Planetary Defense Commander

Urban Fantasy Detective with some Horror

Revisado: 08-02-20

The stories all follow Erik Rugar, a detective who investigates magical crimes for the city government. I imagined the setting as 1930s/1940s America (as depicted in a Humphrey Bogart movie), but with magical elements thrown in. I’ve decided not to comment on the collection story-by-story as I normally do, because I feel I might give too much away or alternatively be too vague, so instead I’ll try to give you the overall feel of the book. Rugar typically gets called out on a case that would be a normal opening for a detective story: a burglary, missing person, murder, kidnapping, heist, etc.. From those beginnings, the collection alternates between two different types of stories. Every other story has the detective tracking down leads and hunting the perpetrator, but things get complicated because magic was used to commit the crime or cover tracks. The remaining stories lean more towards horror, where the initial crime unleashes something on the unsuspecting city. I’m not talking about doll with a little girl’s voice horror, or ghost behind you in the mirror horror. I’m talking about hide in the closet and point a shotgun at the door horror. I’m talking about wipe the city off the map horror. If you think you’d enjoy urban fantasy detective tales set almost a century ago, or if you like detective stories bleeding over into horror, then I highly recommend this collection.

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True or not, this is an exciting read

Revisado: 07-02-18

I'm writing a combined review of Tiger Tracks and The Last Panther.

Many reviewers think these are fictional stories, not memoirs. My gut tells me they read more like Hollywood than history, but I didn't fight on the Eastern Front, so what do I know? Maybe the insanely violent battles, the desperate attempts to escape from the Red Army hordes, the drug use, the murders, and the rapes are all true.

Some say this book is false because the author never gives the name of his unit. If you were a former German WWII soldier writing under a pseudonym, maybe you wouldn't want a written account traced back to you. Some people have pointed out phrases that didn't sound like they'd be used by a German WWII soldier, but this obviously went through a translator, possibly many years after the war, and the publisher may have told said translator to jazz things up a little. Some say iron crosses were never worn on neck ribbons, but I've read about them on ribbons in The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan, which is a well-known history book. Maybe near the end of the war, the Nazis were passing out iron crosses as a last-ditch morale booster.

So, I don't know what % of these books are truth vs. fiction, but they are incredibly tense and action-packed reading material. If they are fictional, the real tragedy is that I don't know who the author is, because I want to read everything else he's every written.

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True or not, it's exciting and action-packed

Revisado: 07-02-18

I'm writing a combined review of Tiger Tracks and The Last Panther.

Many reviewers think these are fictional stories, not memoirs. My gut tells me they read more like Hollywood than history, but I didn't fight on the Eastern Front, so what do I know? Maybe the insanely violent battles, the desperate attempts to escape from the Red Army hordes, the drug use, the murders, and the rapes are all true.

Some say this book is false because the author never gives the name of his unit. If you were a former German WWII soldier writing under a pseudonym, maybe you wouldn't want a written account traced back to you. Some people have pointed out phrases that didn't sound like they'd be used by a German WWII soldier, but this obviously went through a translator, possibly many years after the war, and the publisher may have told said translator to jazz things up a little. Some say iron crosses were never worn on neck ribbons, but I've read about them on ribbons in The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan, which is a well-known history book. Maybe near the end of the war, the Nazis were passing out iron crosses as a last-ditch morale booster.

So, I don't know what % of these books are truth vs. fiction, but they are incredibly tense and action-packed reading material. If they are fictional, the real tragedy is that I don't know who the author is, because I want to read everything else he's every written.

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poor life choices make for an interesting story

Revisado: 07-01-18

I'm giving this book five stars, but I agree with most of the people who gave it one or two stars. How can that be?

I found the story interesting, but I think most of the people giving the book low ratings are actually rating the author on her life choices. I agree that her decisions deserve one star, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the story.

The author decided to leave her native Sweden and work overseas because she wanted to break out of her pattern: breaking up with boyfriends by sleeping with their friends. She first worked in Libya as an advertising sales rep for SmartMoney/WSJ, but disguised her sales role to her customers by pretending to be a journalist. She then moved on to bigger deals, thinking she was on the level of government ministers and multinational CEOs, despite having no skills or experience. She got things done solely through her sex appeal, but was shocked when that came back on her in a nasty way in the end.

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Looking forward to the next book

Revisado: 11-30-17

This is the sequel to Torchship, but I think it would work well as a stand-alone story. While the first book read like a series of individual episodes, Torchship Pilot flows seamlessly from beginning to end.

I enjoyed following the story of the main characters, delving into the differences between the human nations, and getting a few hints about AI motivations. I plan to read the sequel, Torchship Captain.

The author gave me a copy of Torchship Pilot after reading mentions of Torchship on my blog.

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Shallow discussion of random topics

Revisado: 09-29-17

I would love to read an in-depth discussion of the effects advanced technologies (such as Star Trek's replicators) would have on an economy and a society. Trekonomics isn't that. The first couple of chapters take a stab at it, but if you spent five or ten minutes thinking about the topic on your own, you'd probably end up with something more detailed.

The rest of the chapters seem to pick random topics from economic theory, or random episodes of Star Trek, and discuss them at a similarly shallow level.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Not just for youngsters

Revisado: 10-09-16

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You'll probably find Children of the Different listed in the "Young Adult" category, and this makes sense, as the characters are teenagers and the novel's content is safe enough for younger readers. I'm a not-so-young adult, and I wouldn't normally pick up a YA book, but the author gave me a copy so I could review it on my blog. I'm glad he did, because I found that there's plenty in the book for readers like me:

A post-apocalyptic Australia that I feel like I've actually visited.
Teenage characters who didn't make me roll my eyes.
A story with high stakes and a satisfying conclusion.

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Deceptive Marketing

Revisado: 06-06-16

Any additional comments?

I enjoyed this book, but very little of it involved the story described in the marketing blurb. The description of the plane disaster was dramatic, but once the passengers and pilots parachuted to the ground, the fearsome headhunters turned out to be pretty friendly, and there was no indication of Japanese soldiers anywhere in the area.

One large section of the book was devoted to American concerns that the Chinese Nationalists were siphoning war aid into their own pockets or using it to fight communists rather than the Japanese. Another large section described British military expeditions to punish headhunters in the decades before the war. I found all of this interesting, but it was marketed deceptively.

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Watch your ears!

Revisado: 02-17-16

Any additional comments?

I love all the Grimnoir books, and I think you should listen to Hard Magic before this one. The story explains things well enough to read stand-alone, but will be much easier to understand, and more enjoyable, if you already know the character Jake Sullivan.

Keep one hand on your volume control, or be willing to accept hearing damage. Some of the voices and sound effects come on much louder than the others.

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Worth listening to, even for non-foodies

Revisado: 02-08-16

Any additional comments?

I almost didn't purchase this book, as a reviewer led me to believe it was mostly about various restaurant celebrities, and I was afraid I wouldn't follow it. (I've watched many of Bourdain's TV shows because I was interested in the travel-related aspects, but I'm not into the restaurant/food culture.) Fortunately, when Bourdain discussed people, he gave enough background on them that I had no trouble. The one exception was Sandra Lee, who is apparently the Vampire Queen of New York.

The book also has some general restaurant industry information, a couple of sections about Bourdain's personal life outside the business, and a best meals he's eaten montage.

I would recommend listening to Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" before this book, to give you some perspective when he talks about his personal life.

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