Thanos6

William Schoell's monster masterpiece

Revisado: 02-01-24

Of all of his horror novels, I think this is Schoell's best. It does a superb job of touching on the themes of addiction and past trauma, which the hero, much of the supporting cast, and even the villain struggle with. Even the most minor characters are well fleshed out. The action and horror scenes are appropriately exciting and terrifying, and Andrew Gibson does a fine job performing.

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A pulpy blast from horror's past

Revisado: 06-15-23

THE DRAGON isn't William Schoell's best novel, but it certainly lives up to his belief that horror stories should be entertaining. Many of the characters aren't the most likeable, but the story itself is never uninspired nor predictable. It feels like a lost story from the 1920s that was recovered, updated, and finally published six decades later. Jeffrey S Robinson does a fine job of reading, with a dry-but-not-dull tone that suits this novel well.

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An occasionally incomprehensible history

Revisado: 05-18-23

This is a chronicle of the Cybermen, as summarized and hypothesized by an in-universe historian, covering all of their appearances in Classic Dr. Who. I'm only a casual fan, but the subject matter was easy to understand, although I will admit to sometimes getting lost in the long Cybermen "evolutionary tree."

The actual words, however, were not always so easy to understand. The narration was fine, crisp and clear; but whenever characters from the show were quoted, it's a different story. Some distortion effects were applied to them that made them difficult to make out. This goes double for the Cybermen themselves; in particular, the Cyber Module (or Coordinator) in "First Invasion Of Earth," and the entirety of "Welcome To The Cyber Hive," are almost completely unintelligible. This is not related to how they sound in the show, where I had no problem understanding them. It's a baffling choice that ruins large chunks of this presentation.

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Out-of-date, often inaccurate, and yet...

Revisado: 05-05-23

One of the classic books in UFOlogy, I owned this book when I was young and fervently interested in such things. Seeing it on Audible, I decided to see how Frank Edwards's treatise has held up, now that I'm older and more agnostic on the subject.


After nearly sixty years, much of the book is naturally out of date. Mr. Edwards proposes CTA 21 and CTA 102 as strong possibilities for extraterrestrial transmitters; they are now known to be quasars, which were still being discovered at the time the book was written. And almost everything involving the moon is now suitable only as a historical curiosity.


Sometimes he fell for hoaxes, such as the KLEE-TV incident in Britain, and the Steep Rock Lake sighting in Canada, neither of which ever actually happened. Another hoax is the story of the "lost cosmonauts," which is delightfully creepy but not at all true.


There are other cases where Mr. Edwards repeats second-hand, exaggerated reports, instead of the original, rather more prosaic accounts, e.g. the Walesville incident. Perhaps he should have researched a bit more thoroughly, but I believe this was the result of overeagerness, not an intent to purposefully deceive; and of course, it's much easier to find original sources now than in the 1960s.


Some of the official attempts to explain away UFO sightings are so ludicrous, that one doesn't even have to believe in extraterrestrial visitors to find them comical, and Mr. Edwards gets in some delightful zingers when he punctures them. My personal favorite: "When the planet Venus gets so close that boys can hit it with .22 rifles, it is time for all of us to head for the hills."


David Gilmore's performance is excellent; it is matter-of-fact, with just enough emotion and deadpan wryness to keep it from being dry and soporific. (I imagine Mr. Edwards's own broadcasts had a similar tone.)


Don't rely on this book as an authoritative, final source, but for anyone with an interest in UFO sightings–whether believer, skeptic, or neutral–this makes for an enjoyable listen, and a good place to start. Just don't forget to double-check his claims, and catch up on the six decades of developments since.

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Slightly spooky Southern stories

Revisado: 04-25-23

Nancy Roberts wrote over twenty books, largely focusing on American folklore and ghost stories. Here, she presents eighteen tales from South and North Carolina.

It should be noted that as this book was originally published in 1962, some of its material comes across as rather jarring; in antebellum tales, slaves are called "Negroes," and while the Trail Of Tears is justly called one of the United States' most shameful moments, it is blamed on misinterpreted orders or lower-ranking officers who hated Native Americans, refusing to accept it as the policy of the government as a whole.

Beyond that, due to its age some of the material is out-of-date or very familiar. The "Brown Mountain Lights" don't actually date back nearly as long as Roberts claimed, making them less mysterious, and "Swamp Girl" is a version of a very common yarn.

Finally, "The Night The Spirits Called" goes on for far too long.

Still, most of these are good tales well told, with "The Gray Man," "City Of Death," and "House Of The Opening Door" being perhaps the highlights. Barbara Benjamin-Creel does a fine job bringing them to life (or afterlife as the case may be), giving each story and the characters within them their own voices.

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A nice introduction to LitRPG

Revisado: 01-11-21

This is the first LitRPG book I've read or listened to. It was quite enjoyable and I believe I'll check out the rest of the series and more of the genre. The main protagonist is pretty interesting, though I do wish there was more emphasis on the townsfolk and not as much on the other Champions. The reader did a fine job at giving everyone their own voice.

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