DWD's Reviews

          A review of the abridged audiobook Published by Random House Audio in 1998 Duration: 2 hours, 54 minutes Read by Anthony Heald Abridged I was not a fan of this book. I'm not sure if it was the abridgment or the writing style, but I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt and blame the abridgment. Like most abridged books, it was too abridged (where are the Reader's Digest abridgers when you need them?). Characters, ships and situations show up without preamble but we're expected to be familiar with them. The whole book seemed hurried. The typical special effects that Lucasfilms provides their audiobooks are a bonus, but they were somewhat haphazardly applied in this case - sometimes the music overpowered the text and jungle background noises were on a continuous loop that was too loud and too repetitive. The lightsaber sound effects are wonderful, but they were not timed with the text very well - sabers were being turned on...

Published by Hatchette Audio in 2004 Read by Peter J. Fernandez and Denis O'Hare Duration: 8 hours, 19 minutes Unabridged The real problem with James Patterson's works right now is that he has become a corporate thing - James Patterson, Inc. James Patterson, Inc. produces a large amount of books, movies, and even TV shows, but like nationwide fast food chains that produce large amounts of food in a short amount of time, Patterson's prodigious output suffers from a serious lack of quality. The last 3 Patterson books I've reviewed have all had gaping holes in the plot. Does he even have his work edited any longer, or do they just print them up as soon as the rough draft comes in? London Bridges features Alex Cross, Patterson's most enduring character and the star of much better books like Kiss the Girls . In this one, Alex is confronted by two of his arch-villain foes at the same time - the Weasel and the Wolf. Unfortunately, Alex is cheapened b...

A look at Hollywood from an insider's point of view Published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster. 290 pages. Daniel Depp knows his way around Hollywood - he is a screenwriter and his brother is famed actor Johnny Depp (a fact I did not know until after I read the book). Loser's Town features David Spandau, a former stuntman turned private detective. Spandau is jaded and definitely not impressed with the Hollywood movie scene. Spandau is called back from vacation to take a case involving Bobby Dye, an up and coming new star on the verge of making it to the pinnacle of the Hollywood scene. But, he's receiving death threats and, more importantly, is being blackmailed. Spandau has to deal with greedy agents, flighty actors and an on again / off again relationship with his client throughout as he tracks clues through the ugly underbelly of the Hollywood scene. The book's title comes from a Robert Mitchum quote: " I came out to Los Angeles in the 30s, during the D...

"Glacial Period" comes up short despite self-proclaimed greatness. Published in 2007 by NBM Publishing. 80 pages. So, what do you get when a hotshot graphic novelist teams up with the Louvre to showcase their works of art with a twist? Well, you get a short sci-fi book that has a solid start but a contrived, odd end. In short, this is a half-hour read for most and the story was not all that great. It wasn't bad, but it just doesn't live up the self-promotional hype that fills the inside flaps of the front and back covers - such as "Here are the most intelligent comics the world has to offer" and claims that the other is a "mad genius" and his artwork is "breathtaking." Not really. This one is too sketchy (not the art style, the plot) to be considered great by this reader. I rate this graphic novel 2 stars out of 5. This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Glacial Period .  Reviewed on February 7, 2008. ...

I think I've read this one before... Published in 2008 by Putnam 304 pages I am a gigantic fan of Robert B. Parker. I've read all of the Spenser books, the Stone books and the Randall books. And I'm slowly "re-reading" the Spenser books as audiobooks. It is not lightly that I give this book two stars. Robert B. Parker  (1932-2010) The Stone novels were always different than the Spenser / Sunny Randall novels. Spenser and Sunny always have that buddy network to fall back on (especially Hawk and Spike, respectively) Jesse has always been alone, except for his on-again off-again ex-wife, who actually makes his sense of being alone even stronger. That whole formula is thrown out. Instead, we have a combination of a re-make of Spenser's April Kyle and Paul Giacomin stories told under Jesse Stone this time around. This time around we now have Amber. Rather than Spenser's Hawk (a mysterious, unstoppable African-American who operat...

Not as good as the last one Published by Knopf, July of 2011 Michael Harvey's Chicago-based series features Michael Kelly, a one-time cop turned private detective who seems to have connections all over Chicago, from the Mayor's office all the way down to the street gangs. We All Fall Down takes place immediately after the previous book, The Third Rail (which I rated 4 stars out of 5) with very little explanation to get the reader up to speed. I just barely remembered the ending of the last book - I read more than a year and a half ago. Michael Kelly finds out about a conspiracy to defraud the government of Chicago led by Mafia types and a top man in the Mayor's office. As he looks into it, he stumbles upon a drug dealing conspiracy gone bad and eventually it all links up with the release of a biological agent and an ensuing epidemic into a very tough Chicago neighborhood. We All Fall Down is best during its descriptions of the epidemic and its impact upon Chic...

A troubling biography. Published in 2011. Thomas Nelson Publishers has stepped out and published an attractive series of short biographies of American generals - all nicely bound and immensely readable. But, I found Sherman: The Ruthless Victor to be more than a little troubling for what really amounts to just a few sentences in a 163 page book. Clearly von Hassell and Breslin are not writing this biography as fans of Sherman - they dislike the man as a person and do not respect his accomplishments on the battlefield. That is fine. I can live with a negative biography of an historical figure, but this book has moments that stretch the limits of responsible biography. For example, on page 22 the authors note that Sherman's difficult childhood may have caused strains in his relationships with his wife and his children. Reasonable assumption. But, then they go on to say that his "revulsion from scenes of domestic happiness" caused him to be particularly rough on the Sou...

Overreach hurts the overall argument Published in 2011 by Regnery Publishing. I feel I must establish my bona fides here. I am an Iain Murray fan. I really enjoyed his book The Really Inconvenient Truths (to see my review click here ). On my favorite quotes page on this blog, there is an Iain Murray quote (really!). But, while I am a fan, in this book, I think that Murray has made many, many valid points but overreached on others. The over-argument weakens the overall book, in my opinion. Also, in the interest of making everything clear, I have chosen to be a member of public employee union - the Indiana State Teacher Association (we choose to be a member or not in Indiana). I have actually gone to state level meetings as a representative of my local union. I have been invited multiple times to attend trainings so that I can become more involved but I have not done so due to family commitments. That being said, I can clearly see that there are tensions between being a political c...

                                      Not good. Published by MacMillan Audio in 2011 Read by Scott Sowers Duration: 15 hours, 1 minutes Unabridged Multiple Edgar Award-winning author John Hart delivers a dud with Iron House , a book with too many disparate themes, too many stereotypical storylines and characters that might have been stolen from central casting at any Hollywood B movie and with too much detail about the scenery. Combine it with an overly dramatic reading by Scott Sowers and it makes for an altogether unsatisfying audiobook experience. In Iron House we have a mafia crime boss on his death bed. His adopted son, Michael, has asked to be released from his obligations to the family business so that he might pursue a normal life with his pregnant girlfriend. But, as everyone knows, you cannot just walk away from the mafia, especially if you are known as the most effective h...

The cover and the title make you think you're in for more than this movie delivers As fans of Starship Troopers know, the very name Starship Troopers implies a galaxy-sweeping epic with lots of violence, gore, heroism, humor, drama and tons of big-budget special effects. This one is limited to one location, his lots of gore but little in the humor, drama and big-budget special effects department. One has to wonder at the thought processes in Hollywood. Starship Troopers was a big success. Sure, it was expensive, but it is also a regular staple on cable TV and it continues to sell well. One would think that a Starship Troopers 2 would have been in the works for a long time - perhaps a final push to the bug home system. Instead, according to the director's commentary track, the special effects director of the original Starship Troopers came up with this simple, low-budget plot that he wanted to direct. Somehow sold it to the powers-that-be at Sony and th...

A flawed biography of a man who is often overlooked Published in 1981 by Fairfax Press. J efferson Davis (1808-1889) is an oft-overlooked figure in American history, especially when compared to his presidential counterpart in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln. This biography is not recommended as a place to start by this history teacher, though. It has too many flaws. First, there are strong points: 1. The basics of Davis's life are correct. 2. Lots of good pictures and maps. Weak points: The Iron Will of Jefferson Davis The Iron Will of Jefferson Davis is replete with factual errors, such as claiming that Lexington, KY was "in the East" (pg. 8) in 1823, when this was clearly considered the "West" by Americans of the time. He claims that Southern slave plantation farming was more productive than Northern agriculture - this has been proving to be untrue, unless you consider that you can get extended growing seasons and get multiple crops in Deep...

Sigh... Published in 2005 by Hachette Audio. Read by Daniel Whitner and Kevin O'Rourke Duration: 8 hours, 10 minutes Unabridged. I used to think the Alex Cross series had a lot going for it. I used to be very impressed with it when I first discovered it about 10 years ago. I don't know if my tastes have improved or if the series has declined but this is definitely not as good as I remember them being (and frankly, I'm scared about going back and re-reading one of them and ruining my only strong memories of the series). There are two concurrent plots in Violets are Blue . One involves an investigation into the "Goth" underworld and vampires (are they real or are they just people who are REALLY into vampires and like to act like they are real vampires..?) The other story involves the recurring criminal mastermind character conveniently named "the Mastermind". I hate to write spoilers so I won't re-hash the entire plot here, but let m...

Often frustrating. Sometimes shocking. Never boring. Read by Tom Weiner Duration: 10 hours, 24 minutes. Blackstone Audio Unabridged. Robert A. Heinlein was recognized many times over as a master of the science fiction tale – he is a multiple winner of the Hugo award and the first recipient of the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement. Heinlein is one of those golden age writers that moved science fiction from being stories strictly for kids to a separate and recognized literary genre for adults, too. Farnham’s Freehold is, at best, a difficult book. Perhaps books like this were a requirement when moving science fiction from a kid’s genre to an adult genre. It seems that Heinlein the iconoclast was out to irritate as many sensibilities as possible in an attempt to question some of society’s long held ideas about race, sex and the male-female relationships, even if it caused the story to suffer at the expense of all of that questioning. The story first appeare...

A NASCAR legend deserves better Published in 2008 by Triumph Books. Cale Yarborough is a living symbol of NASCAR from its beginnings to the very creation of the dizzying heights that it has achieved nowadays. Sadly, most of the Johnny-Come-Lately fans have no idea, or at best, only a very dim idea who he is. Sadly, this biography of Cale Yarborough, They Call Him Cale: The Life and Career of NASCAR Legend Cale Yarborough , only covers half of his career. Indeed, most of the book covers his life before NASCAR. There are only 203 pages in this biography and he joins NASCAR full-time on page 169. Considering that the last 11 pages discusses his retirement years, that leaves 23 pages to discuss his amazing run of 3 championships in a row, the famous fistfight at the 1979 Daytona 500, his decision to run a partial schedule for more than 7 years and his 11 year stint as team owner (just 5 pages for that). The book could have been tremendously improved if the author had bo...

While it does not feature any factual errors, you start to wonder... ...is this a book that really had to be written? Published in 1992 by Squire Boone Village I know that the top-rated, best-selling history authors depend a lot on writers like W. Fred Conway in order to get the more popular, wider-audience histories written. Why? Because Conway is a fan of Indiana history and he has done a lot of research that people like James McPherson would never have time to do simply out of a love for his local area. This is one of the many books he has written about Indiana, Kentucky and/or Ohio and life along the Ohio River. Conway knows his stuff but... Boyhood of Lincoln by Eastman Johnson, 1868 Well, I am also a proud son of the Hoosier state and I found Young Abe Lincoln: His Teenage Years in Indiana to be more than a little pointless. The important facts could have been written in about 10 pages, maybe less. A little more than 5% of the book is the hopeful reminiscings...