STAR WARS LEGENDS: BOBA FETT - BLOOD TIES by multiple authors and illustrators.

Published in 2021 by Marvel.

Blood Ties is a graphic novel collection of Boba Fett stories orginally published from 1997 to 2010.

For me, the best of the collection is the title story. It is also the longest story by far. In this story, Jango Fett is hired to kill one of the clones that was created from him because it has gone AWOL and started a family. 

Jango Fett kills the clone and then discovers that he has a son. 

Much later, Boba Fett is given a job to find a man named Connor Freeman - the child of that clone when he is all grown up. It turns out that Jango Fett has been providing a stipend for the child ever since he executed his father. Boba Fett decides to protect Freeman and figure out what is going on for himself while still fulfilling the contract.

The rest of the stories pretty much fall along the line of telling a story in which Boba Fett is really cool because he is a heartless tough guy. Personally, I prefer a story more like the Disney+ Book of Boba Fett show where the heartless villain shows a bit of heart and finds himself doing the right thing in his own heartless and villainous way. 

I rate this collection 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Star Wars Legends: Boba Fett - Blood Ties.

THE LITTLE BOOK of WREXHAM AFC edited by Mark Pearson

Published by OH in 2023.

I am a fan of the Hulu/Disney+ documentary show Welcome to Wrexham. If you are not familiar with the show, Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought a professional soccer team in Wales. 

In the U.K. there are multiple levels of pro soccer, kind of like professional baseball in the U.S. But, there is a difference - in the U.S. if your team loses or wins, they stay at their league. In the U.K., teams at the bottom of the rankings drop down a level and teams at the top of the rankings move up.

Reynolds and McElhenney bought a team that had dropped pretty low in the rankings with the determination to make the investments to push the team up as high as it would go. Meanwhile, they would document the whole thing for Americans to watch. 

This is not a review of the documentary which just concluded its fifth season, though. Instead, this a review of this little book of more than 170 quotes and facts based on the show, the team, and the town of Wrexham. The book was published after the second season, so it seems a bit dated.

It's an easy read, but not an amazing one. I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE LITTLE BOOK of WREXHAM AFC edited by Mark Pearson.

STAR WARS: LEGACY of VADER - THE REIGN of KYLO REN, VOLUME 1 by Charles Soule (Author), Luke Ross (Illustrator), Stefano Raffaele (Illustrator), Derrick Chew (Cover Art)

Published in 2025 by Marvel Universe.

Synopsis

Legacy of Vader is set between Episode VIII and Episode IX. Kylo Ren was embarrassed by Luke Skywalker at the end of Episode VIII, but he has still consolidated control of The First Order.

This collection consists of six installments, each describing the consolidation of his power or his investigation into the pre-Vader life of Anakin Skywalker. He is looking into his grandfather's life because he wants to really know what made Vader so powerful.

So, Ren travels to Mustafar, Tatooine, and Naboo with Vader's former bodyservant leading the way.

My Review

Kylo Ren's style as he takes over The First Order is ridicuously flamboyment. For example, he demands that Hux (his main rival for control of The First Order) build him a proper throne, But then, he heads off to study Darth Vader and leaves everything behind for weeks and weeks. Hux hates him with a passion and Kylo Ren should have been aware that being gone for all of that time is just asking for trouble.

Oddly, Hux just uses that time to do nothing to secure his own alternate power sources in The First Order. Instead, he just builds Kylo Ren's throne. Hux is nothing in this story but a toady, not the conniving monster shown in the movies.

The fifth installment in this series is simply bizarre. It makes no sense - just some sort of ego stroking on the part of Kylo Ren. It's completely bizarre behavior.

I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5 (barely.) It can be found on Amazon.com here: Star Wars: Legacy of Vader - The Reign of Kylo Ren, Volume 1. 

SCANDALOUS WITNESS: A LITTLE POLITICAL MANIFESTO for CHRISTIANS (audiobook) by Lee C. Camp

Published in 2020 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Read by Trevor Thompson.
Duration: 6 hours, 7 minutes.
Unabridged.

I heard Lipscomb University professor Lee C. Camp on Voxology, a Christian religious podcast with a more progressive bent. One of the hosts made multiple references to this book and how he had read it multiple times and referred to it often. The interview was good, the discussion was lively and I immediately burned my monthly Audible credit on this book.

Scandalous Witness consists of 15 propositions about Christianity, politics, and American history. I had no problem with Camp's propositions or his conclusions, but I did realize one very important fact - the hosts of the Voxology podcast are very, very good at creating interesting conversation.

There is nothing wrong with this book and its conclusions - I heartily endorse almost everything he says. The problem is that I found it to be a tedious read and I only finished it out sheer stubborness precisely because I had used my monthly Audible credit and I didn't want to waste it.

Maybe it's because I have read a lot of serious books along this vein like Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobes du Mez, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta, and The Ballot and the Bible by Kaitlyn Schiess that cover these topics. Even a more political book like John Fugelsang's Separation of Church and Hate covers a lot of this same material in confrontational manner.

There is nothing wrong with this book - I just found my mind wandering way too often. A good place to start if you haven't thought much about these topics.

His fifteen propositions are:

Proposition 1: History Is Not One Damn Thing after Another

Proposition 2: The End of History Has Already Begun

Proposition 3: American Hope Is A Bastard

Proposition 4: Christianity Is Neither A Prostitute Nor A Chaplain

Proposition 5: The United States Is Not the Hope of the World

Proposition 6: The United States Was Not, Is Not, and Will Not Be a Christian Nation

Proposition 7: How Christian Values, and the Bible, Corrupt Christianity

Proposition 8: Every Empire Falls

Proposition 9: Christian Partisanship is Like a Fist-Fight on the Titanic

Proposition 10: Hostile Forces Have a Role in the Unfolding of History

Proposition 11. Christianity Is Not a Religion; Christianity Is a Politic

Proposition 12: Liberal Political Puissance Is Not the Goal

Proposition 13: Exemplary Political Witness Is the Goal

Proposition 14: Christianity Is Not Counter-Cultural

Propositions 15: Christian Engagement Must Always Be Ad Hoc

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians. 

RACING the LIGHT (Elvis Cole / Joe Pike 19) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

 

Published in 2022 by Brilliance Audio.
Read by Luke Daniels.
Duration: 7 hours, 55 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis

In Racing the Light, private investigator Elvis Cole is hired by a worried mother to find a missing podcaster that often deals in conspiracy theories. His mother is obviously very rich, since she comes to the office with a chaufer, two bodyguards (or "helpers" as she calls them) and a second car to serve as a "chase car" (extra protection hidden among the traffic of Los Angeles.) She suspects he was kidnapped because like her son, she is also extremely paranoid and prone to conspiracy theory thinking.

Everyone else thinks her son has run off to Las Vegas with a porn star he recently interviewed, but they are worried that he could get into a different kind of mischief and just needs to come home as soon as possible.

Elvis Cole starts digging and finds a lot of unexpected danger.

My Review

Over the last year I have gone out of my way to go back and systematically read all of the books from this series that I had missed. I thought I had read almost all of the Elvis Cole / Joe Pike novels, but it turned out that I missed almost half of them.

I went back and got the missing ones in order from earliest to latest and this one was the last one. It was also the weakest one due to all sorts of extra plot details that don't really go anywhere and maybe were intended to allow the opportunity for an extended commentary on the dangers of modern surveillance technology such as drones, hidden listening devices, and cameras.

All of this tech is impressive, but it gets outdone by nosy neighbors, tailing people in cars, random witnesses, and a doofus writing his pass codes on a piece of paper in an obvious place. Maybe we shouldn't be worried. Maybe we should - we can't depend on luck and the skills of someone like Joe Pike all of the time.

Parts of this book were excellent - such as top notch Elvis Cole wisecracks followed by Elvis Cole being a top notch human being when people just need someone to be there and say nothing. But, there was just as much stuff that seemed to be nothing but filler. 

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. One of the weaker books in this overall excellent series.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Racing the Light by Robert Crais.

CONQUERORS: HOW PORTUGAL FORGED the FIRST GLOBAL EMPIRE (audiobook) by Roger Crowley

Published by Recorded Books in 2015.
Read by Jonathan Davis.
Duration: 13 hours, 7 minutes.
Unabridged.

In the mid-1400s Portugal was poised to be a major world power, despite being a backwater of Europe in so many ways. Portugal sits at the western extreme of Europe, destined to be a minor player in European politics most of the time. All of Portugal's border touches Spain, so if Portugal wanted to interact with anyone but Spain they had to take to the sea.

IThe Portugese developed a new type of little wooden ship called the caravel, armed them with cannons, filled them with food, water, sailors, and stone monuments to mark the areas they explored. They pushed down the coast of Africa, hoping to find a way to the spices of Asia.

They were looking to trade, especially for spices because the Muslim countries had established a stranglehold on the spice trade with the decline and eventual fall on the Byzantine Empire in 1453.  They were also looking to link up with the fabled African Christian king Prester John, join up to defeat the Muslims, spread Christianity, and make a lot of money along the way.

And, with the exception of the Prester John part of the plan, that's basically what happened. Prester John turned out to be the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia. It was real, but not nearly as powerful as the Portugese believed - and it wasn't very interested in attacking the Muslims in a religious war. 

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire is a pretty thorough look at the Portugese conquistadores and their escapades in the Indian Ocean. From the first, Portugal came with guns a-blazin'. They laid waste to cities, took slaves, took hostages, burnt ships, and were confrontational with almost everyone. 

Then, they headed home and made plans to return with even more ships. They made annual trips and made plans to make permanent posts from Africa to India. 

At this point, this history bogs down. It's not that it isn't accurate - it just becomes a litany of outrageous attacks by the Portugese, a minor setback, and then an even more audacious attack. It all kind of blurred together for me because Crowley didn't take a moment to pull away from the history to do a bit of analysis.

He didn't even step away to look at what the Portugese were doing in other parts of the world, such as Brazil and west Africa and put the Portugese efforts in the Indian Ocean into a larger context until the literal last three or four minutes of the audiobook. The title says it is a book about Portugal's empire and it ignores a lot of their empire.

The audiobook reader was Jonathan Davis. He is a very good reader and has a flair for accentuating the dramatic moments. But, he is also very slow. I rarely do this, but I set the audiobook player to play at 120% and he was still a bit slow at times.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: CONQUERORS: HOW PORTUGAL FORGED the FIRST GLOBAL EMPIRE by Roger Crowley.

JIMMY CARTER: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Biographies of U.S. Presidents) (kindle) by Hourly History

Published in 2025 by Hourly History.

Hourly History is a publisher that specializes in short histories and biographies in e-book form that are designed to be read in about an hour.

This limited format should have been enough for any other one term President, but with Jimmy Carter there is so much post-Presidential activity to cover that it came up a bit short.

This history spends a lot of time on Carter's early life - too much, in my opinion. Newsweek magazine once called Jimmy Carter the best ex-President ever*, and this book just doesn't tell enough about his 40+ years of being the most active former President of my lifetime. Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama all left the Presidency with enough vim and vigor to go out and be useful, but Carter did more than all of them have combined AFTER he was eighty years old.

The man was an author, a rogue diplomat, helped eradicate a truly gruesome disease, monitored elections around the world, helped build an amazing number of houses with his own hands, and taught Sunday School. I am sure I have left out 20 other things. 

This is a solid 3 star biography, but I would have moved the focus to say much more about post-Presidential years.

This e-book can be found on Amazon.com here: JIMMY CARTER: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Biographies of U.S. Presidents) by Hourly History.

*Newsweek may be right about Jimmy Carter, but I doubt they considered the amazing post-Presidential career of John Quincy Adams. See this book: Mr. Adams's Last Crusade: John Quincy Adams's Extraordinary Post-Presidential Life In Congress by Joseph Wheelan.

FAT VAMPIRE (audiobook) (Fat Vampire #1) by Johnny B. Truant

Published in 2024 by Nyifie Brothers Publishing.
Read by Joe Hempel.
Duration: 3 hours, 58 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis

Fat Vampire is a unique entry into the long and storied history of vampire tales. Our protagonist is Reginald Baskin, a very overweight accountant who works for a company that sells fitness equipment. 

The rest of the office are bullies straight out an eighties frat house movie. Reginald tries to work late afternoon into the evening as much as possible and that is where he encounters the office IT guy, Maurice. 

Maurice only works the night shift. He wears dark robes and carries an umbrella as he walks home in the early morning twilight because he is a vampire - one of the oldest vampires in the world.

Another group of vampires try to harvest Reginald for his food and Maurice intervenes and converts him to a vampire instead to save his life. The problem is (as is often the case in vampire stories) Reginald is stuck with the overweight and way out of shape body he had the moment he became a vampire. That is a problem because the vampire community doesn't tolerate vampires that can't pull their own weight (pun intended.)

My Review

This is a unique story, but it is still a pretty average story. There is nothing wrong with it, but it's not very memorable, either. Case in point, I listened to this audiobook months ago and literally immediately forgot all about it as soon as I was done with it until I accidentally clicked on the "Finished" tab on my audiobook player this evening.

However, if you are a fan of vampire stories, you should give it a go.

Note: there are 10 books in this series at this time.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: FAT VAMPIRE by Johnny B Truant.

FORT SOLITUDE (DC COMICS: SECRET HERO SOCIETY #2) by Derek Fridolfs and Dustin Nguyen

Published in 2017 by Scholastic

Synopsis

The DC Comics Secret Hero Society series s a re-imagining of the DC universe with a comic twist. 

The first book in this series featured a Hogwarts-type school where only children with special talents are invited. Young Bruce Wayne suspects that there is more going on in the school than meets the eye and his new friends Clark Kent and Diana Prince join him to investigate.

Fort Solitude is book 2 in the series. The trio are invited to a special summer camp. They notice that this camp has an off vibe. Then, campers start to disappear. And, there are constant warnings about a scarecrow that stalks the woods at night.

The trio adds in a kid that runs really, really fast, a kid that wins every target shooting contest, and a kid with robotic implants - Flash, Green Arrow, and Cyborg. Clark also finds a journal with detailed notes from a girl that attended a previous session of this same summer camp - Lois Lane.

Using the clues from Lois' notebook, the campers investigate the camp and work together to figure out what is going on.

My Review

This was a fun read, but it's basically the same plot as the first book in this series. I liked the first book pretty well, but it just seemed cheesy to do the same plot twice in a row.

I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Fort Solitude (DC Comics Secret Hero Society #2).

JOHN BELUSHI: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Kindle) by Hourly History

Published in January of 2026 by Hourly History.

John Belushi has always known as a cautionary tale for me - an amazing talent that quickly rose to national prominence and then died of a drug overdose just when things really got going.

Hourly History specializes in short histories and biographies that take about an hour to read. In this case, this biography gives a lot of details about his early life, but simply fails to give the reader a sense of what Belushi or the characters he created on Saturday Night Live was like. 

It does no better with any of the four movies. Belushi only made 4 movies, but two of them are classics - The Blues Brothers and Animal House. You would think that there would have been a lot more about those movies and a lot less about his first really run-down apartment in New York City.

I rate this e-book 3 stars out of 5.

This e-book can be found on Amazon.com here: John Belushi: A Life from Beginning to End.

K IS in TROUBLE by Gary Clement

Published in 2024 by Little, Brown Ink.

An NPR Best Book of the Year.

K is a 10-12 year old boy living in an unknown European city in what appears to be the late 1800s. K Is in Trouble is a graphic novel that tells of his misadventures. 

In a series of stories, K runs into trouble with a talking fish, he meets a talking insect, and finds an intelligent crow. But, his real difficulties are with adults who don't listen. The adults at school don't listen, the police don't listen, the mayor doesn't listen, and his parents especially don't listen. 

I liked the art, but the stories were so-so. The last story is the best by far. 

I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5. Not bad, not great.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: K Is in Trouble by Gark Klement. 

THE TWO MINUTE RULE (audiobook) by Robert Crais

Originally Published in 2006.
Audiobook edition published in 2008 by Brilliance Audio.
Read by Christopher Graybill
Duration: 9 hours, 23 minutes.
Unabridged.

Named Best Crime Novel of the Year by the London Evening Standard.

Named one of the Top Ten Crime Novels of the Year by The New York Sun and the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel.

Audiobook version named a finalist for the Audie Award.

Veteran writer Robert Crais is mostly famous for his Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels. The Two Minute Rule is on of his few stand alone novels. It features a former bank robber named Max Holman. 

Synopsis

Holman has a son that he barely knows because of Holman's life of crime and his subsequent prison term. All he really knows about his son is that he has become a policeman in LAPD - and Holman couldn't be more proud.

That pride turns into sorrow on the day of Holman's release from prison. As he is packing up, he gets a message that tells him his son has died as a result of a shooting along with several other officers.

Holman comes to believe that the police are intentionally botching the investigation and starts his own while trying to restart his life outside of prison...

My Review

There was nothing wrong with this book. It is a good mystery and the steps that were taken to solve it made total sense. But, the story has to be more than the mystery. To me, the whole thing felt forced.

Despite the accolades (see above), I am puzzled as to why this book just did not gel for me. There were great aspects to this story - a strong lead character, a great buddy from the old days, a new partner. All of the parts were there, but just didn't gel together even though there was great potential in this book to become something special and even start a series.

The audiobook was read by Christopher Graybill. He was excellent with any of the dialogue parts - lots of different accents and all delivered well. But, the rest of the text was just read like a bored tour guide who has delivered the same boring speech too many times.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Two Minute Rule by Robert Crais.

BRIONNE (audiobook) by Louis L'Amour

Originally published in 1968.
Audiobook published in 2016 by Random House Audio.
Read by Erik Singer.
Duration: 4 hours, 3 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis

Major James Brionne is a Virginian and a confidante of President Ulysses S. Grant. He helped pacify the region immediately after the war, including hanging a criminal named Allard.

The rest of the Allard family gang, bushwackers from the brutal Missouri theater of the Civil War, comes to Virginia to kill Brionne. They don't find Brionne, but they do find his wife and son at Brionne's plantation house. She takes out one of the Allard gang and then kills herself rather than be brutalized by them.

The Allard gang never finds Brionne's son, who had hidden himself in a little cave nearby.

Brionne decides he needs a massive change of scenery. He takes his son out West on a train, to a region he had explored as part of a military mission years earlier. He wants to find a place to start over with his son - Utah.

But, Briolle gets the feeling that something is not right about other passengers on the train...

My review

Parts of this book are truly exciting, such the attack on the Briolle mansion and the prairie fire. However, the idea that a family gang would travel halfway across the country for revenge and then travel most of the way back across the country in an attempt to get even seemed more than a little farfetched to me.

This story was not a bad story, but it just felt underdeveloped. If I had been L'Amour's editor way back in 1968, I would have told him to add another 2 hours worth of story to this 4 hour audiobook and flesh out more of the characters and their story arcs.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Brionne by Louis L'Amour. 

THE ROARING TWENTIES: A HISTORY from BEGINNNG to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Published by Hourly History in 2023.

Hourly History specializes in producing little histories and biographies that can be read in about an hour. 

If you are pretty well-versed in the basics of 1920's America, this short history offers nothing new. If you remember the basics from your U.S. history textbook or if you watched a documentary on the topic, this e-book ill offer nothing new.

The e-book repeats some of its main themes multiple times, sometimes within a few paragraphs of each other. I kept wondering if they were trying to fill space, which seems kind of ridiculous in a book with literal space limits (able to be read in just an hour). It also made me wonder if this book were written by an AI.

As an example of what I was talking about, the e-book mentioned that people grew more accepting of LBTQ+ people in the 1920's. That is undoubtedly true, but it was mentioned so many times that it might persuade some readers that the 1920's were a very accepting time. I think it would be fair to say that the during the 1920's, the needle of the gauge of LGBTQ+ acceptance moved off of "zero", but that's about it. Progress, to be sure, but hardly worth mentioning multiple times. 

The facts presented in the book are all solid, which is why I am giving it 3 stars out of 5, even if it was written in a clunky way.

This e-book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Roaring Twenties: A History from Beginning to End.

WITCHY (graphic novel) by Ariel Slamet Ries

Originally published in 2019.

Witchy started out as a highly acclaimed webcomic that has since been printed as a graphic novel on high quality paper. 

Witchy is set in a world where magic exists and the length on a person's hair determines the power of the magic user. The kingdom of Hyalin uses magic users to enforce its regime. They train young users in an academy with the goal of providing magic users as soldiers in the elite Witch Guard. The Witch Guard fights external enemies and tamps down internal dissent with brutal, often lethal force.

The graphic novel has a lot of positive things:

-The drawings are clean, crisp, and very clear. The art is great.

-The characters all easy to differentiate from one another (sometimes artists makes a lot of characters that look alike).

-There are several great characters, especially the raven familiar.

But, there are negative things as well:

-The ground rules of the universe are not explained well. This graphic novel deserved an written introduction page, much like the famed scrolling text in the Star Wars movies. It would have benefitted from even a few sentences, like the three sentences at the beginning of James Gunn's Superman movie. The back cover of the book provides some necessary information, but not enough.

-Because the ground rules were not explained well, I often was somewhat confused and did not understand the actual stakes involved in some dramatic scenes.

-Interesting story lines are developed and then dropped in an effort to move the story along. In particular, I am thinking about the characters in the school and how they relate to the main character, Nyneve. It didn't help to move the story along when this reader was still trying to understand the basic rules of this world. Remaining in the school longer would have allowed more character development and let the reader learn more of the ground rules.

I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5. Not bad, but it seems like it was a missed opportunity to be so much more.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Witchy by Ariel Slamet Ries.

STAR TREK: TIMETRAP by David Dvorkin

Published in 1988 by Pocket Books

I used to be a gigantic reader of Star Trek books. In the mid-80's I had a rather large collection. In fact, my cousin and I had a complete collection if we put ours together (we would share back and forth so we wouldn't miss any book). I was quite the fan. I ran across this book when I was picking through the stacks of a used book store that had lost its lease and picked it up for old times sake.

I don't remember the plot of Timetrap at all so this must have been published after I had stopped making sure I had EVERY Star Trek that was printed.

Synopsis:

The story occurs in the same region of space as The Original Series episode "The Tholian Web." The Tholians had the ability to make an area of space phase in and out of alternate universes. Or, maybe it was natural - who knows? After all, the Tholians are a mysterious species and no one knows much about them.

In that show, a federation ship was trapped and phasing back and forth between universes. No one knew that this was the case and Captain Kirk ends up trapped on that ship and comes within seconds of death because he personally led an away team to an unclear and dangerous location. What can you do? He's the captain, he can pick the away teams and if he wants to risk his life it is his prerogative. 

In the book, it is some time later and Kirk finds a Klingon ship in a similar situation as the Federation ship was in "The Tholian Web". The Klingon ship is literally being torn to pieces by the stresses. Again, he personally leads an away team, The goal to kidnap/rescue members of the crew so they can be questioned as to why this Klingon warship was so far away from the Klingon Empire. 

But, something unexpected happens. The ship blips out of existence and Kirk wakes up 100 years in the future - in a time when the Klingons and the Federation have combined. The Federation won the continual Klingon/Federation Cold War and the Klingons are happy about and everyone is looking forward to the day when the Romulans will join as well.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Enterprise is pulling in every favor to keep investigating the disappearance of Captain Kirk in hopes of rescuing him...

My Review

Even with a book that is 37 year olds that has its own Wikipedia page, I am not going to talk a lot about the plot and any issues that I had with it because it would be nothing but a series of spoilers.

It isn't a bad story, but not a great one. I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Star Trek: Timetrap by David Dvorkin.

AMERICAN HERITAGE NEW ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES: VOLUME 8: THE CIVIL WAR by Robert G. Athearn

Published in 1971 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.

This book was part of a series intended to be a supplement to a history curriculum as part of a classroom library or in a school library. It is part of a multi-volume series. When I was a kid, I would see books like this used for extra credit (outline chapter X, etc.) when I was a kid.

Positives:

The pictures are great. The book title says it is illustrated and it does not lie. There are pictures on almost every page and many of them are the most famous photos, paintings, and drawings of the war.

There is an "Encyclopedic Section" at the end of the book. It has biographies of prominent people of the war and explanations of some of the big ideas, and events of the war. Before the internet, these little encyclopedias about a dedicated topic were extremely helpful.

There is an essay from Bruce Catton between the regular text and the Encyclopedic Section. It is excellent.

Negatives:

There is literally no explanation of the events that led to the Civil War. The first sentence of the book is: "The Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter sparked a great military conflagration that was to blaze in America for four bitter, bloody years." Then, it proceeds to talk about the post-Sumter military build-up. Page 2 discusses Bull Run and page 3 talks about Fort Donelson. Iti is almost like the war just happened. 

Slavery is almost entirely ignored. Because of this, I would describe this book is a "Lost Cause" lite history. The facts that are presented are accurate, but when you ignore the role slavery played in the Civil War, you are slanting things towards the Confederacy. It's not advocating "Lost Cause" points, but it lends itself towards that interpretation. This is not surprising for a book written in 1971.

The Reconstruction section is also tilted to the side of the former Confederates. 

I rate this mixed bag of a book three stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: AMERICAN HERITAGE NEW ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES: VOLUME 8: THE CIVIL WAR by Robert G. Athearn.

SUPERMAN / WONDER WOMAN, Volume 1: Power Couple (graphic novel) by Charles Soule

Published in 2014 by DC Comics.

Written by Charles Soule.

Art by Tony S. Daniel

Synopsis

In the New 52 reboot of the DC universes we have a world where Superman and Wonder Woman are secretly dating. They are working through their relationship, dealing with cultural differences, a massive age difference, and the fact that a lot of her Greek god family basically hates him because he is a commoner, despite his extraordinary powers.

As part of larger plot to escape from the Phantom Zone, General Zod released Doomsday. Doomsday, you may remember, is the creature that killed Superman in the "Death of Superman" series back in 1992. This is one of  the first appearances of Doomsday in the New 52 reboot and he is as fearsome as ever. 

Meanwhile, Clark Kent's partner in an online publishing venture (Cat Grant) publishes an exclusive video that she received from an anonymous source. It shows Superman and Wonder Woman making out and suddenly they are the "it" couple around the world.

My Review

This summer I discovered Charles Soule and took full advantage of the library to read as much of his stuff as I could. Most of it is pretty good, but I cannot say the same of this collection. 

Almost everything about this story feels rushed. It's as if Soule had a 12 or 13 comic's worth of story that he had to tell in just 7 comics. Even worse, the story keeps gliding back and forth in time in a series of flashbacks that are labeled with a little blue box at the top of the first page of the current flashback. "Two hours ago." "Eight hours ago." "Now." They bounce around so much that it just confuses an already rushed story. Also, it ruins the drama because when they are in the "Now" timeline you can see how it all ends up. 

I rate this story 3 stars out of 5. There are moments of quality stuff here, including a scene between the Greek god Apollo and Superman that did not turn out the way that Apollo had hoped.

But, not enough.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Superman / Wonder Woman, Volume 1: Power Couple.

SONGS of AMERICA: PATRIOTISM, PROTEST, and the MUSIC THAT MADE a NATION (audiobook) by Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw

Published in 2019 by Random House Audio.

Read by the authors, Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw.

Duration: 7 hours, 40 minutes.

Unabridged.

It turn out that historian Jon Meacham and country music star Tim McGraw are neighbors. They decided to work together on Songs of America, a book that looks at the role of music in American politics.

They start with songs of the Revolution and work their way forward, hitting songs you've heard of such as The National Anthem (War of 1812) and The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Civil War) and songs you've most likely never heard of. 

Not every song is war related. For example, the anti-lynching song Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday. There is a nicely done section comparing two still-popular songs from the 1980s - Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen and Proud to Be an American by Lee Greenwood. 

I particularly liked the juxtaposition of two Vietnam era songs: The Ballad of the Green Berets by Sgt Barry Sadler (1966) and Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969) show how public perception of the war changed in three short years.

Despite the book having been released during the first Trump Administration, there is literally no mention of Donald Trump in the book.

Jon Meacham provided the bulk of the material for this book. He provided the historical context and the story behind how the song came into being. In the first 1/3 of the book, McGraw had practically no input except for reading the lyrics in a completely uninspired way. In the later sections, with more contemporary songs, McGraw's input was not only more frequent, but often more insightful.

But, the book dragged at times, especially early on. I was disappointed that there were only one or two actual pieces of music in an audiobook about music. Tim McGraw knows his way around many styles of music and I assumed that he would be at least playing the tune of the older songs. Sadly, he does not.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation.

SLAPSTICK or LONESOME NO MORE! by Kurt Vonnegut

Originally published in 1976.

Synopsis

In the essay that serves as the prologue to Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut writes about family, connection, and acceptance. He spends a lot of time talking about his older brother - more than he usually does in his essays. He also talks about his sister - a topic of frequent discussion in his essays. She and her husband both died with days of one another, one of an accident and the other of cancer. Kurt Vonnegut and his wife adopted three of their four children. 

In his essays Vonnegut makes frequent mention of the lack of family connection in our modern world and he thinks we are far the worse off for it. This novel is all about family connection, featuring two physically deformed twins who who are psychically connected.

The twins were kept apart from society in an old mansion on a large estate in order to protect them from society and to protect the reputations of their elite, ultra-rich parents. After all, the "right sort of people" don't have freaks for children.

It was assumed that the children would have mental disabilities. It turns out that they were geniuses, especially when they were physically close to one another...

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

My Review

This is a truly bizarre novel, even by the standards of Kurt Vonnegut. I liked the book in many ways, but I really can't say that it was a great or even a particularly good novel. There are times when it just gets so weird that the story gets buried in its own absurdities.

In one of his essays, Vonnegut graded all of his books up to that point. He gave Slapstick a grade of 'D.' I will do better than that - I give it 3 stars out of 5 (a solid 'C') because it has a lot of heart. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut.