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BATMAN: THE LAZARUS SYNDROME (audiobook) by Dirk Maggs

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Published by BBC Worldwide Unlimited in 2010. Multicast Performance Duration: 44 minutes Even though I enjoy the comic book movies and I listen to a few comic book-based audiobooks, I am not a serious comics fan. I dabble. I haven't even been into a real comic book store. I know the big names and their back stories and that's about it. But, the title of this story ruined the story for me. If you know about the Lazarus Pits then there was no mystery at all. This was just one more problem in a problem-filled audiobook. First things first, let me be clear that none of the problems in this audiobook come from the actual performance of the book. It is performed like an old-fashioned radio play and the BBC performers did a great job.  Sadly, the story itself does not live up to the performances of the actors. In this story, Batman is supposed to be dead. He hasn't been seen in a while and Commissioner Gordon receives a tape from Batman that was to be delivered when

SUPERMAN on TRIAL (audiobook) by Dirk Maggs

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Too Short. A Lost Opportunity to Create Something Truly Amazing. Published in 2010 by BBC Audio Multicast Performance Duration: 1 hour Superman is captured and on trial. Lex Luthor is the prosecutor, Lois Lane is Superman's sole defender. A Guardian of the Universe is the judge and if Superman is found guilty, he is to be sentenced to the Phantom Zone.  The charge? Superman is not the defender of humanity - he is actually committing crimes against humanity. Luthor's arguments go along this line - Superman is an alien and he is interfering with life on Earth. As Lois Lane makes her arguments that Superman is actually helping, Luthor blunts them with his own arguments. For example, Luthor calls Batman to the stand to testify that Batman feels the need to monitor Superman to make sure that he does not abuse his powers to enslave humanity. The audiobook ventures into some fairly unique territory. Not only are Superman's peers questioned but the assumption is that

THE SMOKE at DAWN: A NOVEL of the CIVIL WAR (Civil War in the West #3) (audiobook) by Jeff Shaara

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Published by Random House Audio in June of 2014 Read by Paul Michael Duration: 19 hours, 42 minutes Unabridged Confederate General Braxton Bragg (1817-1876)   Jeff Shaara is well-known by fans of military historical fiction. This is his fifth book about the Civil War, the third about the campaign in The Western Theater. This book picks up a few months after Grant's victory at Vicksburg and focuses on Chattanooga. The crushing defeat at Chickamauga suffered by Union General Rosecrans was a terrible blow after the Union's massive twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg just two months earlier. Confederate General Braxton Bragg swept Rosecrans' army from the Chickamauga battlefield and they fled back to the safety of Chattanooga. Bragg's forces occupy the mountains that surround Chattanooga and have effectively laid siege to the city. Already, the Union forces are suffering and Rosecrans seems confused about what to do next. Luckily, Bragg is worried about d

LINES of CONTENTION: POLITICAL CARTOONS of the CIVIL WAR by J.G. Lewin and P.J. Huff

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Published in 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers The Civil War was, in many ways, the world's first modern war. The submarine was invented, the machine gun was introduced, aerial reconnaissance was used and metal warships ruled the seas. It was also a war that featured all aspects of the media of the day. Propaganda songs like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" were written, speeches were given all over the country, those same speeches were re-read in newspapers. Those newspapers were openly partisan on every issue of the day. And, one of the best ways to express these partisan opinions was political cartoons. This book is filled with political cartoons describing the issues that brought on the war, cartoons inspired by the people and fighting in the war and a light discussion of the end of the war. Almost all of the cartoons are excellent and they provide a jumping off point for discussion of the events as they are portrayed in chronological order.  Below is a carto

THE ENEMY (Jack Reacher #8) by Lee Child

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Originally published in 2004. Some authors are fastidious about their books being written in the order that events happen to the character. So, the events in book 5 will follow the events in books 3 and 4 and precede the events in books 6 and 7. Lee Child does not feel the need to do that in his Reacher series. While this book is number 8 in the order of publication, it is the first chronologically which makes it a great place to start the series. Reacher is in the Military Police and has just been re-assigned from the invasion of Panama to remove General Manuel Noriega in December of 1989 to Fort Bird in North Carolina. It is New Year's Eve and just at the stroke of midnight Reacher gets a call. A General is dead in a seedy hotel off base. It turns out he died from heart attack while he was just starting an intimate moment with a mystery partner. Reacher is not too worried about things until he notes that the General's briefcase is missing. So, Reacher starts digg

BORDERLINE (The Arcadia Project) by Mishell Baker

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An intriguing mix of the old to make something new To be published in March of 2016 The best cooks can take a couple of tired old recipes and do something special to mix them together and make something that feels like it is brand new.    Mishell Baker has taken bits of several popular movies and thrown them together with a a couple of well-known book genres and created something entirely unique. Take a handful of Jack Nicholson's 1974 classic movie  Chinatown , fold it into Will Smith's Men in Black , add to it a pinch of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis   and a giant handful of Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever  and you have an approximation of what this book is like. It is a crazy jumbled mess that comes pretty close to being brilliant. Millie Roper is a former film student who shattered her body when she jumped off a building in an attempted suicide. She suffers from mental illness, has two prosthetic legs and is a very