DON’T TOUCH THE BLUE STUFF – Rob Dirks

Posted by Daniel on May 20, 2019
Posted in: HUMOR, SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

It’s hard to find good, well-written humorous science fiction. There are a few authors still writing in this genre that are worth reading and Rob Dirks is definitely one to look for.

Don’t Touch the Blue Stuff! is a follow-up to Dirks’ Where the Hell is Tesla? which I enjoyed quite a bit (see my review here).

Safe at home after saving the inter-dimensional multiverse, Chip Collins is about to marry his love, Julie when the FBI arrive to tell him that he’s needed for another mission in the multiverse. Having saved life as we know it once, he’s the dimension’s best chance at surviving a new threat from beyond the doors. Chip and FBI agent Gina Phillips will work with Nicola Tesla to enter the multiverse to save Chip’s friend Pete who has been enveloped in a strange substance called Blue Juice. But Pete may only be the first to fall to the stuff … if Gina and Chip and Tesla can’t find a way to send the goo back to wherever it came from, the Blue Juice will take over the planet, one squishy human at a time.

The book is full of quirky characters, such as ‘Bobo’ – a furry, three-foot alien that can regenerate himself like a starfish.

Rob Dirks is certainly playful and not afraid to reach low for a laugh. And that’s the one problem I had with this volume … I felt like too many things were included simply for a laugh rather than as an oddball way to twist the plot.  In fact the goal here (get rid of the blue goo) seems far-reaching and secondary to … well, to anything else we can throw at the moment.  The first book was an adventure with a clear goal … get back home.  This book appears to have a clear goal, but really it’s just a means to put Chip back in his Wonderland for a new adventure. The difference seems minor, but it was enough to have me wonder why we had so many letters home that didn’t deal with the plot.

One other difference between this book and the previous was that I actually read this book and I listened to author Rob Dirks read the first. Dirks clearly had as much fun narrating as he did writing and his enthusiasm was infectious.  I wonder if I were to listen to this second book if I might not like it more.

Looking for a good book? Don’t Touch the Blue Stuff! by Rob Dirks is a follow-up to Where the Hell is Tesla? and is face-paced sci-fi comedy, reminiscent of Douglas Adams and Ron Goulart and good for a quick read if you enjoy a guffaw or two with your inter-dimensional rifts.

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

* * * * * *

Don’t Touch the Blue Stuff!

author: Rob Dirks

series: Where the Hell is Tesla? #2

publisher: Goldfinch Publishing

ISBN: 1732610711

paperback, 322 pages

THE GIRL WITHOUT SKIN – Mads Peder Nordbo

Posted by Daniel on May 17, 2019
Posted in: MYSTERY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

“Nordic Noir” has become an actual category of mystery/thriller.  Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the sub-genre. Although Nordbo is not yet listed among the authors mentioned, with this book it is clear (to me at least) that he is bound to be a very strong voice in the bleak landscape of horrific crimes.

Danish journalist, Matthew Cave, is sent to Greenland to research the story of a recently discovered mummified body. The expectation (and hope) is that this is a body from the Viking age of explorers. But shortly after Cave arrives a policeman who was guarding the find is brutally murdered and the mummified body is missing.

As an investigative journalist, Cave is accomplished at doing research and he soon discovers some horrifying similarities between the gutting and skinning of the policeman and a series of murders that occurred in a remote town nearby in the early 1970’s.

Although Cave manages to get the notebook of a policeman who investigated the 1973 murders, but of the locals seem to be pretty unmoved despite the gruesome nature of the killings and the local police help is tepid at best.  And so reporter Matthew Cave suspects a cover-up and takes on the investigation alone. But the closer he get to discover the truth to the mummified body and the decades-old murders, the more danger he finds himself in.

I’ve read a few books in this “Nordic Noir” sub-genre of thriller/mystery and there is something remarkable and  … I’ll say it … beautiful in the juxtaposition of horrible crime and stark, harsh landscape with the human drive to seek truth and retribution or closure.  This book fits so nicely into this category.  The crimes couldn’t be much more terrible.  The title alone brings to mind such a dark visual that you have to know going in that this will be pretty gruesome.

But the story here unfolds so nicely and we’re caught, like spectators driving past an accident, that the combination keeps us turning pages. It’s a great reading experience (if you can handle the cruelty).

This is a top-notch mystery and a thrilling read.  It is highly recommended.

Looking for a good book? The Girl Without Skin by Mads Peder Nordbo is a wonderful read in the Nordic Noir sub-genre and well worth reading if you don’t mind a little gruesomeness in your mystery/thriller.

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

* * * * * *

The Girl Without Skin

author: Mads Peder Nordbo

translator: Charlotte Barslund

publisher: Text Publishing

ISBN: 1925603830

paperback, 356 pages

RED DOVE, LISTEN TO THE WIND – Sonia Antaki

Posted by Daniel on May 15, 2019
Posted in: CHILDREN'S, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I have a long backlog of ARC books that I’m determined to read and review and because of that I have gotten much more selective about the books I request.  This is a long way of saying that I really hoped to like this book. I’ve had some great reading with other indigenous people children’s books and so held this one to a high standard as well.  Unfortunately this book just doesn’t have quite the energy it needs to hold a young reader’s attention.

Red Dove is a thirteen year old girl who lives with her Lakota family though her father was a white man who abandoned her. The winters have been harsh and as the Lakota look at another very lean winter Red Dove must make a difficult decision – stay with her Lakota family and be a part of the starving and suffering or live in the white world – a world that is foreign and frightening to her.

This is a tough coming of age story and reflects one that many Native children (and adults) were often forced to make. And the whites who were overseeing the care of Native Americans were often harsh and cruel (as depicted here in the character of Sister Agatha). The history here is fantastic and this is important for children – not just of Native descent, but for all children – to learn about.

My issue here is with the presentation.  I found the book to be so evenly paced, with so much reflection on Red Dove’s part, that it was getting boring and dull to read.  The last quarter (perhaps a little less) there suddenly was some energy to the story and I was finally allowed to be engaged with the characters and the action and I enjoyed the last section quite a bit.  But I wonder if young readers will make it that far if they aren’t brought in to the story a little sooner, instead of being presented with so much history and background.

I recommend this book for what it is saying, but in this age of low attention span and instant gratification, I wonder how many younger readers will take the time to absorb this.

Looking for a good book? Red Dove, Listen to the Wind by Sonia Antaki is a valuable story for young readers but some readers may struggle to stay engaged.

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

* * * * * *

Red Dove, Listen to the Wind

author: Sonia Antaki

publisher: One ELM Press

ISBN: 1947159127

hardcover, 232 pages

WILL IN SCARLET – Matthew Cody

Posted by Daniel on May 13, 2019
Posted in: MYTHOLOGY, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Thirteen year old Will Shackley is the son of a lord. But his father is fighting in the crusades with King Richard the Lionheart and his home becomes a site for a local power struggle. Young Will is no match for those uprooting the communities and so he flees into the nearby Sherwood Forest where he becomes acquainted with a group of bandits.  The outlaws are suspicious of Will, dressed in fine clothes, and prepare to dispatch him when he offers them access to riches in his family home. Slowly Will earns the trust of the Sherwood Forest outlaws so that he becomes one of their gang.

This was a really solid story.

The characters, of course, are familiar to most as the people in the Robin Hood myths – they are all here: Little John, Robin, Much, the Sheriff of Nottingham.  But author Matthew Cody lets us see them through the eyes of one of the other, often unexplored characters.  This is a not an uncommon method, but it works so brilliantly here.  We not only get the Robin Hood myth, but we get a deeper understanding of some of the other characters.

One of the interesting and clever changes to the myths (and the myths themselves are slightly different with each retelling through the ages) is with Much the Miller’s Son.  Here Much is a girl in disguise (for her own safety, of course) and perhaps more suspicious of Will than the others (her secret has often led to her being more aware of the people around her).  But Much and Will will manage to find common ground.

Cody delivers just the right amount of action in this middle grade read, combining clever story-telling with the action today’s readers expect to keep them engaged.  This is an all-around winner and although it’s been out for a few years now, this is the sort of book one can point to when a reluctant young reader wants something.

Looking for a good book? Will in Scarlet by Matthew Cody is a strong middle grade read with familiar characters from a unique point of view and plenty of action.

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

* * * * * *

Will in Scarlet

author: Matthew Cody

publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

ISBN: 037586895X

hardcover, 272 pages

quotes – May 2019

Posted by Daniel on May 11, 2019
Posted in: OTHER. Tagged: . Leave a comment

When a spider comes down from the sky, it means someone is going to die.
.   Kenn Harper – In Those Days

It’s one thing to practice sword moves on a straw dummy named Joe in your office on a sunny afternoon, and quite another warding off a Wraith in the middle of a haunted wood.
.   Jonathan Stroud – The Whispering Skull

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.
.   Robert Louis Stevenson (quoted in Echopraxia)

Fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain, and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger, and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy, he thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and a tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations – and after awhile everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there weren’t any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do.
.   Peter Watts – Echopraxia

Natural selection favors the paranoid.
.   Peter Watts – Echopraxia

Soulmates … are two people who have loved each other in another dimension.
.   Ingrid Jonach – When the World Was Flat (and we were in love)

Satisfaction with material purchases decreases over time, while satisfaction with experiences increases.
.   Wallace J. Nichols – Blue Mind

We listen to music, watch TV, surf the Internet, read books; eat prepared meals that taste nothing like their original natural ingredients; use perfumes and soaps and household products that mask real smells; and touch screens and plastic and processed materials that feel like nothing in nature. None of this is bad per se, but we have been separated from the very stimuli we were built over hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years to perceive: the richness of the natural world.
.   Wallace J. Nichols – Blue Mind

I loved her in my way, but she wanted to be loved in hers.
.   Bertolt Brecht

A small tragedy, she thought, to have that face and never smile.
.   Kameron Hurley – The Mirror Empire

BLUE LILY, LILY BLUE – Maggie Stiefvater

Posted by Daniel on May 10, 2019
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Blue Lily, Lily Blue is the third book in Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle.

In this book, Blue Sargent’s mother is gone and Blue and her friends need to find her. There is a mystery surround three sleepers, and of course there is the ongoing interpersonal relationships between Blue, Gansey, Ronan, and Adam.

There are a few authors who write extremely well, and write in genres that appeal to me, but for whatever reason, I simply cannot connect with them.  Maggie Stiefvater is one such author for me.

The writing is poetic. Lyrical. And there is some remarkable depth to these characters inside a story that should be something I’d really enjoy … but I don’t.  Instead I get bored.  This book seemed to muse on and on about their relationships. And the more they reflected on one another the less I cared.

I wish I could have gotten into this – many people I know seemed to really like Stiefvater and this book, but I am clearly not the intended audience (and there’s a lot of reading material out there) so I’ll move on.

Looking for a good book? If you enjoy poetic reminiscing on relationships in a slight fantasy setting, then you might enjoy Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater.

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

* * * * * *

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

author: Maggie Stiefvater

series: The Raven Cycle #3

publisher: Scholastic Press

ISBN: 0545424968

hardcover, 391 pages

MAD HATTERS AND MARCH HARES – Ellen Datlow, editor

Posted by Daniel on May 8, 2019
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, SHORT FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

If you’re reading this review on Goodreads you can note that I’ve listed my favorite book as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and readers of my blog may recall that I often mention how much I like short fiction so it should come as no surprise that I was eager to read this collection of short stories.

But one of the other things I’ve noted is that anthologies, even those from a stalwart editor such as Ellen Datlow, have such a mixed bag of stories that, while they might have something for everyone, they also have something that everyone will dislike.

This book started out on a really great note.  The first couple of stories really felt like they belonged to the ‘Alice’ universe. They captured the heart of the Lewis Carroll stories. But as we get further into the book we get more pieces that are quite disconnected to the Alice stories. Stories about Dodgson or about a different version of Alice having PTSD-type flashbacks to Wonderland could still maintain a sense of the Wonderland stories, but they don’t.

This is a hard book to review because of the real variety of stories (variety in content and in quality). It’s not a book that I would recommend – it’s just not strong enough, even though I really enjoyed, “My Own Invention”; “Lily-White & The Thief of Lesser Night” and “Worrity, Worrity”.  Most of the others aren’t bad, but just don’t generate any strong reactions one way or the other.  The last two stories however, “Moon, Memory, Muchness” and “Run, Rabbit, Run” drag the collection down.

This anthology is a disappointment.

This volume contains the following:

Acknowledgments
Introduction
“My Own Invention” by Delia Sherman
“Lily-White & The Thief of Lesser Night” by C.S.E. Cooney
“Conjoined” by Jane Yolen
“Mercury” by Priya Sharma
“Some Kind of Wonderland” by Richard Bowes
“Alis” by Stephen Graham Jones
“All the King’s Men” by Jeffrey Ford
“Run, Rabbit” by Angela Slatter
“In Memory of a Summer’s Day” by Matthew Kressel
“Sentence Like a Saturday” by Seanan McGuire
“Worrity, Worrity” by Andy Duncan
“Eating the Alice Cake” by Kaaron Warren
“The Queen of Hats” by Ysabeau Wilce
“A Comfort, One Way” by Genevieve Valentine
“The Flame After the Candle” by Catherynne M. Valente
“Moon, Memory, Muchness” by Katherine Vaz
“Run, Rabbit, Run” by Jane Yolen

Looking for a good book? Mad Hatters and March Hares, edited by Ellen Datlow is a disappointing and forgettable collection of stories using Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a springboard.

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

* * * * * *

Mad Hatters and March Hares

editor: Ellen Datlow

publisher: Tor Books

ISBN: 0765391074

paperback, 336 pages