Mister Trope

Dan Simmons is the greatest

Revisado: 02-13-23

I've read a wide variety of Simmons's work. He writes several genres and is an accomplished author in all of them. And what other author would even try to make John Keats heroic?

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

The Inter-Dimensional Dimwits are Back

Revisado: 01-04-23

John and Dave just want ordinary lives, but weird things keep finding them threatening to end the universe unless somebody does something. And ever since they took an eldrich drug in the first book, they're the only ones who can perceive the threats. They live in the city of "undisclosed," like Hill Valley in Buffy, the Hellmouth, only a different oriface. It's a dystopian landscape. I swear that "undisclosed" describes my city to a T.

I can't summarize the plots of these books, nor do I want to. Only a direct reading will do them justice. Sometimes it's horror. Sometimes it's slapstick. In between it actually becomes profound, making me wonder if the author has summoned Mark Twain to act as his muse.

My only complaint about the series: the plot always ends chapters before the story does. That's not a fatal flaw. The Lord of the Rings does the same thing. It's not that the author has run out of plot. He simply wraps up some loose ends.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Dan Simmons is the greatest, and in top form here

Revisado: 11-08-22

I discovered Dan Simmons in 2014 when I listened to his other historical, almost-all-fiction, The Terror, a horror novel about Captain John Franklin's ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage. Wouldn't you know, the melting of the arctic solved the mystery of the expedition in 2017. I still prefer Simmons' version of it. Then, I read Illium, a blend of science fiction and classical literature. This year, I read Hyperion. I knew he was a writer of great imagination and versatility. He's become my favorite.

You won't care about the length of this novel, nor all technical details about climbing equipment. "Abominable" is another historical imagining about a forgotten ecpedition to climb Everest, and how profoundly it affected later historical events. I'm embarrassed to say, it's told which such skill, and fitted so seamlessly into historical events, that I wonder if it's all true, despite it being labeled a novel. The only real hint in the story is that, like The Terror, the characters do the seemingly impossible under horrendous physical conditions, this time not just hypothermia, but hypoxia. But even that is given the cover of doubt by the surviving protagonist telling it in first person as he remembered events decades later.

So Simmons is so skilled a writer that he still has me duped. Maybe it's labeled a novel to protect the names of the people involved? Or perhaps because nobody will believe it's a real memoir if he markets that claim. The fact is I don't know but I don't want to ruin the mystique by finding out.

I still prefer Simmons' story of the disappearance of the Franklin expedition to the real story uncovered since. Now that's proof of a great fiction writer.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Apologies to the author,

Revisado: 10-08-22

Truth is I don't know why I couldn't get this. I started reading and stopped for a month and listened and read other books in between, started again, and found myself doing the same thing. There were too many characters, and many seemed redundant. The main character wasn't compelling. Not only that, the source of her inner conflict ( pregnant at 15, she put her child up for adoption) is common enough in real life that the story came off as sanctimonious. The settings were confusing, and I couldn't keep straight who the characters were and what the setting they were in, and who was natural or supernatural, or whether it was a dream or reality.

But I think the narration really killed my interest. The narrator's voice reminded me old "Peanuts" TV specials. It's hard to be a horror thriller when listener is expecting to hear "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!" I couldn't imagine the adult characters being out middle school. It's probably not the narrator's fault as much as the choice of narrator.

Therefore, even with the ease of listening to a book, this is one of the few stories I expect to never finish.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

An Excellent & Essential Book for Americans now

Revisado: 01-22-22

It turns out, political scientists have done some real science. The many civil wars worldwide since 1860 has given them a plethora of data on what they have enough material on civil wars now to know how they start.

Barbara Walters (no, not the newscaster) tells her readers what they've found and supports it both with metrics (the "polity index") and with case studies. She brings us to a scary conclusion, the US is on the edge of another civil war. It won't be fought like Civil War I, and is likelier to be much more bloody and more confused, and have an outcome without benefits.

From what I've written there, you might think the material is dry. I didn't think that at all. She intersperses the data and analysis with stories of people who've been caught up in civil conflicts. You might also think it's depressing. No, at the end, she gives examples of civil wars avoided and makes suggestions on how the US can take steps back from the edge and take a different course. Our divisions don't have to end in civil catastrophe.

A truly excellent, timely, and important book. I'm recommending it to everyone.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Not one of Stephen King's better books

Revisado: 08-29-21

Stephen King seems to set up character stereotypes just to show off how well he could sidestep them. Yes, he does a great job dodging them, but only stumble from thriller-novel stereotypes and into Stephen King stereotypes. A writer has a successful career when he's generated his own personal stable of cliches. This book may very well be improved if the reader hasn't read another King book.

The bad news is this book is surprisingly lame as a thriller. At first it was interesting to see the hitman undercover as a writer, discovering it's what he wants to be. The title character, Billy, is undercover then in hiding for more than 4/5ths of the book. As everybody trapped inside with COVID now knows, that's boring. King's background of Billy's life culminating as a crack sniper in Iraq can only go so far, since you already know he survived and his closest buddies didn't. It does nothing for the pace of the main story.

The good news is it succeeds on a deeper level as an antiwar book, almost a throwback to the post-Vietnam '70s. I'm almost tempted to call it social commentary disguised as a thriller.

Meanwhile, you get to find out that Billy, the hit man, is good with children. That's a very Stephen King character. Also, (to reiterate) that he discovers he wants to be a writer. That's even more Stephen King, but also intriguing on the level that it could've been the life that Billy had. There are other King tropes and cliches I won't go into. Uncharacteristically, it doesn't have a lot of thrills for a King book, nor for the genre. Billy's too smart and evades everything too well.

Nothing really goes wrong with his plans, except he should've declined the job, which, for some reason, pays way above the market. That's obviously called bait.

I was also able to predict the end before the last twist. Then after the twist the book just meanders through an extended epilogue, another thing he's been doing a lot recently.

If "Billy Summers" is badly timed due to social distancing, it's well-timed for an antiwar book. The question posed: what was Billy supposed to do after the Iraqi war with a scarred psyche and skills as a crack marksman? Those skills aren't too much in demand for civilians. He only killed bad people as a hitman because he did exactly that in Iraq.

With that slant, in the hands of a great director and a great scriptwriter, this could be an extraordinary movie. I would see it. Not a total success as a book, though.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

An excellent first novel by a new talent

Revisado: 11-08-20

A great First alien Contact story concerned first with the problems it creates in human politics. I liked the contrast of the storyline to the wrong conspiracy theory swirling around it. But on a deeper level it deals with the problem truth and transparency create, and whether complete transparency is desirable or harmful. The central theme, however, is the dilemmas inherent in cultural coexistance. In this case the cultures are actually humans and an alien species. The starting suggestion, Kevin with the authority of the technically advanced aliens is that very different cultures cannot coexist. However, the author, Lindsay Ellis contrasts this with a less pessimistic counterpoint as the story unfolds.

The set up is clever. I didn't find the characters likable at first, including the protagonist, but I'm glad I stuck with it. The characters especially the protagonist get better. The character arcs are handled very well.

I have one complaint how about the audio edition. The narration was excellent, except for 1 bad production decision that, unfortunately, distracted me throughout much of the story. The alien speaks with a synthesized voice described to be like Stephen Hawking's. The narration is very good, except when the narrator tries to make this voice. She then it sounds like a child playing an alien in a children's game. This problem detracted from many scenes. I hated to give the narrator the mediocre rating because it wasn't her fault. The. producer should have made a better choice. This isn't a problem in the print edition of course. I do highly recommend this book and this author.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Bob Woodward is a historian & a saint

Revisado: 10-11-20

I would bet and this is the most accurate book about Trump. Woodward lets him tell his own story from recordings of 18 conversations. And you can draw your own conclusions from them.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A horror story

Revisado: 07-20-20

I'd like to say I loved it, but I can't because it's true, and because the ending hasn't happened yet. Trump's niece, with a PhD in psychology, describes her uncle's history & analyzes his behavior, warning us that he is the worst person to lead our country. She provides a skeleton key, to the president's psyche and releases all of Donald's closet skeletons. Read this book before November.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Poor Narration

Revisado: 03-26-20

I'm not sure I can get through this book with narration this bad, and I love Laird Barron's work. I listen to books while I'm doing daily tasks. I have attention deficit. Therefore, it's important that the narration keep my attention. Why the reading is done so poorly is baffling to me. I lost the thread of whole stories due to Karin Allers's clear, but flat and monotonous reading. She doesn't act out the characters, she never changes cadence or tone. After a while, you know, word-for-word, tone-for-tone, what her inflection will be, so you stop listening. Judging by her consistency and tone quality, she's perfectly able to read this better. Presumably, the producers of the collection (and perhaps the author himself) must've listened to this and pronounced it okay.. Therefore, the only likely explanation I have is she was instructed to read it exactly this way. Why? It's a major artistic blunder. Instead, narrate Barron's stories the way they were read in "The Imago Sequence," or in Ellen Datlow's best horror volumes. If I ever finish this book, I'll revise this review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 8 personas