Ed'd Mini Book Review: Origin by Dan Brown

This one crept up on me as I didn't know a new Robert Langdon book was due out. I have to admit, I am a sucker for Dan Brown books. Yes, I know all of the knocks about his books, but damn if they are not entertaining. Like Tom Cruise movies, sure there is a lot of baggage there on good ol' Tommo, but I do like his movies. Not to say that Dan Brown has baggage like TC does, but you know what I mean. The knocks on his style and such are there.

Which finally brings us to "Origin". Let's be honest, his last outing, "Inferno", was fairly forgettable. I did like it but it seemed like it was well worn material and quite formulaic. "Origin" fits pretty much into the same formula going back now to "Davinci Code" but in some respects, that's what you come in for. You've got your chase, your conspiracy, your puzzle solving and  your female partner. Check, check, check and check. This books fits into the "Dan Brown style" and if you like that sort of thing, then you won't be disappointed.

This time around, we are again dealing with the Church, however this time in Spain. A world famous tech billionaire and avowed atheist, who just happens to have been a former student of Robert Langdon, is about to give a presentation, broadcast to the world amid much fanfare, on a discovery that will shake the foundations of religion. Dr. Langdon has been invited to the live presentation and of course, things go awry and the race is afoot again.

A little different but basically more of the same. Spanish art and architecture take center stage in this one so those topics are interesting especially if you are not all that up to speed on those topics, or forgotten them from your freshman art history class like I did. The mystery wasn't all that difficult to unravel and I had it pegged pretty early on, though the mystery around Langdon's old pupil's "discovery" was fairly new to me. Fairly solid entry in the series.

My Grade: B

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Ed'd Mini Book Review: The Hellsblood Bride (Mookie Pearl Book #2)

More Mookie, yes please. That's how I left off my book review of the first Mookie Pearl book, "The Blue Blazes". We do get more Mookie, but we get a lot of Nora Pearl as well, which isn't such a bad thing. Ok, maybe it's a little bit of a bad thing since we want MORE MOOKIE!

But I digress.

"The Helssblood Bride" is not really a Mookie book, it is a Mookie and Nora book. That's not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. I started to see that Mookie is more of a one trick pony, one that I had hopes to grow into something a bit more than what was on the surface. Nora, on the other hand, is the much more interesting character, the one with the proverbial character arc.

In this installment, we find that Nora is trapped in the Underworld and Mookie is desperate to try and find a way to free her. So desperate, he falls into being who he is and neglects to visit her in person while he is tracking down every avenue to free her. With this neglect, comes the inevitable feeling from Nora that he has slipped into old habits and she hatches a scheme to get herself out.

Along the ride are some familiar faces, on both Mookie's and Nora's adventure. While the book jumps back and forth between them both, it works to balance out the story. Now, I wasn't all that pleased with how the book ended though it was a bold move. From what I have gleaned from some online comments, I am not sure Wendig will write the follow-up which is a shame as the story begs for another chapter. Solid but not as good as "The Blue Blazes".

My Grade: B/B-

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Deadline by Mira Grant

Deadline gets me back into the zombie swing of things though, like its predecessor, its a zombie book that is not really a zombie book but it has zombies....sort of.

The set up is, there was a zombie outbreak over a decade ago and life has normalized as much as it can in a world where zombies are real. The virus is still out there and outbreaks can happen if you "amplify" for whatever reason thus becoming a zombie. Blood tests are abound to make sure you won't amplify so we're talking about major paranoia. Add in the shift in news and media since the outbreak, as the established media poo-pooed stories of zombies so no one really trusts them anymore. Enter the blogger, your man on the street so to speak with a mic and a camera who is going to give the news to you as it really is, no filter.

That's the world of Deadline, and it's predecessor, Feed. This book shifts the narration to Shaun Mason from his sister Georgia Mason from the first but it still follows the Mason blogging crew as they investigate, more like get swept into, another conspiracy involving the Kellis-Amberlee virus, the virus that caused the zombie mayhem. I was eager to see this play out as Shaun is the risk taker of the two with Georgia being more practical. I thought we would get a more actiony story this time around but that really isn't the case. This was more of the conspiracy tale and there were points where the paranoia is ratcheted up and one point in particular stands out as the tension builds and you feel the paranoia the characters feel and then...well I'll leave that for you to find out. My one big disappointment with this book however is that Shaun turns into a bit of a whiner. All right, we get it already dude, no need to whine for the whole book. He was the tough, reckless action man in the first book, here he is just a whiney little bitch. I was hoping someone, anyone, me perhaps, would slap him and snap him out of it. Some character try but he goes back to whine central. That and the "cliffhanger" ending is pretty much telegraphed.

A solid entry but not as great as I hoped.

My Grade: B-

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Ed's Mini Book Review - The A, B, C Murders by Agatha Christie

Image by iknow-uk via FlickrIt's hard to believe that these mysteries were written almost a hundred years ago but let me tell, you, they do stand the test of time. If you've read my reviews or even just seen the types of books that I read, you can tell that I have a taste for the fantastic. Whether they be zombies, wizard detectives, or British exorcists, the stuff that's right up my alley tend to be a little out of the ordinary. The Agatha Christie mysteries are fairly ordinary mysteries on the surface. No zombies or wizards or vast governmental conspiracies but they are all out of the ordinary in how well done they are and how they keep you wanting to finish the mystery and see if you've had it pegged all along.

My first encounter with an Agatha Christie mystery was back in the 80's when my family just got cable and Evil Under the Sun was on HBO almost every day it seemed. That was where I was introduce to Hercule Poirot, played by Peter Ustinov, and has drawn me to read the Poirot mysteries almost thirty years later. Now the premise of The A, B, C Murders is one that you may be familiar with since it has been copied in some form ad nauseum. Poirot is taunted by a killer who sends him letters proclaiming Poirot cannot catch him as he murders people according to the alphabet. What I really liked about this Poirot mystery was the feeling that Poirot was a bit helpless and and was stumped. From the other Poirot books that I've read, and from some other mystery books, shows or movies, you can fall into the lull of knowing the good guy is going to prevail and in the end you know Poirot will figure it out but Christie does a masterful job of leading you along with Poirot wondering how long he will be stumped.

No spoilers here so read her books, I command you! Another excellent entry into the series and it has even gotten me to add some Miss Marple mysteries to my read pile.

My Grade: A-

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Monster Nation by David Wellington

Cover of Monster Nation: A Zombie NovelI finally made it Monster Nation on my read pile after reading a few other David Wellington books in rapid succession a while back, the books being Monster Island, Plague Zone and 13 Bullets. I have a soft spot for Wellington who got his start writing chapters and posting them online and then finally got a book deal to publish his online serials, so while I could have read Monster Nation online for free, I decided to show my support with my wallet and plunk down my twelve bucks and but the book.

This is a prequel of sorts, taking place during the outbreak (if that's what you want to call it) and causes of people turning into zombies. It follows two main characters that are on a collision course (cliche, zing!), one a women who doesn't quite die, much like Gary of the first book, and a by the numbers military man, trying to figure out what is going on and how to stop it. That's pretty much it. Since you know where things head from the first book, the fun from the book comes from how we get there. There is some fun in there but it's at times slow going and the feeling of inevitability of getting to a world overrun takes over and I found myself at times just waiting to get there.

The end product is mixed for me. Like I said, there is some good stuff in there and is an interesting twist on the genre in that the cause is not the ever popular viral outbreak but something else which I won't spoil. To sum it up, solid but not as good as Monster Island.

My Grade: B-

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Ed's Mini Book Review - The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Image by elena-lu via FlickrAll hail Project Gutenberg! From them I was able to download a could of classics on my iPad and one in particular just happened to be the first mystery featuring the legendary Hercule Poirot. The only downside to the Project Gutenberg download was that no images come with it and there was one at one point but it's only a minor quibble.

Now, I've read some Poirot books before so I am going out of order in a series for a change but it was nice to get the first Poirot appearance under my belt to get a base for how the character changes, if he does at all, through the books. I've seen some of the Poirot movies, the American made movies, and the first thing that really stuck out about the literary Poirot was how quirky and OCD-ish he is. Now I wonder if that stands up through the books as I go through them.

On to the plot of this one. An elderly widow, who was left a nice sum of money from her late husband, is found dead one morning and foul play is suspected. In comes the renowned detective Poirot to have a look and see if the obvious is really that obvious or are there layers of intrigue and deception afoot. Of course there is and Christie does a masterful job of adding characters with not only a measure of depth to them without getting too bogged down in them all the while adding them as suspects and removing them as suspects only to add them and remove them time and again. Here we get our fist glimpse of Poirot in action and in reading Christie mysteries I cant help but compare them to the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, of which I've only read one and in that one, the key clue wasn't portrayed to the reader so I felt a little cheated as there was no possibility for the reader to figure out the mystery. With the Christie mysteries, the ones that I have read so far, all of the clues are presented and it's a matter of piecing them together with the motives of the characters to solve the mystery.

Reading this book hooked me and now I am going to read through the Poirot series. I've read some others from Christie and the ones that I have read, including this one are all tip-top and I constantly amazed how the mysteries hold up almost 100 years later. Rating this with the other Poirot mystery that I have read, I would rate this one on par, both so far excellent mysteries.

My Grade: A

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Apocalypse of the Dead by Joe McKinney

Fresh off the heels of reading McKinney's Dead City, I decided to download Apocalypse of the Dead on my iPad and give that one a whirl. Now, this book is a loose sequel in that the setting and circumstances are pretty much the same (the setting changes a bit) but the characters are different.

Here we get McKinney pushing his boundaries and showing his writing chops a bit by moving the story around to various different characters and groups that will, inevitably, all come together at some point. The trick to doing that is not to be too confusing and not spreading things so thin that the reader can't keep track. Luckily, McKinney does a fine job in that department and keeps the story focused and a solid direction.

The take on this zombie tale is what sets it apart from other run of the mill zombie tales and is the story building around the creepy Koresh-like pastor. We've seen a lot of post-apocalyptic books go for the power abuse by the military but this take is a new one for me and a welcome departure from the standard zombie fare.

All in all, I can safely recommend this book for fans of zombie books rather easily. Some may have an issue with the jumping around a bit but I didn't find that to be a problem. It's interesting territory to go in and a solid direction at that.

My Grade: B+

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Ed's Mini Book Review - The Naming of the Beasts by Mike Carey

Felix "Fix" Castor is back!

And boy does it feel like a reunion with an old friend. That seems to be a popular feeling with me nowadays as I said the same thing about the latest Dexter book and felt the same way with the most recent adventure featuring Joe Ledger.

This entry in the series picks up basically where the last book's cliffhanger left us, Fix trying to find Asmodeus. Things have not gone well for Felix in the meantime with an alcohol binge fueled by the guilt of Asmodeus' escape and killing spree. Now he has to get his act together and figure out what Asmodeus is up to and he needs to do it right quick before Asmodeus can wreak any more havoc. This leads to all sorts of questionable decisions be Felix and some unlikely alliances and one "alliance" that I was particularly looking forward too.

I might have said this in past reviews of the Felix Castor books, but they do progress nicely and move and a better pace than the earlier books. Word is that there is one more book planned but I am not sure where else to go after this book but I look forward to what Carey has planned for Felix Castor.

My Grade: B

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Ed's Mini Book Review - The King of Plagues (A Joe Ledger Novel)

Book three from Jonathan Mayberry starring Counter-terrorism agent extraordinaire , Joe Ledger, brings the series back to the roots of the first book in the series, Patient Zero. I was having a discussion about Joe Ledger books with a friend of mine, who was the one that turned me onto Patient Zero, and she said that she wasn't going to pick up The King of Plagues because she couldn't stand The Dragon Factory. I liked The Dragon Factory as it was more of an actioner, but I agree with her that it didn't have the same feel as Patient Zero.

The King of Plagues recaptures that Patient Zero feel and I think a good part of recapturing that feel is the return of some characters from the first book that I won't give away but it made me cheer a bit inside to see them back. Another way this brings things back is the plot of of our dastardly villains this go around, we are back to bio-terror. Sure you could say that the last one was bio-terror in that there were bio-engineered thingies (a pure technical term) but this is the stuff that strikes a cord with people today, the viral threat.

To complete the feel of the first book, we get Joe Ledger kicking ass, which to be fair, he did a lot of in The Dragon Factory. My main gripe with the last book was that the DMS was sort of reactionary, basically stumbling in the right direction and here we get the DMS being pro-active in seeing through leads and solving some mysteries to drive them in the case. There was a little bit too much lamenting some of the things that happened in the last book for my liking as I like books that can stand on their own and not need the previous to know what's going on and that is the case in this book. Also the references to the first book with some of the background on returning characters may turn new readers off and they may feel that they don't know fully what is going on. If you are a dedicated reader of the series, though, you should be in good shape and I think that The King of Plagues will have you looking forward to more Joe Ledger books.

My Grade: B+

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Dexter is Delicious

Man, was it fun to read a Dexter book again, and a good Dexter book to boot (one of them wasn't that good). I find Dexter books to be like hearing from an old friend again and catching up on what he's been up to. I know that sounds cliche, the whole 'old friend' thing but Dexter books are like that. I think it's the voice of Dexter, the way he speaks to the reader and lets you in on what others aren't allowed to hear. You are privy to his Dark Passenger and what he really thinks and feels and I think that is part of appeal that makes the reader feel close to Dexter.

That connection to dear ol' Dex, is what keeps you around in Dexter in the Dark, which is by far the weakest of the series, but you won't have to worry about that with this installment. Upon hearing of the premise, I was afraid Dexter is Delicious would go that route though. Here is the setup, Dexter deals with cannibals, and not just that, vampire rip off cannibals to boot. Holy Twilight Batman! Fear not, Dexter is back and while not in prime form, it's good enough.

As we begin, Dex is settling in to family life with the birth of his daughter and is having very fatherly thoughts such as giving up his side 'job' to be there for his daughter and set a good example. Sprinkle in difficult Deb, blood thirsty children and a surprise visitor from Dexter's past and you've got a good mix for some fun and deliciously awkward moments that have come to signify the literary version of Dexter. My main gripe is that the mystery is not quite a mystery as, I think, it was telegraphed way in advanced but it was still fun to see it all play out. If you're a Dexter fan, I'd bet that you'd enjoy this entry and really sink your teeth into this one (ok, I just had to say it).

My Grade: B

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Dead City by Joe McKinney

Back in my zombie fiction kick, I picked up Dead City by Joe McKinney from the local B & N as I have seen it on the shelves and some reviews online for it. Now, being a seasoned vet of zombie lit, I set the bar fairly high for them. They should embody many of the aspects of what makes the genre so interesting to many people. They should be frightening, smart and portray a sense of the impending doom that you cannot stop like the creeping death that is crawling slowly towards its characters. That is to say that they have to be formulaic. On the contrary, many zombie books can be dull in that they've covered the same ideas that have come before it. But, it should still feel like a zombie book, and I have a particular book I've reviewed in mind when I say that. I want a zombie book with teeth, a little bite but with some new aspects to it. I want the survival aspect to is as well and here, to me, is where a lot of the smarts come in. I want to see characters doing smart things, being pushed to be creative and inventive in how they are going to make it through this catastrophe and that goes for any survivalist book like The Road and not just zombie books.

I am done with seeing people to dumb, silly and inane things. I know that story, where you show how people are fallible and fall apart in extreme situations, how they get greedy and self interested and short sighted. Been there, done that and in way too many stories. I am also done with the seedy side of post apocalyptic fiction. You know the ones, the 'people do horrible things when law and order is broken' sort of stories. Again, been there, done that. Let's get onto something different with the zombie genre so it doesn't get stale and become a parody of itself that so many other genres have become.

Where is this rant going? Well, it brings us the Dead City. Plain and simple, I liked this book. I didn't love it but I liked it. I liked it because it focused on the day of the disaster and the survival story of one person through the day of the outbreak. Plain and simple. His struggles to come to grip with what was happening and how the outbreak unfolded. I have some minor quibbles with some of the stuff in there such as him not making his family the priority when the outbreak occurred but overall this book hit the notes I want to see in a zombie book and did something that I haven't seen a lot of in zombie books and that is take us through the outbreak as it is happening. All too often we see the aftermath and the survival that ensues and I do like that stuff but I found this take a bit refreshing. Now I am working my way through the loose sequel, Apocalypse of the Dead.

My Grade: A-

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Nightlife by Rob Thurman

Cover of Nightlife (Cal Leandros, Book 1)Another recommendation review, and this one gave me the book to read too. Nightlife is the first book featuring Cal Leandros who is half human and half something else. Fitting quite easily into the ever growing pantheon of Dark Fantasy (Urban Fantasy or whatever you want to call it), Nightlife has all the trimmings of a classic entry into the genre. You've got your emo main character in Cal, short for Caliban, along with his kick-ass half brother Niko as well as a menagerie supporting cast ranging from a teen psychic (and possible love interest for Cal) to the comedic relief character of Longfellow.

So, what's not to like from this book? Well, actually, quite a bit. Reading this book made me appreciate and look more at, pacing in books. The pacing in this book was terrible. There seemed to be no movement in the big mystery of what was going on. We ended up with a lot of faux-witty banter between Cal and Niko and while that did show, in-depth, the level of their love for one another as brothers, it got very tedious. I felt like the book was trying too hard to be witty and funny instead of the humor and camaraderie naturally flow from the characters.

Those two major flaws had me struggling to finish the book and finding out the plan of the big bad is what kept me going to the end. I will probably, at some point, read the follow-up book because that was given to me as well but will be in no rush to read it.

My Grade: C-

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by P.K. Dick

Image via WikipediaI remember seeing Blade Runner as a kid and being totally blown away by the visuals. The draw was quite simple, and I think it was the draw the studio was going after as well, Harrison Ford in a sci-fi movie, obviously shades of Star Wars. As a kid, I don't think I 'got' the movie. I liked the way it looked but felt it was a little dull. I wanted to see Han Solo kicking some tail and shooting up replicants but I didn't get the subtlety and subtext of the film though it did resonate with me on a level I wasn't sure what that level was. Deckerd was cool and little did I know that this was my first real look into that noirish hero archetype that I really dig now that I am all grown up (on some level).

After seeing it again years later, I started to get some of the things that were going on and missed as a kid and I started getting into the writings of P.K. Dick, first with the short stories and eventually making my way to Blade Runner or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep as the novel is called.

A funny thing happened when I started reading the novel, I didn't like it. I stopped a few chapters in and there it sat in the back of my bookshelf for almost ten years. I guess I was looking for it to be more like the film and as I should have guessed seeing some of the adaptations of his short stories turned to movies, Hollywood changes a lot around (I am looking at you Minority Report). In this case though I thought the changes were for the better in the film. It was tight, had focus and Deckerd had that noir vibe that he didn't have in the book.

So, spent on zombie books, I looked around there was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep staring back at me so I gave it another shot. Deckerd still had that everyman thing going on and not the cool cat thing Harrison Ford had but there was something in that everyman-ish quality that I was finding intriguing that I hadn't felt with him before. He wasn't the seasoned, polished Blade Runner that Ford had going in the movie, he was just a guy finding his way, waiting for the big break in his career that this situation, hunting down the replicants in place of the injured senior Blade Runner, could provide him. This Deckerd is concerned with mundane things like getting a new pet, hopefully a real one and not a android pet, that makes him relateable on that on that everyman-ish level.

Now, as I said before, the book is different from the film though the main premise is the same, Deckerd the bounty hunter, tracking down escaped replicants. How it goes down is very different but many of the themes stay intact though I will admit that I was a little bit disappointed that the famous Roy Baty speech that Rutger Hauer gives in the film wasn't in the book. To me, that speech made the film because it showed the human-ness of the replicants that is missing from the book.

Conflicted as I am and not doing a very good job of separating the film from the book, I do recommend the book but if you've seen the film, I am not sure there is anything you'd get from the book that you wouldn't get from the film.

My Grade: B+

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Kill the Dead by Robert Kadrey

Image by Rrrrred via FlickrKill the Dead is the second Sandman Slim book by Robert Kadrey which piqued my curiosity in the series after seeing it on a number of Top 10 lists for Urban Fantasy in 2010. I decided to read the first Sandman Slim book, cleverly titled Sandman Slim, though the review for Kill the Dead that I read said I didn't really need to read the first book and it seems like they were lying a bit.

Kill the Dead picks up shortly after the end of Sandman Slim and if you didn't read the first book, there would a lot that you would not get right away or just go right over your head. Kadrey does a good job of getting you up to speed but I think there would be a little lost if you hadn't read Sandman Slim. Kadrey also doesn't waste any time getting back into things with an action piece right off the top and let's face it, that's why you would read something like this anyway, for some hard nosed action. I also like that Kadrey has no problems going for the brass ring and bringing in the heavy hitters. What does that mean? Read the book and find out.

I've read too many books that are looking to drag things out for the sequel or to continue the series that it sometimes feels that things aren't progressing or going anywhere anytime soon. Not this series (of two so far). Kadrey keeps the action moving and, in a departure from the first, the development of Stark (Sandman Slim) beyond the sociopath bent on revenge to....something else. He was fairly one dimensional in the first book but here, in amongst the action pieces, we get some growth with Stark that added a change a pace as the one tune Stark gets stale after a while.

I highly recommend the Sandman Slim books if you're into that sort of thing, fast paced action of the urban fantasy variety. I can't wait for book three!

My Grade: A

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

Image by Chorazin via FlickrA few weeks ago, I catch this list of the top Urban Fantasy Books of 2010 on Geeks of Doom, and numero uno on the list is the second Sandman Slim book, Kill the Dead. So, if I'm going to check out the what they say is the number one book, then I should read book one of the series.

My impression was that Sandman Slim it a bit of a rip-off. He's Harry Dresden meets Joe Pitt. He's the guy who can wield some pretty bad mojo but unlike Dresden, he doesn't care who is in the way or who he has to go through to get what he needs. Before I go any further, here's the set-up. Stark (Sandman Slim) used to run with some bad boys who could all toss around some magic. Stark has potential but he's too busy playing the bad boy type, pissing everybody off, including some in his circle of magic users. So one day, they turn on him and banish him to hell where he spends the next eleven years enduring all types of torture and developing the rep of a demon killer from fighting in the arena and surviving, thus earning the nickname, Sandman Slim.

After escaping from the heat locker downstairs, Stark goes all out to get those that sent him there with, as I mentioned above, little regard for who or what gets in his way. Now, I've had some message board discussions with others that read Sandman Slim and Stark's one tone act turned them off. There was really no growth or change to the character and he spent basically all of the book being a bad ass with the fight first as ask questions later mentality. And those people were right about Stark....but damn if it wasn't a fun ride along with him.

For me, this was a fun little book. At times I thought, this is what Harry Dresden could do if he ever went off the deep end. Action galore, snappy dialog, and too-cool characters pepper Sandman Slim like Manny used to on the Green Monster. If action fiction with a little bit of supernatural is your thing, I recommend Sandman Slim. Plus, it gets you closer to Kill the Dead, which you don't need the this book necessarily to read, but it helps out.

My Grade: B+

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Ed's Mini Book Review - The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer

TheImage by cdrummbks via FlickrSo the trick worked on me. I saw a few episodes of Brad Meltzer's Decoded on TV ( I want to say the History Channel but I'm not 100%), and that got me to buy one of his books to see what he's about, writing-wise and such. I'm sure that was a goal of his with the show, if you like the show, go buy some of his books.

Going in to reading this, I couldn't help shake the obvious Dan Brown comparisons, especially after The Lost Symbol, Brown's long awaited pseudo-sequel to The Da Vinci Code featuring the return of the much beloved Robert Langdon. The Book of Fate promises much of the same as The Lost Symbol, secrets, symbols and the Freemasons.

Yeah, it's pretty much a cheap knock-off. I don't think I would have minded it that much if it actually had at least a little of the Freemason mystique going for it. It really was a let down from that stand point. The real mystery of the book is the mystery of any mystery book, who's in on it. Not much on the masons or the titular Book of Fate. It was just your standard thriller. Below standard if you expect, as the book is billed as, a mason mystery. I will give it this, the writing and the pacing is pretty popcorn like a Dan Brown book. That is the say it moves well and can be easily digestible by the masses. That may get me to give Meltzer another chance with another book but if that is more of the same, then I'll drop his books all together.

My Grade: C-

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Death Troopers by Joe Schrieber

Image by bbska via FlickrZombies in space? Oh yeah.

Zombies in the Star Wars universe? OMFG!!!!

That's right ladies and gents, a nerdly mash-up of epic proportions is what Death Troopers promises and, for the most part, it does deliver.

All aboard on a prison barge. What? You didn't say anything about prison. Yessiree Bob, and we get a prison ship, oh, and a surprise appearance of two *very* well known characters from the Star Wars universe but I won't spoil it.

The basic plot goes a little something like this. We have two brothers, wrongly accused they say, on a huge prison ship with all sorts of really dangerous criminals and the Imperial medic on board who is having second thoughts about working for the Imperial Army as your main characters. The engines on the ship go out but (un)luckily for them, they happen to come across a Star Destroyer which seems abandoned (i.e. no life forms the scanners can pick up). And I am sure you have guessed why, the zombie virus has spread through the Star Destroyer so when they dock up, zombie mayhem, Star Wars style, ensues.

This was a pretty fun book for the most part, hitting most of the notes you would expect from a zombie book. It was so generic that it was fairly bland considering it should have been so much more being set in the Star Wars universe. Paint by numbers comes to mind with this book and while that's not bad, it isn't quite great either. I enjoyed it, fairly quick pace once it got going, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing or that there should have been more to it.

If you're curious about the mash-up here by all means check it out. I don't think you'll regret it, I just think that you won't be wowed by it either.

My Grade: B-

LL

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Ed's Mini Book Review - Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

Image via WikipediaMaking my way through the James Bond novels, which I am sure I don't have to tell you but they don't follow the same order as the films, Goldfinger is the seventh book in the series. One of the challenging things to do with reading a book that you've seen the movie version is to separate the two, especially if the movie in question is a classic which is the case with Goldfinger, widely held to be among, if not the, best James Bond film. I always picture Goldfinger as Gert Froebe instead of how he is depicted in the book but I would imagine many people fall to this no matter what book they are reading after seeing the film first.

Getting right down to it, this was one of the better Bond books but not the best that I have read. A part of me thinks that this particular Bond book ended up on the top 100 Thrillers list probably because the film version is held in high regard. Some of the things I really liked were the connections to other books which is something most of the Bond films don't do, refer to past films. Fleming keeps his Bond history in tact and the book series, unlike the film series until the most recent two, build the Bond character and we see him grow and progress in the role or in the life of a secret agent.

As for the 'thriller' part of the book and maybe my expectation from the NPR list, Goldfinger falls a little flat. I found it a little lacking in by the seat of your pants suspense and falls into the trap of just keeping us going to see how Bond is going to get out of this next seemingly inescapable dilemma. Still, some good old action sequences and some typical Bond drinks and meals and this all feels like a good Bond book, which it is but not to the level I was expecting.

My Grade: B

LL

Ed's Mini Book Review - Feed by Mira Grant

Zombies, zombies, zombies, nomnomnom! Zombies are in the air and the monster du jour nowadays especially with the success of The Walking Dead TV show on AMC. With that in mind, and my lover for zombie fiction, we add another to growing litany of zombie books. This time out, the highly rated, Feed by Mira Grant. I plucked this little diddy from NPR's list of top 100 Thrillers and, I think, it was the most recently written book on the list.

The setup is a little different than many zombie books but a little reminiscent of World War Z. Set about thirty years in the future, after a zombie outbreak, the world is recovering and has found a new normal. Zombies exist and are a way of life and some parts of the country have been overrun and lost the the zombie hordes. Most of the country is safe however and life goes on. So does technology and the news. Major news outlets have lost much of their credibility due to their reluctance to report on the outlandish concept of a zombie outbreak when it all started. Emerging from this and greatly enhanced by advances in technology, are the freelance reporters that strap on cameras, report and write the news themselves and count the hits (or ratings) their sites get.

From this, the plot begins where we find a brother and sister team, along with their friend. Tackle the news from three distinct angles. Their lives changed when they are tapped to follow and report from the campaign trail of a presidential hopeful. But, strange things are afoot at the Circle K. They begin to uncover a fiendish plot and soon find themselves becoming part of the story instead of just reporting on it.

From this you can see the double meaning of Feed as a title. The zombie world is more of a back drop and this book is really a commentary on news and the media and politics and corruption than it is a zombie book. Initially, that was one of my gripes as well. I was all like "Where are the zombies?". But it's not that type of book. This is more of a political thriller and for that it works just fine.

It's a little long and drags a bit but there is a good shock/twist near the end that works well unlike the reveal of who/what is behind the goings on with the conspiracy. Overall, a solid read but not as great as I would have hoped being on NPR's list and all. There will be a sequel and I'll probably give that a read too so this one did the trick on that end and will get my to pick up the next installment.

My Grade: B-

LL

Ed's Mini Book Review - Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

Cover of Pirate Latitudes: A NovelMy second recommended book is Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton. This one is one that a friend of mine was thinking pf picking up and suggested it to me to read/review. Incidentally enough, this is my first Crichton book, though I had The Andromeda Strain on my read pile before this suggestion came about. I'll probably get onto that one after the holidays.

For the most part, I didn't like this book. Maybe because I was picturing the characters from Pirates of the Caribbean all through the book but probably not. Perhaps knowing that this was found after Michael Crichton passed, but it did feel like a book that wasn't quite finished, wasn't quite polished enough especially for a writer of Crichton's stature. I was expecting a rollicking adventure to do the impossible against the most vile of villains. Swarthy characters and exotic scenery filled my mind as I readied the book and early on, the build up promised that as well. Arrr, talking like a pirate I was, preppin' for pirate booty and adventure on the high seas. Unfortunately, we don't really get it. What we get is really a travel story, the high seas part, more to do with the time to get to the objective and the time to get back. The characters are stale and fairly one dimensional. No real plot twists of note. Just downright flat. Oh, and just for good measure, let's throw in a sea monster. A what?!? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing too.

The main plus for the book is that it is a fairly quick read so the curious type my want to give it a whirl. I recommend you pass.

My Grade: C-

LL