THE DIRECTOR SHOULD'VE SHOT YOU: MEMOIRS of the FILM TRADE (audiobook) by Alan Dean Foster

Published in 2024 by Tantor Media.
Read by Stephen R. Thorne.
Duration: 7 hours, 1 minute.
Unabridged.

Alan Dean Foster is a prolific sci-fi author. He has written over 50 sc-fi novels, but he is probably most famous for his numerous novelizations of sci-fi movies and TV shows, such as the original Star Wars movie (ghost written for George Lucas), Alien, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Krull, and The Last Starfighter.

The Director Should've Shot You is the story of Foster's experiences as the man who Hollywood turns to to write novelizations of sci-fi movies. He talks about how that system (usually) works, the odd experiences, his interactions with directors, producers, and faceless stuidio executives, and his various thoughts of the strengths and weaknesses of the various projects. 

My experiences with Foster as a young reader start with his two Star Wars books that he wrote when George Lucas  and his team were finishing the original movie.

As I noted, he ghost wrote the novelization of the first movie for George Lucas. He  also wrote the original sequel to the original Star Wars movie - a book called Splinter of the Mind's Eye. George Lucas asked Foster to make Splinter of the Mind's Eye a smaller story when compared to sweeping epic of the original story just in case the first movie turned out to be a bust. Lucas hoped to make a cheaper movie and recycle some of the original props and costumes in order to eke out a little profit. The runaway success of Star Wars made that plan unnecessary. 

We were so starved of Star Wars material back then. I must have read the novelization of the original Star Wars movie more than 10 times. This was back in the days when you could only see Star Wars in the movie theaters. It hadn't been played on TV yet and there were no VHS, DVD, or streaming releases. But, we had the books, the collectable cards, the toys to remind us of the story and it was an endless source of conversation.

I remember reading and discussing Splinter of the Mind's Eye until Lucas released the eventual sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. We were searching for any indication of how the stories might continue and we were trying to figure out how the Star Wars universe worked and all we really had were two little paperback books writen by Alan Dean Foster. That cover was excellent.

I must have read all of his novelizations of the Star Trek animated stories because I read everything Star Trek that I could find when I was in high school.

If you are looking for a complete autobiography of Foster, this isn't it. He offers a decent autobiography up to the point where he starts writing the movie novelizations and then it's pretty much all about those novels. That was fine by me - Foster is a critic and a fan at the same time and it was a fun listen.

The book is almost worth reading just to see what 1970s TV show paid him to write a novelization of a very special two episode story arc. It was certainly out of his normal area of expertise.

Now, I am seriously thinking about re-reading Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE DIRECTOR SHOULDVE SHOT YOU MEMOIRS of the FILM TRADE by Alan Dean Foster.

SING DOWN the MOON by Scott O'Dell

Originally published in 1970.

Named a Newberry Honor Book in 1971.

Set in the New Mexico and Arizona territories in 1863-1865, Sing Down the Moon is the story of a teenaged Navajo girl named Bright Morning. 

Despite the fact that the American Civil War is raging in the East, this is a tough time for the Navajo. There are pressures from the people they call Spaniards who raid the Navajo and other Native Americans in search of slaves (undoubtedly the "Spaniards" were Spanish-speaking Mexicans that were living in the territory before Mexico lost it to the United States at the end of the Mexican War in 1848.)

But, that's not the worst of it. In 1864, the U.S. military under Kit Carson (called Long Knives in this book) rounded up all of the Navajo and put them in a concentration camp called Bosque Redondo. The Navajo in the book are unsure as to why they were forced to come to the camp, but the ongoing threat of Confederate raids into Arizona and New Mexico had a lot to do with it. There were fears that the Confederates might combine with the Navajo or both groups could simply start independent attacks at the same time.

Or, they just wanted the land.

No matter the reasoning, this act was devastating to the real-life Navajo and to the Navajo characters in this book.

This book was a re-read for me. I read this book when I was in 4th or 5th grade and for the last 45+ years it has stayed with me. It's not like I was constantly thinking of the book, but when I saw a related movie or TV show or visited a historical site, flashes from the book would come to me. Recently, I had the chance to get a copy of the book and I snatched it up, hoping it would be as good as I remembered.

This book is a stark, quick book. It is very much a "just the facts" style book. There's not a lot of character development and the chaos visited upon the Navajo just keeps on coming. 

This is not an upbeat, happy book. Bright Morning is captured as a slave and later is forced to march to Bosque Redondo. But, it is a book about not giving up - no matter the situation. Bright Morning and the boy she loves, Tall Boy, are admirable characters. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Sing Down the Moon by Scott O'Dell.

THE BROKEN GUN (audiobook) by Louis L'Amour

Originally published in 1966.
Audiobook published in 2011 by Random House Audio.
Read by Jason Culp.
Duration: 4 hours, 35 minutes.
Unabridged.

My synopsis:

The Broken Gun is the story of a writer named Dan Sheridan. Sheridan is kind of a stand-in for Louis L'Amour himself. L'Amour was a prolific author, but he before he was a writer he skinned cattle, worked in mines and lumber camps, was a professional boxer, and was a merchant seaman. Later, he served in World War II in Europe.

His character Dan Sheridan worked on ranches, lumber camps, and served in the Korean War where he was captured and escaped back to the American lines. Later, he was trained in guerilla warfare, served as an advisor in South Vietnam where he was captured again and escaped again.

Sheridan researches a topic thoroughly before he writes. It is the early 1960s and his latest interest is a large cattle drive in the 1870s that was led by two brothers named Toomey from Texas to Arizona. They were looking for a fresh start and brought a herd of 4,000 cattle with them. They were looking to settle down and build a massive new ranch in the middle of Apache territory. But, they disappeared without a trace. 

It is assumed they were massacred by the Apache, but Sheridan has a solid lead that something else happened.

When he gets an invite to visit the ranch that was built on the land that the Toomeys had intended to claim, Sheridan decides he has to visit and take a look for himself...

My review:

The story is entertaining, even though it stretches credulity at several points. That's okay, it's not a documentary, it's an adventure story.

The first hour of the audiobook is a bit slow, but once it gets going the action rarely slows. 

It's not a great novel - it's not complex or full of great themes, but there are fistfights, desperate chases, climbs up and down cliffs, nighttime horse rides, car crashes, pretty girls, and gun play and that's what I was looking for.

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

FINISH WHAT WE STARTED: THE MAGA MOVEMENT'S GROUND WAR to END DEMOCRACY (audiobook) by Isaac Arnsdorf

Published in April of 2024 by Little, Brown, and Company.
Read by Will Damron.
Duration: 8 hours, 52 minutes.
Unabridged.

Finish What We Started is a look at the MAGA/Trump movement from a different perspective. There are lots of books about Trump, his children, Roger Stone, Stephen Miller, Bill Barr, Mike Pence, or any of the other big players in the Trump Administration. 

This book is different. It looks at regular people caught up in the movement in official positions and how they reacted. There is a guy who wrote a kindle e-book about the real power of political parties - the local precinct committee person in numbers. The theory is that if you get enough like-minded people in charge of the local precincts, you will control the party.

That author gets the attention of Steve Bannon and his popular podcast and people start buying the book and putting its principles in action. Bannon is the only famous person featured in the book. 

The book chronicles the transition from traditional Republicans to MAGA Republicans and the changes that means for basic retail politics (for example, motivating people to actually go to the polls to vote) and what it means for people who have been working for the Republican party for 20, 30, even 40 years. Some of the stories were compelling.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can found on Amazon.com here: FINISH WHAT WE STARTED: THE MAGA MOVEMENT'S GROUND WAR to END DEMOCRACY by Isaac Arnsdorf.

DEADLANDS: A NOVEL (audiobook) by Victoria Miluch

 

Published in October of 2023 by Brilliance Audio.
Read by Laura Jennings.
Duration: 9 hours, 24 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis:

Set in a future dystopian Arizona in a United States that is collapsing due to pollution and climate change.

19 year old Georgia lives with her father and her 16 year old brother in an outpost in the Arizona desert north of Phoenix. They are hiding away from the polluted city of Phoenix and the few people that bother to venture out into the wilderness. 

When Georgia and her brother encounter two "hikers" and their car near their outpost, everything changes...

My review:

This book starts out very interesting and then settles into a moody story about relationships, betrayals, and discovery - but I made it sound way more interesting than it actually was. In reality, it was an interesting 45 minute set-up at the beginning and multiple hints that something really dramatic could happen and then nothing happened - again and again and again.

****Spoiler Alert:**** 

Warning: there is a first sexual experience scene that, to me, seemed more like a first sexual assault scene. Some people, like me, really are repulsed by sexual assault scenes. Once again, this followed the pattern of the rest of the book - a very dramatic thing occurs and not much happens as a consequence. 

****End Spoiler****

We never really find out what's going on with America's environment, or why Georgia's father is implementing secret plans, or why Georgia knows all about swimming in oceans when she has lived her entire life in a desert and has never seen a body of water. And, so it goes on and on and on. 

I rate this audiobook 1 star out of 5. If you want to give it a go, it's on Amazon.com here: DEADLANDS: A NOVEL by Victoria Miluch.

GERONIMO: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published by Hourly History in 2020.

Geronimo (1829-1909) is the Apache leader that is famous for having fought just about everybody that encroached on his people's land. Later on, when he had surrendered he was shipped all over the place to different reservations.

That was pretty much the facts that I knew about Geronimo and I thought that I really needed to add more to that. After all, he is one of the few Native Americans that everyone has heard of. 

Hourly History publishes histories and biographies that you can read in about an hour. That can be a tough job for big topics in history like "The Industrial Revolution" or "The Roman Empire" but it is just about right for a short biography. 

Geronimo may have fought with the United States and was eventually captured by the U.S. Army (many, many times) but he was really angry with Mexicans. Mexico was his primary enemy because Mexican soldiers killed his family and friends while he was on a trip to a Mexican town to get supplies. 

From that point on, as the United States and Mexico encroached on traditional Apache territories, Geronimo fought both groups - but he focused on Mexico whenever he could.

The book comes up short with his years in captivity, except to note that, depending on the time period, the security went from severe to very, very lax.

I rate this e-book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  GERONIMO: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History.

THE SCARECROW (Jack McEvoy #2) by Michael Connelly

Published in 2009 by Hachette Audio.
Read by Peter Giles.
Duration: 11 hours, 15 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Scarecrow is a sequel to one of Michael Connelly's earliest books - 1996's The Poet. In The Poet, newspaper reporter and FBI agent Rachel Walling solve a murder mystery and defeat a serial killer.

Since that time, McEvoy wrote a book about his experiences, moved from Colorado and took a job with the LA Times. Now, 12 years later, he is being let go as the Times is going through a round of lay-offs. He has been given two weeks notice and told to train his younger replacement on the crime beat.

Meanwhile, a parent calls to complain to McEvoy about an article he wrote saying that her teenaged child had killed a woman and stuffed her body in the trunk of a car. McEvoy decides to look into the case and he and his reporter-in-training uncover some interesting facts that make it clear that the boy didn't do it. Instead, McEvoy is on the trail of another serial killer...

Generally speaking, I am not a fan of serial killer books or movies, especially if the serial killer is a main character in the book. I don't enjoy exploring the psyche of a serial killer. Connelly does a bit of this, but doesn't revel in it like some authors do.

That being said, I am going to rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It's a good story.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here:  THE SCARECROW (Jack McEvoy #2) by Michael Connelly.

DEAR BOB and SUE: ONE COUPLE'S JOURNEY THROUGH the NATIONAL PARKS (audiobook) by Matt Smith and Karen Smith

Published by Tantor Audio in 2017.
Read by David Colacci and Susan Ericksen
Duration: 14 hours, 48 minutes
Unabridged

Matt and Karen Smith decided to visit every National Park in the U.S. National Park System. They decided to only visit the 58 sites that are actually named "National Park". This is important because there are over 400 sites in the park system that have titles like National Monument, National Lakeshore and National Recreational Area - so many that it is doubtful that any one person has been to them all. As if to prove this point, just after the Smiths published the first edition to this book, a new National Park was added to the system and they had to go visit it and update their own book just to keep their own record intact. 

The book is written as a series of e-mails back to their sometimes traveling partners Bob and Sue. Bob and Sue never actually accompany them on one of these trips. They alternate back and forth narrating their adventures in the order that they visited them. 

By necessity, the visits to each of these parks is merely a cursory visit and not detailed description of the park. When you do the math, it works out in this audiobook to about 15 minutes per park, minus stories of their travels to and from the parks. Some get more than that - the Grand Canyon and Carlsbad Caverns come to mind. 

Have you ever traveled with another couple? Even if you are best friends, there will be times when you are sick of them and their way of doing things. While I generally found the book to be interesting, there were times that I grew weary of traveling with the Smiths and I put the audiobook on hold for a while, like the time when Karen Smith rinses mud and horse manure off of her hiking boots in the hotel shower and then complains that the shower drain runs slow. Sometimes, their snide comments got a little old but, in the end, I enjoyed this trip through all of the parks. It made me want to get back on the road with the family and start seeing more of the country again.

The audiobook was read by David Colacci and Susan Ericksen. I thought they did a very convincing job as the voices of these two travelers.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: DEAR BOB and SUE: ONE COUPLE'S JOURNEY THROUGH the NATIONAL PARKS.

BUNION DERBY: THE 1928 FOOTRACE ACROSS AMERICA (audiobook) by Charles B. Kastner

A Fascinating Story.

Published by University Press Audiobooks in 2015
Read by Andrew L. Barnes
Duration: 6 hours, 36 minutes
Unabridged

In 1928 a sports promoter named Charles C. Pyle had an interesting idea: a footrace across America - from Los Angeles to New York City. This race would be run in timed stages (like the Tour de France) with pre-planned stops along the way. The winner would get $10,000 and the first two-thirds of the race would highlight Route 66.

Pyle brought in legendary football player Red Grange as a celebrity promoter and made grand plans for each stop, including a travelling carnival. 

199 men paid the $100 entrance fee and started the race. 55 made it to the end. Along the way they ran, walked and even crawled through searing heat, snow, rain, dust storms, sleet and more. They also faced dog attacks, surges of crowds and the African-American runners faced racist threats in some states. A surprising number of runners were struck by cars. 

I was contacted to review Bunion Derby by the publisher in exchange for a free digital copy of the audiobook. I agreed, thinking that this book could be a real snoozer but if I were lucky it could be fairly interesting. I am glad to report that this book was more than just "interesting." I found it to be an extremely well-told story and I couldn't wait to get back to the audiobook to see what would happen next. 

The audiobook was read by Andrew L. Barnes. He has a folksy way of reading that makes the story that makes it seem less of a dry history and more of just a great tale full of interesting people that sheds a unique light on who America was in 1928. He makes it fun and, at times, poignant.

I highly recommend this audiobook.

5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Bunion Derby: The 1928 Footrace Across America.

THE MEN WHO UNITED the STATES: AMERICA'S EXPLORERS, INVENTORS, ECCENTRICS and MAVERICKS and the CREATION of ONE NATION, INDIVISIBLE (audiobook) by Simon Winchester

Published in 2013 by Harper Audio
Read by the author, Simon Winchester
Duration: 13 hours, 33 minutes

Simon Winchester's sprawling book, The Men Who United the States, tells a history of the United States organized around five themes: Wood, Earth, Water, Fire and Metal. To be honest, I largely ignored the themes and just enjoyed listening to this magnificent, chaotic, rambling history.

Starting roughly with Lewis and Clark (Winchester backtracks a lot), the story of America is told through the tales of the people that made America a more perfect union through their explorations or their inventions. The reader (or listener if you are enjoying the audiobook) is told about Lewis and Clark and the Pony Express and the invention of the telegraph, the first transcontinental rail line, the exploration of the Grand Canyon, the role of New Harmony (Indiana) in the study of American geography,  a con game involving jewels, how George Washington toured the Frontier before he became president, the Erie Canal, the telephone, Edison vs. Tesla, the first plane to travel across America, television, radio, the internet, modern day nuclear silos, the path of the Mississippi River and so much more that I cannot possibly remember it all.

I listen to audiobooks as I drive and this book was like having a history professor just ramble along with the most interesting stories about American history and the interesting places he has been. Like in a conversation, the story meanders but it flows quite naturally almost all of the time as the author throws in lots of interesting anecdotes about his own experiences, the lives of related historical figures or just something that was odd.

The author, Simon Winchester, narrates his own audiobook. It always concerns me when I see that the author is the reader of his or her own audiobook. Frankly, most authors do not have the voice or the skill to pull it off. Winchester's voice is pleasant and he succeeds with his narration even though his English accent sometimes made for some interesting pronunciations and served to remind me that he is not an American by birth but by choice (he recently became a Naturalized citizen).

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Men Who United the States

Reviewed on February 28, 2014

DANCE HALL of the DEAD (Joe Leaphorn #2) (audiobook) by Tony Hillerman

Originally published in 1973.

Audiobook version released in 2005 by Harper Audio.

Read by George Guidall.

Duration: 6 hours, 2 minutes.

Unabridged.

Winner of the 1974 Edgar Award, Dance Hall of the Dead is an early entry in the Leaphorn series and is one of the best.

Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police is called into a case that technically occurred on the Zuni reservation but there is a Navajo involved. Ernesto Cata, a middle school-aged Zuni boy and his friend George Bowlegs are missing. All that is left behind is an immense amount of blood that makes it clear that one or both of the boys died. Joe is brought in by the FBI who is coordinating a joint FBI/Zuni/Navajo task force to find the boys.

Leaphorn has the feeling that the Zunis think the Navajo boy killed the Zuni boy and he has just been brought in to lead a manhunt as far as the Zunis are concerned. The FBI makes it clear that they think it is related to drug trafficking and they think the boys were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Leaphorn thinks that it might be best to learn all he can about George Bowlegs and then try to figure out what happened to them. Leaphorn's investigation leads him to George's pathetic drunken father and George's miserable family life, a group of hippies that have moved into an abandoned Navajo property and a professional archaeological dig site looking into a theory about Folsom Man.

The more he digs, the more interesting things that Leaphorn finds out about young George Bowlegs and the more interesting ideas he has about what may have happened to Ernesto Cata and George Bowlegs...

As I said before, this is one of the better Leaphorn novels and would make a fine place to start into the series of you are new to it. The reader is introduced to the Zuni and Navajo cultures as well as getting a first-class mystery.

George Guidall read this audiobook. He has read most, if not all, of the Leaphorn and Leaphorn/Chee audiobooks. He has a solid feel for the series and his pacing suits its unique landscape and mood.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: DANCE HALL of the DEAD (Joe Leaphorn #2) by Tony Hillerman.

Reviewed on December 26, 2013.

Old Librarians Never Die They Jump Out of Airplanes: Adventuring Through the Senior Years by

Good advice for all people, not just older folks

Published in 2012 by Hawthorne Publishing.

Marie Albertson found herself an empty nester widow in Plymouth, Indiana after helping raise four children and then taking care of a husband with Parkinson's. What does she do? Go to the local Senior Center every Tuesday and sit home and watch TV?

No. Albertson continues what she always has done - what no one expected. She had already earned a college degree one class at a time having to pay for it herself because her husband thought it was a waste of time for her to get one. (note: she worked at the Plymouth Library which I am familiar with, having lived in Plymouth from 1990-1993). Albertson took her degree and her library experience to Indianapolis and worked for the Indiana State Library and make a new life for herself - at age 63!

Indiana State Library

Not only that, she has determined to go and do all sorts of new things - and that's what this book is all about. Her travels, her willingness to learn new things and do new things and just refuse to sit still. She even suggests running for political office, something she has done twice.

Clearly, Albertson is blessed with good health and has enough financial independence to travel the world, including trips to China and Egypt, a horseback camping adventure in California and riding in gliders in Indiana and Arizona. But, to her credit, she offers other ideas and local options that are not very expensive but would provide a similar experience. She also provides other travel tips as well.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Old Librarians Never Die They Jump Out of Airplanes.

Reviewed on December 30, 2012.

The Salvationist (audiobook) by Nancy Cole Silverman

A Clever Twist on the Typical Western.

Published by Mind Wings Audio.
Read by Emily Durante.
Duration: 1 hour, 3 minutes

This short story is a clever twist on the typical western story. Many westerns have the theme of the banker, or other powerful businessman exploiting the townspeople for his own nefarious purposes only to have the local drifter come in and confront him and eventually save the day.

A Salvationist from the 1880s

Nancy Cole Silverman has a similar situation with the most powerful man in Bisbee, Arizona, a mining boom town, exploiting the local miners and young women by gobbling up their claims (in the case of the miners) or coercing them into becoming prostitutes in his brothel (in the case of the young women). The hero is not a cowboy or a gunfighter.  Instead, she is a bumbling, well-intentioned and brave rookie evangelist (Salvationist) named Fannie Johnston who has come to town with the Salvation Army as part of a team sent to evangelize to this rowdy boom town.

Loosely based on events in the life of the author's great-great grandmother, the story is often amusing and, even though it ends abruptly, it is still a solid western story and perhaps a bit more close to the truth than the more popular gunslinger stories.

Emily Durante does a nice job of voicing the great variety of characters (newspapermen, Salvation Army members, miners, young people, the sheriff and several more). Nicely done.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Salvationist by Nancy Cole Silverman.

Reviewed on July 13, 2012.

A Princess of Mars (Barsoom/John Carter of Mars #1) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

A Classic Sci-Fi Novel

Originally published 1912 in a magazine serial. (1917 in book form)

Since the movie John Carter is coming out in a couple of months I decided to go back and re-read the original of the 11 books that Burroughs wrote about Mars (or, as he calls it, Barsoom).

The Whelen cover.

I originally read the entire series, or at least most of it, nearly 30 years ago, when I was in high school. I must admit, I was struck by the art of Michael Whelen's cover more than anything else when I first picked it up and my circle of friends read at least some of them.

I remembered them fondly but found myself very vague on the specifics. I remembered the Princess was very beautiful and there were multiple races on Mars and that some had four arms and that Carter, a former Confederate soldier, traveled from Earth to Mars in some kind of psychic manner and that there was a lot of fighting.

Turns out, what I took as a poor memory was actually pretty accurate. The Princess is beautiful, there are multiple races of Martians and the green Martians have four arms and Carter does travel to Mars in some sort of psychic way. I had totally forgotten that it happens while he is being hunted by a group of Apache in Arizona at the time, but that really is not germane to the rest of the story.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950)

The story is supposed to be the writings of John Carter himself (who is ageless and cannot remember his childhood). Carter told his nephew not to publish it until he had been dead for 21 years. The plot is mostly Carter's descriptions of his adventures told in first person with little conversation. There are lots and lots of battle scenes since Mars is a very violent place. Then again, Earth is not much better with Carter making a name for himself in the Civil War and in the first few pages being involved in a running battle with the Apache.

Short on character development and long on description and action, A Princess of Mars was not as good as I remembered it but I am very impressed with Burroughs and his imagination. In a time before science fiction was a normal part of the national psyche, he created an entirely new world, peopled it with aliens with new customs, languages and animals and made the world work in an interesting way. Some of his science is rather silly (the generator that creates the Martian atmosphere comes to mind), but it is a classic and a trendsetter.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I rate this novel 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on January 8, 2012.

Listening Woman (Joe Leaphorn) by Tony Hillerman

Third in the Leaphorn series and one of the best

Originally published in 1978.

Like most fans of Hillerman, I've read them all. I'm sporadically going back through them and re-reading ones that I read more than a decade ago.

I've grown used to the older Leaphorn, the one that uses his head and thinks through problems and mostly avoids the physical stuff. This one is a younger Leaphorn that uses his head but gets involved in a lot of physical action. This one would make a great movie, but since I've not been happy with the few adaptations that I have seen I guess that I would prefer that no one make the attempt.

Tony Hillerman
(1925-2008)

Lots of Navajo culture is introduced in Listening Woman. This one lays the groundwork for a lot of the future books, including introducing multiple characters and does a lot of exploration into Leaphorn's quirky sense of interested agnosticism in regards to Navajo religious beliefs. The plot centers around a couple of murders and lots of discussion of Navajo witches and a dark family secret.

This one would be a good one for a book discussion group.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Listening Woman by Tony Hillerman.

Reviewed on May 2, 2009.

Ancient Enemy (Howard Moon Deer) by Robert Westbrook

Full of gimmicks, but it still works!

Originally published in 2001.

Synopsis:

Ancient Enemy is part of a series of novels about Howard Moon Deer, a highly-educated Sioux Indian who is living in Northern Arizona and helping Jack Wilbur, a blind ex-police chief from San Francisco run a detective agency near the Pueblo Indians. By the way, Howard Moon Deer knows absolutely nothing about being a detective. They run across a couple of murders involving the Pueblos and an ancient Anasazi town and human remains that may have the key to their disappearance centuries ago. The title refers to the Navajo name for the Anasazi.


My review:

Robert Westbrook

Sound gimmicky? Sound like a bad detective show like Jake and the Fat Man or Remington Steele? Sure it does, but it still works. Mostly it works because Howard Moon Deer is as much of a fish out of water as the reader is. Although he is a Native American, the Sioux are not like the Arizona Indians at all. Plus, he has pretty much abandoned his Indian ancestry in search of a doctorate in literature. So, the characters are interesting, the books stand alone very well since this is my first one but it is the third in the series. The anthropology of the Anasazi and the Pueblos made the book very interesting for me

 
I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Ancient Enemy.
 
Reviewed in  February of 2005.

Illegals: The Unacceptable Cost of America's Failure to Control Its Borders by Darrell Ankarlo

A thorough discussion of the topic, from a stop-the-bleeding perspective

Published in 2010 by Thomas Nelson.

Mark Twain once noted that, "Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it. I was reminded of this quote while reading Darrell Ankarlo's Illegals: The Unacceptable Cost of America's Failure to Control Its Borders. Everyone has an opinion about illegal immigration, but precious few people have even seen the border, let alone know anything about the high cost of illegal immigration, the physical danger it creates, how it is done and the long-term damage it does to the United States.

This is an eye-opening, scary look at the world of illegal immigrants - the dangers of crossing the border, the coyotes who guide them across, the drug gangs, and the U.S. Border Patrol. The first half of the  book is a powerful and consuming introduction to how immigrants cross the border, how the Border Patrol pursues its policy of "catch and release" and the extreme poverty of parts of Mexico that induces so many to try to come to El Norte.

Ankarlo is not anti-Mexican or anti-Hispanic. He is anti-illegal immigrant. He correctly notes that several of the 9/11 hijackers were a different kind of illegal alien - the kind that comes on a work or student visa (or something of that nature) and just does not leave. Ankarlo claims that 40% of all illegal aliens are that type.

Darrell Ankarlo

The first half of the book is just riveting, which overcomes the rat-a-tat writing style. The second half bogs down in too many statistics interspersed with long word-for-word interviews with immigration experts and both of Arizona's senators, John Kyl and John McCain. Neither Kyl nor McCain have much to say and the point of the interviews was to show that the whole topic is being dodged by politicians, I suppose. Everyone knows that already - most are too scared of being called "racist" or "nativist", the rest think it's good for business to have a steady stream of cheap labor.

True life tales, first-hand experiences and an eye onto a world unknown by most of us make the book worth your time to read, no matter your views on immigration. Combine this book with Geraldo Rivera's The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity and you might get a fairly balanced view of the issue (even though Geraldo's book is not nearly as well-researched or thought-out)

Note: this book appears to be a re-working of another Ankarlo book: Another Man's Sombrero: A Conservative Broadcaster's Undercover Journey Across the Mexican Border.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Illegals.

Reviewed on November 5, 2010.

Note: More than 14 years later and I have to note that the politics of Trump/MAGA has really skewed all discussion on this topic. There is no discussion of people coming legally on a work or student visa and then staying illegally are about 40% of the illegal immigrants. If you listened to MAGA you'd think they were all in immigrant caravans. I don't know if I still agree with this author's points as much as I did before (probably not), but at least there is some nuance. We've lost nuance in our politics.
DWD. January 15, 2025.

Skeleton Lode by Ralph Compton

It is bad on so many levels

Originally published in 2001.

I bought Skeleton Lode for my dad to read because he winters near the Superstition Mountains in Arizona. He read it and brought it back to me. I read it and I had to apologize to him for giving it to him - this is, without a doubt, the worst Western I have ever read.

What makes it so bad?

When I read a Western, I expect a certain amount of realism. I am not talking about the picky, picky details like the amount of gunpowder grains in a bullet. These are the things I am talking about:

-The book is set in 1857. They constantly refer to the sheriff of Gila County. There was no Gila County in 1857 - it was not formed until the year 1881.

-They refer to the town of Globe. It was a mining town formed in 1878 (as Globe City).

-Uncle Henry (Hoss) has a cabin on Saguaro Lake. Saguaro Lake was not formed until a hydroelectric dam was installed in 1930.

-Characters camp along creek beds in the Superstition mountains during massive thunderstorms. I am not a mountain climber but I do know that you avoid hanging creek beds due to the possibility flash floods.

Superstition Mountains of Arizona,
the setting of the book.

-The Spanglish (English/Spanish combination used by the Spanish-speaking characters speaking broken English) is pathetic. The Spanish thrown in reads like the individual words were looked up in a pocket dictionary (no one at the publishing house knows a single person that speaks Spanish?). No verb conjugation. Incorrect adjective placement and usage, use of the English "apostrophe s". Plus, I can understand the need for Spanglish when the Mexican characters are speaking English, but why wouldn't they speak to one another in regular Spanish - and Compton could skip the Spanglish all together for those parts?

-The worst feature of the book is its total disregard for time and distance when riding on horseback. The sheriff in Phoenix is constantly popping over to Tortilla Flats. An internet map search tells me that it is more than an hour by car. That would be a long trip on a horse in the desert. But, that's okay, Bowdre, one of the bad guys, takes a 35 mile mule trip one afternoon on his way back from a 12 mile morning walk to the store. Dallas and Arlo (the good guys) are forever traveling around the Superstition Mountains - from one side to the other with no problem and quite quickly, despite the fact that these mountains cover approximately 250 square miles. All of these distances would be believable if the book was set in 1957 and everyone had Jeeps, but with horses? Laughable.

Throw in the repetitive nature of the book and you can why I had to apologize. The main "good guy and girl" characters only have four conversations (1) We loved Uncle Hoss, wasn't he great - too bad he's dead; 2) We love each other and we fully intend to get physical in our relationship, but not quite yet; 3) We hate Gary Davis (the bad guy); 4) Is the gold worth all of this? They have these conversation over and over and over and over.

The bad guys just fight and argue and then one of them shoots another - that is unless their horses and food get stolen (it happens over and over) and they make a 12 mile march to town (in the desert!) and ride back in the same day. Oh - and twice they get stuck in lightning storms that blast dozens of lightning bolts all around them.

Where did everyone get the cash to buy horse after horse and supplies to feed a whole camp full of men? They literally bought every horse and mule in the area for this fiasco.

Please, read anything else by Louis L'amour or Elmer Kelton.

I give it 1 star out of a possible 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Skeleton Lode.

Reviewed July 17, 2010.