anyone who likes good science fiction.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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A Voice in the Night

author: Jack McDevitt

publisher: Subterranean

ISBN: 1596068809

hardcover, 464 pages