Ed's Mini Book Review - Dexter in the Dark

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Next up is the third book featuring one of todays' favorite anti-heroes, Dexter Morgan. Now, I've been debating whether to consider Dexter a 'hero' because, well, you know, he is a serial killer. Especially now that I've started watching the TV show, just finished the first season, and the final scene of the first season really struck me with Dexter seeing himself as a hero of sorts. Maybe I'll delve more into the hero notion later before I get too sidetracked.

This go around we have Dexter looking into ritual killings that has his homicidal inner voice, the Dark Passenger as he calls it, spooked. So much so that the Dark Passenger disappears, which is a first for Dear Ol' Dexter and that has him, as you would guess, a bit perturbed. Add in his pending wedding to Rita and the 'blossoming' of her two children and our Dexter has his plate full, though not full in the way he (or the readers) would like it.

This installment read rather flat to me, with Dexter being more or less led around and not doing a whole hell of a lot with regard to the ritual killing case. I found the stuff with the kids and his dealing with the wedding more interesting. What? Yeah, I know. More kids and less ritual killing? Yes, please. The Dexter we all know and love is sharp, witty, and on top of things. Being without the Dark Passenger threw him into a funk that just didn't work for me.

My Grade: C+

LL

Ed's Mini Book Review - 13 Bullets

Cover of 13 Bullets

More vampires, that's what I always say. Ok, maybe I don't always say that and I probably shouldn't. Vampire books are an overcrowded genre to begin with (and that may the understatement of the millennium).

So, added to this almost beaten to death genre, is 13 Bullets which introduces us to Laura Caxton, reluctant vampire hunter. A Pennsylvania state trooper, who happens to stumble upon a vampire hireling, called half-deads, attempting to dispose of his masters' leftovers, Caxton is then teamed up with grizzled and cantankerous semi-famous FBI vampire hunter, Arkeley, to try and track down the lead vampire in the area.

Something that I really liked about this vampire tale is that the vampire here are monsters. They are vicious, vile, uber-deadly and have the looks of the Nosferatu-like vampires we've seen all too infrequently in recent years. The are dangerous predators, the top of the food chain and they know it. Kill a recently fed vampire? No chance, more likely he'll rip your arms off and drain from what's left of your arm stumps.

Beyond that, 13 Bullets takes some predicable twists and turns and in too many instances, you are waiting for someone, mainly Caxton, to do something intelligent instead of falling head first into the next dilemma. The writing is solid and the sections of the book are broken down nicely (if you read it, you'll see what I mean). Combined with some interesting plot elements that are hinted at but not fully resolved will make me want to pick up the next book in the series.

My Grade: B

LL

Ed's Mini Book Review - The Dragon Factory

Action. Check.

Kick assery. Check.

Science mumbo jumbo. Check.

Decent but not great follow-up. Check.

The second book featuring ass kicker extraordinaire, Joe Ledger, surprisingly picks up shortly after the events of our first encounter with Joe and the DMS (Department of Military Science), Patient Zero. The fist book was a fast paced, zombie-esque thrill ride that was a breath of fresh air to the zombie book genre. Away from the 'survival horror' themed zombie books, the first Joe Ledger book are like a mash-up of Splinter Cell and World War Z (perhaps called it a 'viral thriller'). Shortly after dealing with the zombie virus in the first book, we have Joe and his team facing off against competing genetic manipulators, one faction making super soldiers while the other is making gene based bio-weapons.

A lot of this book feels the same, villains backstabbing each other, the cloak and dagger of Mr. Church and the DMS, and, of course, lots of action. Another problem with this Ledger adventure, is that a lot of time is spent not knowing what is going on and our heroes do very little to figure things out, the machinations of the bad guys are literally just handed over to them which makes the end game seem like a bit of a cop out. Also, I had a real problem with the actions of the main villain at the end.

Did all this mean I didn't enjoy it? Hell no! Joe Ledger kicks major a$$ in a Jack Bauer sort of way (Legder is actually compare to Bauer at one point). Bad Jack stories are still good stories and bad Ledger stories are good ones as well. This one even isn't a bad story, it's just a flawed one and not up to par with Patient Zero.

My Grade: B

LL

I'm sorry I pimp slapped you into that china cabinet.

Cover of Black Dynamite [Blu-ray]

How the hell did I miss this?

And by 'this' I mean to pure awesomeness that is Black Dynamite.

Now, I grew up on the blaxploitation films of the 70's and this flick does the trick, ya dig? It manages to catch the essence of those films while keeping the parody edge without becoming too chessey or over the top, you follow?

With destined to be classic lines like 'And when you pop the top, the panties drop' and 'Kung-Fu treachery', Black Dynamite hits the spot solid.

So, go out and see this now or else I will not hesitate to lay the hammer down on any clown that comes around!

I said can you dig it!

Reading List - June

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Summer is upon us so the reading may be a little light with time spent on the beach and maybe a vacation or a stay-cation. Still there are some things I want to get to, just a matter if I do get to them.

The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Mayberry

Dexter in the Dark by Jeff Lindsay
13 Bullets by David Wellington

Fables Vol. 5 by Bill Winningham

Ed's Mini Book Review - Flash Forward by Robert Sawyer

Flash Forward, as you may or may not know, is a TV show on ABC (soon-to-be former TV show) that has a great set-up. Everyone in the world blacks out for two minutes and while you are out, you get a glimpse, two minutes worth, of your future.

The TV show, to fit it into a TV season sets the Flash Forward to eight months in the future whereas the book sets it to twenty years in the future. Basically, the TV show has almost nothing in common with the book, just that there was a Flash Forward so if you read the book hoping for more insight into characters and stories that intrigued you from the show, then you'll be disappointed. And that's not a bad thing since the show ended up doing poorly in the ratings and got canned after one season.

So, the book takes a different road than the show. Instead of focusing on the 'who-dunnit' aspect of teh Flash Forward, the book looks at it from the point of view of the scientists who believe they unwittingly caused it to happen. The guilt and grief about those that died while the blacked out and those that see a future not to their liking. Then we get the scientific analyses of having foreknowledge, which now everyone has, and the possibility of changing the future. Can you do it? Will time correct itself? Will you just end up ensuring that your future will happen no matter what you do?

The books tends to, at points, get bogged down with all of the scientific theory and sometimes feels as though it is just wasting time to get to the payoff of what happens when that magical Flash Forward time of twenty years down the road comes up. Does it come true? Can you change it? All questions that you are wondering throughout the book, building to that payoff, but the payoff comes off fairly flat.

My Grade: B-

LL

Ed's Mini Book Review - The Rising by Brian Keene

Another recommended book in my search for more Survival Horror, or Zombie Books if you'd rather refer to them as that. And this one comes highly recommended at that from a friend that has read an insane amount of survival horror.

My take is that I don't know what my friend was thinking. He's turned me on to some excellent survival horror stuff but this book doesn't fall into that category. Some others he put me on to, Day by Day Armageddon for instance, were very good but this one, which as little different bend to the zombies and how they come into being, falls flat with repetitive and gratuitous scenes and a real let down of an ending.

It goes a little something like this. Typical survival horror with zombies rising and noshing on whoever is around. Trick is that these undead are actually possessed by demons who want to nibble a bit on you, just until you die but damage the whole body so that another demon can swoop in and posses the newly dead, and partially eaten corpse.

Follow so far? Good.

The story follows a few characters but the main one is Jim, traveling from Virginia to New Jersey to rescue his son. From that most noble of causes we get to see the dark side of humanity, when society breaks down and we are left to fend for ourselves. Now, this is nothing new in the survival horror genre and I think that is a big problem with this book. There is so much time devoted to the evils that are done, by humans to other humans, and repetitive at that, the story seems to spin its tires for long stretches. Add to it that if you've read any other survival stories, this theme has been done over and over again and after the fourth or fifth rape scene or the umpteenth soldier smashing someones face with a rifle butt, you are bored out of your skull. Many times reading this book I wanted to shout "All right already, we get it already, people are just as dangerous as the monsters!".

I actually put this book down for about six months and picked it up again when I was in the mood for some zombie stuff and fought my way to finish it. I thought of picking up the sequel, City of the Dead, but read some reviews that said that this book was better so I'll skip it, which it my recommendation for this book, skip it.

My Grade: C-

LL