Matthew

Superb and relevant history

Revisado: 07-14-23

Not gonna lie, I decided on this book after starting to play Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This game is set during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and I wanted to have some better background on that setting.

Feifer's book is both comprehensive and accessible. it gives a great overview of the invasion--from its inception to the Soviet withdrawal and the aftermath--without becoming tedious.

Feifer presents several major characters on various sides of the conflict, and he does a good job of balancing the macro and the micro. We see how the struggles of individual Soviet soldiers and Mjuahideen fit into the bigger picture of the conflict. This makes it concrete and detailed without devolving into tedium.

Read (or listen) to this book for key insights into how rural and remote Afghanistan managed to stymie major world powers like the USSR and the USA

Robertson Dean's narration is solid throughout.

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Enlightening, but depressing

Revisado: 06-27-21

This book basically lays out the failures of 19th-century New York in dealing humanely with its staggering number of criminals, the sick, the destitute, and the mentally ill. The book's organization takes these subjects in turn.

The evolution of Blackwell's island, as presented here by Horn, illustrates 19th century thought on how to deal with these 'undesirables.' The story felt like a bit of a slog at times and I ended up skipping through some chapters. Still, I found it valuable for understanding how crime, poverty, and insanity were thought of and dealt with in the antebellum years and "Gilded Age." I happen to be doing some research on this time period, so this book was helpful with that. I don't know if I would recommend it as a "casual read" since it does deal with some pretty harrowing subjects.

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Good history, tolerable narration

Revisado: 06-27-21

This is a good work of history that highlights how the decisions of Civil War politicians and generals were affected by espionage and information gathering. It also shows how the Union and Confederacy were essentially starting from scratch when it came to espionage management and trade-craft. There were a LOT of shocking missteps!

I bought this book on sale and was dubious about whether it would make a mess of attempting a multi-thread story with many "characters" AND if it would end up trying to stretch its material too far. Thankfully, this book did not suffer from either of those problems!

I enjoyed learning about these different figures and appreciated the places where their stories overlapped or intertwined. Heck, I found myself looking for some other works on these figures like Elizabeth Van Lew so that I could learn more about them!

The narration is tolerable. It's not great but neither did it put me off the book. Campbell's narration felt very slow and dragging, so I ended up speeding it up to make it more tolerable on my ears.

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Helps Scratch that Sharpe Itch

Revisado: 06-27-21

The gold standard for 19th-century historical war fiction is Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe series. That was also my introduction to the genre/sub-genre, and it's made me picky. When I saw this title, I immediately wondered if it could scratch my itch for Cornwell-esque historical fiction. Thankfully, it did! Is it as good as, say, Sharpe's Rifles? I wouldn't say that, but I did enjoy it in much the same way I enjoy Sharpe books.

I was a bit unsure of it at first, especially since it starts before our protagonist is even in the Union Army (I guess I was hoping for something more in medias res). However, once it got rolling it was quite entertaining and engrossing. I felt the same about Bradford Hastings' performance. Once I got into it I was impressed by his capabilities as a narrator.

I listened to this first book for free, bought the second one, and used a credit on the third. I think it's solid and worth my time.

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Excellent all around

Revisado: 03-04-21

A gripping novel dense with ideas but carried along very well by Blatty's narration. Blatty brings his own characters to life with his rich and surprisingly varied performance. This is the definitive recording of this book. I am listening to its sequel, Legion, now but it will be hard to adjust to the new narrator given how attached I became to Blattys melancholic but wonder-filled narration here.

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Why do enslaved women weep for their captors?

Revisado: 07-19-20

In Homer's Iliad, Greek heroes make women they kidnap into their slaves for sex and domestic needs. These women often lost their families to the spears of the men who then demean them. Yet, in the text of the Iliad these women weep for their persecutors when they fall and come to tragedy. Why? How could a woman feel for her rapist and the man who murdered her kin? Survival is part of the answer, but only part of it.

The Silence of the Girls tries to flesh that inner journey out in ways that Homer either omitted or wasn't interested in exploring in the first place. Barker's novel explores the role of women in ancient times, in war, and in servitude. It explores an unseen part of Greek Myth. It was unseen because A) the male heroes were the focus and B) women's lives in general were hidden, obscured, and set apart in the ancient Greek world.

The story is the Iliad, so I won't re-hash the basics of that (much). It's told from the position of Briseis, a noblewoman of a kingdom allied to Troy whose family is slaughtered by Achilles. Swift Footed Achilles then then takes her as his domestic slave and trophy. The Trojan War kicks off because of Helen, and the conflict of the Iliad between Achilles and the Greek commander, Agamemnon, kicks off because of Briseis. Even though both women are tremendously important to Homer's story, they get short shrift as characters with their own agency.

This is where Barker comes in, to give these characters an emotional core and voice that Homer largely denies them. This is important in our current age as we are confronting AGAIN the abuses women suffer and the lengths to which some will go to make sure their cries are silenced.

The novel is good overall, but I feel there is something lacking in the prose. Perhaps' it is in Atherton's delivery of it. Everything is very competently executed, but I can't help but stack it up against the enthralling work done by Madeline Miller in the same genre. Maybe that isn't fair, but I can't help but do it: there is something electric in Miller's prose that I don't feel--or don't feel enough of--in Barker's.

Still, The Silence of the Girls is a good novel and it's worth your time. I teach a Humanities class on Greek and Roman Myth and I offer this book for extra credit along with Miller's novels because I think they do important work in making Myth feel fresh, new, and--above all--RELATABLE and UNDERSTANDABLE to modern audiences.

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Orpheus and Euridyce Meets The Road

Revisado: 07-19-20

This book is like the quest of Orpheus and Eurydice meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It has the wonder and imagination required of a story about gods and the underworld, but it makes it feel more grounded with tragic tales and a filter of grit and desolation.

Most of this novel takes place in the underworld as protagonist and ne'er-do-well Chet Moran searches for a way to save his pregnant wife from a malignant evil that has outrun fate and punishment for far too long.

The wonder of the book is in how the underworld is imagined. As a teacher of Greek and Roman Myth, it reminds me of the Homeric view of the underworld: not Hell but nowhere you would want to hang out either. Brom draws very heavily from Greek myth--with rivers like the Styx and Lethe--but also from the mythologies of other religions to populate this afterlife. It is well drawn because it isn't done with cheap cameos and tongue-in-cheek references to this deity or that one. This, like McCarthy's The Road, is an afterlife that is in many ways broken and full of desolation and cruelty. Like in Gaiman's American Gods, it shows powerful supernatural beings fallen on hard times and struggling, in human-like ways--with the threat of mortality.

The world seems rich and detailed and it is unfolded well throughout the story with a sense of urgency keeping the narrative going as the clock is ticking for poor Chet's wife and his unborn child back in the land of the living.

R.C Bray's narration does well here. There are some stories I feel he works well in and some that I feel he doesn't. Lost Gods is one his talents are well suited to.

In short, this story will surprise you with how deep and well crafted it is. It's well worth your credit.

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It stays with you

Revisado: 07-19-20

Michael McDowell's paperback horror focused on Southern towns in Alabama. It dwelt in decaying communities beset by family troubles, financial hardships, or some combination of both. They also seem to all take place during the unrelenting heat of a Southern summer. The southern-Alabama heat becomes so pervasive in the storytelling that it is practically a character in and of itself.

Cold Moon over Babylon has all of these qualities. It is a great example of Southern Gothic Horror and Scott Brick's narration of McDowell's prose make it into a grisly, haunting experience like few others I've had in fiction.

It begins as a kind of murder mystery: who killed young Margaret Larkin and WHY? The novel evolves into a psychological story about mental and emotional unraveling as the supernatural powers in the Styx river hound the murderer.

This is important to know going in, I think. It's not really a mystery novel nor is it a by-the-numbers revenge story with ghosts.

This is a book about cruelty, in a way. There is a lot of cruelty in this book, including by the supernatural elements themselves. These powers are not good and just. If they were then they could have acted earlier to prevent a lot of heartbreak.

Instead, the horrifying supernatural elements mirror--if not feed off of--the horror and degradation growing inside the killer. This is a good lens to look through when examining this book, I think.

I've thought a lot about this book and that is because it was one I couldn't shake out of my mind easily. Horror endures and doesn't go away easily, and McDowell's book hits that mark in a wonderful and grotesque way.

Scott Brick's narration is excellent, as always. He could read jury summons and make it sound heart wrenching and beautiful.

An independent movie based on this novel was shot a few years ago. It's OK, but it doesn't capture the wonder, the fear, and the loathing that permeates McDowell's prose.

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Grisly and Enthralling

Revisado: 07-19-20

There are at least two kinds of horror stories. One is "there are monsters and we will kill them," and the other is "there are monsters and we must suffer them." The Amulet falls into the latter category. It is Horror in the sense that the characters are doomed by something beyond their ken AND by their own faults and foibles. They can't escape because, in part they can't escape themselves, and the evil they face plays on that.

McDowell as usual paints a vivid picture of a Southern community. This one is set in the earlier days of the Vietnam war and the Civil Rights movement. McDowell's fictional town of Pine Cone, Alabama is full of poverty, gossip, mistrust, old grudges, fear, alienation, racism, and decay.

The central conceit is that malignant yet lazy antagonist Jo Howell is going to take revenge on the town that built the rifle that malfunctioned, exploded, and disfigured her son Dean. Her weapon is the Amulet that turns regular people into murderers before bringing its wearer to his or her own grisly end. The novel is told from the perspective of Dean's wife, Sarah. So much of the horror of the novel comes from the strain that builds on Sarah: taking care of her invalid husband, dealing with her lazy but demanding mother in law, working a monotonous job at the rifle factory, and trying to keep her sanity as she learns of the terror her mother in law has let loose on the community of Pine Cone.

Jo Howell is painted wonderfully as a malignant narcissist who feels everyone owes her something but is too lazy to even take care of herself. The long-suffering Sarah is well drawn as well, as is her closest friend and neighbor, Becca. This novel has the horror of formula described at the outset of this review down pat in that the reader can really feel how Sarah and Becca suffer emotionally from the evil around them.

I've found that McDowell's books stick with me because they aren't interested in tying things off in a nice, neat, hopeful ending. Horror endures and threatens to repeat itself, which is part of what makes it such an effective genre for storytelling. And the horror of The Amulet one that will stick with you for some time after you finish reading.

Julia Whelan does a great job with the narration. I've sampled her narration in one or two other audio-books, but she didn't make much of an impression on me. But with The Amulet her performance is distinctive and it resonates well with the material. I would listen to more from her based on this presentation.

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Southern Gothic Horror Well Executed

Revisado: 07-19-20

I came to Buehlman after ploughing through several Michael McDowell audiobooks (The Elementals, The Amulet, Cold Moon Over Babylon). I was wanting more of that kind of Southern Gothic Horror and Buehlman's book scratched that itch and then some.

If you want mystery, horror, dark family secrets, and a charming and simultaneously alienating Southern setting, then give this book a go.

The nature of the novel's monsters, the titular "Those Across the River," might seem trite and old hat at first blush. However, Buelhman executes this book so well that it doesn't matter. The monsters are only part of the tapestry of struggle that this book presents. Set during the mid 1930's in Georgia, this novel has many antagonists: poverty, the Great Depression, the protagonist's WWI PTSD (it isn't called that, of course), the stain of the infidelity that brought the protagonist and his wife-to-be together, the struggles of rural farm folk, the lingering specter of the Civil War, etc. There are a lot of stakes here, both personal and communal, that make this book engrossing and that make the monsters feel like a real threat to an already-downtrodden people.

In short, I liked the story. I even found myself surprised here and there by plot twists that I didn't see coming, which--as an English and literature teacher--was delightful. There are too many hackneyed horror tales out there that start promising but end up being disappointingly predictable. Buehlman's book managed to make it's plot points feel earned and right without making them painfully obvious from miles away.

Bramhall's narration is good and I would listen to another book narrated by him. HOWEVER, as other reviewers have noted there are some audio problems with the recording. Some words are clipped off at the end of chapters (usually only one). When you know to expect it, as I did after reading the reviews, it lessens the negative effects of it. While I didn't find it to be anywhere near a dealbreaker--especially given the overall quality of the story--it is something to consider before purchasing. The audio hiccups were the only thing I penalized the performance for in my rating of the audiobook.

Overall this book was definitely worth the cost of a credit.

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