Looking for Your Next Book

 I had never heard of Natalie Beach when I requested an ARC of this book and I most certainly was not aware of the conflict/drama between Beach and Instagram influencer Caroline Calloway.  Heck, I only first heard the term 'influencer' a year or so ago and if I glance at my Instagram feed once a week I'm being pretty active. So what would draw me to this book?  I enjoy a well written essay. And these are VERY well written. The conflict between Beach and Calloway plays an important role in a number of these essays and, in a nutshell, Beach acted as a ghost writer for Calloway's internet persona which led to a book deal for Calloway (and, hence, her ghost writer, Natalie) but Calloway couldn't keep up with her end of the work and backed out of the deal, costing Beach some work and money as well. Their feud has gone public (not surprising, given that Calloway is an entirely fictitious, public persona) and they've put forth dueling essays about each other. Who cares...

 Tarzan is probably one of the best known figures to emerge from the pulps of the early 1900's. This is partly due to the films (the first, a silent Tarzan film in 1918), which brought the jungle hero to audiences that would never read a pulp magazine, and partly due to the unique aspects of the character and the tremendous storytelling of author Edgar Rice Burroughs (he was a better storyteller than writer). It's not surprising, then, that publishers and the Burroughs estate would want to see the adventures continue, beyond simply re-releasing the original books. Enter author Andy Briggs. The Savage Lands is the third of three books (my knack for picking up a book late in a series continues) in a new Tarzan series, staying faithful to the original content but updating some of the components. To be fair, it's been a long time since I read the original Tarzan novel, and I don't think I've read any more than that first one, so it's hard for me to comment much on w...

 Alexander Napoleon ("Nap") Outland is the captain of the Space Vessel 3369 - or, the "69" for short.  He's the best pilot in the galaxy, according to the book blurb.  So is he captain, or pilot?  Both?  He's also a pirate and smuggler and he's left a string of women throughout the galaxy both loving and hating him while his co-pilot is a smartass Sexbot and his weapons chief ("Slinkie") is just about the sexiest woman around, but she won't even consider sleeping with Outland. Alexander Outland makes his living skirting the law but a new fleet of pirates are cutting into his business and soon he has folks on both sides of the law after him.  It's going to take all his piloting skills and moxie to get him, and his crew, out of proverbial hot water. I was hoping for a fast-paced, exciting space opera here, and I believe that was the intention, but the book and the primary character are a little too full of themselves to be enjoyable. Clea...

Rushmore 'Mac' McKenzie is asked by a friend for a favor - look into the murder of a real estate developer in a nearby community and help prove the innocence of the friend's friend. The evidence against the woman (Jeanette Carroll) is overwhelming but Jeanette doesn't seem too worried, and yet she won't offer up an alibi for where she was at the time of the murder. McKenzie promises to look into it, but he won't try to get the woman off is he thinks she's guilty.  But upon meeting the woman, just like his friend, he believes in her innocence. But two more bodies are soon discovered in the same location, including that of Jeanette's husband who had been missing (and presumably had run off with another woman) years earlier. And then Jeanette disappears, leaving her passport, driver's license, and credit cards in a pile on her table. Her guilt seems all but convicted now, yet Mac still believes that there is something else going on and that she didn...

 There was a time when I considered myself more than just an avid reader, but a collector of books. Had I the resources, I have no doubt that I would have collected manuscripts if I'd had the resources (ie money) and so this title really grabbed my attention. I have to admit, though, that I had no idea where this book might go. This book is really a series of twelve mini-biographies of people who, through the course of history, have been collectors of manuscripts and who very well may have saved (or at least preserved) many rare manuscripts from destruction. Something that comes across as relatively common is the desire to own a rare item more than owning a specific item due to its significance. What is also common among the people included here is a real joy among the collectors for manuscripts. Author Christopher de Hamel does a really wonderful job of researching these manuscript collectors (and he gives a lot of credit to others for some of this work) and presenting their live...

The high school friends who self-titled their group of friends "Freaks" have survive the summer (despite the otherworldly figure trying to kill them) and now school is back in session and they are looking are starting their sophomore year. While the appearance is that they are ordinary, if borderline outcast students, the truth is quite different. The Freaks inherited a variety of unusual superpowers and there's an alien god trying to kill them. This god can shape-shift.  Yet this isn't the biggest threat to the Freaks.  When people were dying and it was dangerous just to step outside the home at night, the local police weren't prepared to deal with whatever was happening.  Now the CIA is in town.  They're sure the Freaks are somehow responsible for everything going on but they haven't got proof ... yet.   I can still see the appeal that a book like this (and this book in particular) would have with a certain group of young readers (typically the outcasts,...

 John Scalzi's Dispatcher series is a fun, fast-paced, pulp-style scifi adventure series.  The basic premise is that sometime, not too long ago, something happened (no one knows what or why - that's not important) so that 99.9% of the people who are murdered come back to life, naked, in the place they feel most comfortable (typically a bedroom at home, but certainly not always). This has given rise to the legitimate profession of 'dispatching' wherein someone facing an untimely death (such as a medical procedure or an accident) can be dispatched (ie: murdered) and their life is reset. Our series protagonist is Tony Valdez, a 'dispatcher' who works closely with the police. Now, with the pandemic in full swing, Tony is working quite regularly at a local hospital, dispatching patients who are likely to succumb to the COVID virus (only after carefully explaining the potential  downsides to the individual and their families) with the hopes that they would be reset wi...

 Regular readers of my reviews will know that I have an affinity for the old pulps and pulp fiction.  Is there a better-known example of the pulps than The Shadow? I've listened to many of the old radio shows and back in the 1970's I read a number of the 'Maxwell Grant' penned books so I was excited to see that popular fiction author James Patterson (with Brian Sitts) was bringing the character back for a new generation of readers to discover and enjoy. Unfortunately the first book in this revised series, which I recently read and reviewed, didn't catch my interest, but I had already requested (and was granted) an ARC of this second book.  Now I almost wish for that first book again. Why does upgrading or modernizing a classic have to involve such drastic changes?  In the original radio Shadow stories, Lamont Cranston had traveled through the Orient where he learned hypnotism that could cloud men's minds so as to become invisible to them. Now that Lamont and his...

 Mason Stark is a thirteen-year-old cadet from the Academy for Earth Space Command. He and seventeen of his fellow cadets have boarded the SS Egypt for a short voyage - just enough for the cadets to log their requisite space hours. Mason's sister serves aboard the ship and the two of them can't help playing practical jokes on each other, but Mason's come at a bad time - in front of the captain just as a real danger approaches. The Tremists, an alien race that's been at war with Earth for over half a century, attacks the SS Egypt on its routine cruise. The Egypt 's captain orders the cadets to hide in safety, being that they aren't yet trained for conflict. But no one was ready for the surprise attack and the captain and most of the crew are either killed or captured in the fray - only the hiding cadets are currently safe. The group of teens appoint Mason as their temporary leader and they set out to take back the ship (if possible) and notify the ESC of what h...

 I was truly enamored with the graphic novel, Tombs , by creator Junji Ito not too long ago so I was very eager to dig into this graphic novel. The title, with "Story Collection," had me thinking we'd be getting something very like Tombs with a variety of dark, creepy stories.  But it's not quite along the same lines. Yes, there's creepiness here, but it's centrally focused on one young boy, Soichi - a disturbed individual. Soichi is the second son of an otherwise normal family. He likes to tease in the very worst of ways - if someone gets hurt by something he does, it's just that much better.  He chews nails.  Not "chews ON his nails" ... he literally always has some nails in his mouth, which he might spit out, intending to spear someone or something.  He's the annoying little brother, taken to an extreme, and even being in a strict school environment doesn't sort him out. The book has ten Soichi stories that reads more like a novel than...

 Detective Konrád (retired from the police) is still searching for those responsible for his father's murder when he is called by an elderly couple looking for help.  Their granddaughter, a young woman, is missing. She is a known drug smuggler and Konrád is reluctant to take the case, but the elderly couple have a loose connection to Konrád's wife and so he agrees to look into it but gets much more than he bargained for. Some 50 years earlier in this area where Konrád is now investigating, the body of a young girl was discovered in the water under a bridge.  At the time, the case was declared an accidental drowning and subsequently closed. But upon talking with locals regarding the now-missing young drug mule, Konrád begins to suspect that there is some connection between the two cases, despite being half a century apart. What he suspected was a simple drug-runner disappearance case turns into something much more, with the safety and welfare of children at its h...

 I've done it again.  I've picked up the third book in a trilogy without having read the previous books in the series.  Sometimes it doesn't matter too much but in this case I think it was probably vital to have the background of the previous books. Not only am I coming in at the end of a trilogy, I've never read anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky before, but I'd been wanting to something of his and this came up. Decades ago the earth was destroyed in a war with a race referred to as The Architects.  In order to avoid the annihilation of all human-kind, a group of elite, enhanced humans were created to be the heroes in humanity's war. One such created hero is Idris Telemmier. He could probably have statues made of him for his work but instead he finds himself on a salvage ship with an oddball crew. Even so, Idris has come upon a massive secret which could bring about the downfall of the otherwise seemingly invincible Architects. But when word gets out that he has th...

 It was nearly ten years ago when I first read a Tim Waggoner novel ( Night Terrors ) and I was impressed enough with the outrageousness and originality that I've been seeking Waggoner's books ever since. He has really become a major force in the horror fiction world. In A Hunter Called Night , a man known as Arron is on the run.  He is keenly aware that he is likely to die at any moment, but he is unwilling to simply give up. He is running from the Hunter known as 'Night' and he has been running from her for many years now when he reaches the relative safety of a building in which Night cannot enter. To ferret Arron out, Night creates Blight which slowly transforms the building where Arron is hiding, and all of the people inside of it, into something disturbing and otherworldly. Will Arron leave the relative security of the building, slowly transforming and its unknown dangers to face the known hunter, Night and her feline beasts, 'harriers'? Arron has been cha...

 It's been a few years since I read some of Margaret Atwood's short fiction but it was her collection  Bluebeard's Egg , that I read after reading The Handmaid's Tale back in the 1980's, that endeared me to her writing and to the brilliance of a well-written short story. Some forty years later and she's still producing terrific work. There are recurring characters in a number of the stories - Nell and Tig - an older married couple who look back at their lives and the people they've interacted with.  Then some of the later stories in the collection feature only Nell, reflecting on a life that has changed with Tig's death. It is often said about Shakespeare that he wrote so well about what it means to be human, but I think the same thing can be said about Margaret Atwood. These might be short works of fiction, but it would be easy to mistake these for essays. More than once I thought the voice of the narrator was Atwood's. I felt this way the most, I ...

Sydney Cossette is a spy with an elite undercover organization (Panacea).  She was the youngest ever to join the ranks and she has a knack for picking up languages. She's tough and no-nonsense and her good looks have her breaking as many hearts as her combat skills breaks bones. Panacea wants to infiltrate a major crime boss and when they get word that the crime boss plans to hire one of the leading boy pop singers in the world to perform for his daughter's birthday party, they agency recruits the young pop star and they send Sydney as his personal bodyguard to the event. Sydney spends some time training the singer (Winter Young) and is pleasantly surprised that his movement training for dancing on stage translates well to combat training. She's also surprised that she finds herself attracted to him. I found this to be a really nice balance of romance and spy/thriller for younger readers. While the building romance is important to the story and to the development of the cha...