DWD's Reviews

Published by Recorded Books in 2011. Read by George Guidall Duration: 11 hours, 23 minutes Unabridged This is my first John Wells book. For those not in the know, John Wells is a former CIA agent who is also a Muslim (if not a particularly devout one when it comes to all of the formalities). He now freelances, sometimes working with the CIA, sometimes not. The first part of The Secret Soldier deals with John Wells tracking down a former operative in Jamaica and bringing him back to the United States. I am unsure as to why this was included in the book - it had nothing to do with the rest of the story except to establish that John Wells is burned out and is unsure about the life of violence that he has led.  The heart of the story involves a plot against the royal family of Saudi Arabia. Wells is hired by the King  of Saudi Arabia himself to investigate a series of terrorist attacks within Saudi Arabia. As Wells investigates he discovers that the source of these attacks may

Published by HighBridge Audio (Mysterious Press- HighBridge Audio Classics) in 2013. Read by Jeff Woodman Duration: 7 hours, 24 minutes Unabridged Originally published in 1977. This is my first Dortmunder novel. I know this is a classic series and I was looking forward to hearing it once I saw HighBridge audio was re-issuing these books. Nobody's Perfect features master thief (who always has the worst luck) Dortmunder being recruited by a "rich" man who has run out of cash thanks to his philandering and spendthrift ways. This man wants Dortmunder to recruit a team and steal a piece of art in an insurance fraud scheme. Dortmunder will keep the painting and then return it once the insurance check clears in exchange for $100,000. Sadly, I have to say that while I found the oddball characters refreshing at first, the first half of the book was slow and the amusing situations took too long to develop. they stopped being funny and started being unwelcome intrusions

Published November 1, 2012. Kindle e-book. Estimated length: 405 pages. Reminiscent of the TV show Firefly , this show has humanity moving out into the galaxy and occupying multiple planets. Also, like in Firefly , the newly settled planets fought a civil war. But, instead of an oligarchy, this universe's civil war resulted in an emperor, much like the chaos at the end of the Roman Republic led to Julius and Augustus Caesar. Now, hundreds of years later, the current emperor is assassinated in a plot led by one of the admirals of one of his fleets of star ships. The fleet proceeds to move against the emperor's only heir, his daughter, as she travels to the planet where her school is. But, she is protected by the praetorian guards and their leader Jonathan Radec. At the cost of all of the praetorian guards (except for Radec) the princess survives. The Last Praetorian  is the story of the Radec and the the princess and their romance and why they broke up and how they

Published by HighBridge Audio. Originally broadcast in 1996. Multicast performance. Duration: approximately 3 hours, 15 minutes. The third installment of NPR's STAR WARS -based radio dramas was also written by sci-fi author Brian Daley (Sadly, he died of cancer very soon after it was recorded). The budget for RETURN of the JEDI was much, much smaller than the original so the recording was about half the length of the first. It still features the wonderful original music soundtrack by John Williams and the original sound effects that make the listener feel like they are part of the action.  Anthony Daniels returned as See-Threepio. Mark Hamill, however, decided to opt out of this one. Ed Asner stepped in as Jabba the Hutt (he sounded like he was choking as he spoke, though) and John Lithgow took over as Yoda (sadly, he sounded like John Lithgow pretending to be Yoda rather than creating a real voice). The shorter run time hurts RETURN of the JEDI when compared to th

If you are a fan of this series and have not listened to this version of the story you need to pick it up today - it is that good Published by HighBridge Audio. Originally broadcast in 1981. Multicast performance. Duration: approximately 6 hours. When Star Wars was at the height of its popularity in 1981, George Lucas gave a National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate permission to create a radio drama of the original movie, now known as Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope . Sci-fi author Brian Daley was tapped to adapt the movies since he had experience with the series having written a trilogy of Han Solo novels in 1979 and 1980. I have no idea what Daley's qualifications were for writing radio drama were besides those books, but he clearly was an inspired choice. He had a feel for the story and, more importantly, the characters as he more than doubles the original length of the movie. Listeners get more about Luke's life on Tatooine and a lot more about his friend B

Published in 1989 by Pocket Books (Simon and Schuster) The idea behind the book is interesting: What happened to the characters from the original Star Trek series between the end of their original five year mission and the events of the movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture ? But, the follow-through is quite weak. The characters feel like cardboard cut-outs of themselves, especially McCoy. Kirk's decision to become an admiral makes sense. but McCoy's outlandish, petulant, even childish response to Kirk's decision was simply not believable to me. Even worse, the new characters are, at best, one-note wonders. McCoy and Natira,  McCoy quits Star Fleet to find a woman from the TV episode "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky." She is the leader of a group of refugees who live inside a giant spaceship that they thought was a planet. They had a romantic spark but when McCoy returns to visit her he finds that she has made a political marriage