LITTLE BROTHER (audiobook) by Cory Doctorow

A Must Read for Early 21st Century America?

Published by Listening Library in 2010
Performed by Kirby Heyborne
Duration: Approximately 12 hours

Unabridged.

I've had Little Brother on my to-be-read list for while. But, it shot to the top of my list when it was pulled as the book in a "one book/one school" project at a Florida high school. I picked up the audiobook and my daughter and I listened as we commuted to school every day (she is a freshman at the school where I teach.

The story is about Marcus, a teenager in San Francisco who is a hacker, skips school and is, generally speaking, a pretty with-it kid. I imagined him as a Ferris Bueller-type kid with a lot more tech at his disposal and in a much more serious situation. Marcus and three of his friends are skipping the end of school when the Bay Bridge and the tunnel underneath it are blown up by terrorists in an event that is even larger than 9/11.

The Bay Bridge. Photo by Centpacrr.

Marcus and his three friends try to hide in the BART (subway) tunnels but they are in danger of being crushed by the panicking people so they head back up to the surface after one of their group is injured. A passing police van picks them up and they are turned over to the Department of Homeland Security. It is never clear what they did wrong except being out of school on a day when thousands died due to a terrorist attack. The mere fact makes them suspect and they are interrogated thoroughly, including being denied the right to contact a lawyer, sleep deprivation and solitary confinement. 

Marcus knows his rights and insists on a phone call, an attorney, knowing what he is being charged with and more. The DHS insists that it just wants his phone passwords, his passwords to his computer and his online accounts. They inform him that his friends are being similarly punished because he will not cooperate.

After a few days, he breaks and gives DHS his passwords to his computer and his phone. 

He is crushed.

But, when he is released (with just two of his friends - the injured one is not released and is presumed dead) he cannot believe how quickly DHS has swarmed throughout San Francisco,  setting up security checkpoints, monitoring the traffic patterns of cars using toll roads and the traffic patterns of BART riders. His own hand-built laptop has even been physically hacked and tracking machinery has been installed without his parents' knowledge while he was locked up.

Cory Doctorow. Photo by Jonathan Worth. http://JonathanWorth.com

At this point, Marcus regains some of his former swagger and decides to act, even if it is in a small way. As he puts it, “Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor.” Marcus puts his hacker skills to use and decides to fight his own little guerrilla war against the heavy-handed and illegal techniques that DHS is employing. The title Little Brother comes from this - he is not "Big Brother" like the government in the novel 1984. Instead, he is one little person watching the government and documenting what he sees and letting other know what's going on. And, in the process, he becomes one of many people who decide that rights are more important than the illusion of safety and start to take back San Francisco...

One of the beautiful thing about fiction books is that you can discuss important topics in a non-threatening way. In this case, the events in this book are clearly a stand-in for 9/11 and the DHS's reaction is a stand-in for the Patriot Act and some of the heavy-handed tactics used against Muslim communities immediately after 9/11.

I listened to the book with my daughter and we often stopped the audio playback to talk about what was going on in the book (although the 4 or 5 scenes involving sexual activity, even if it wasn't graphicly described, made for uncomfortable father-daughter listening so we usually skipped ahead until it was over). We talked about what your rights were if you were arrested, why your rights are so important and have to be defended in an absolutist manner, why "I don't have anything to hide so I don't care if my rights are violated" is just a cop out and more. We drug this audiobook out so long that took about a month to listen to it. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 despite the fact that at some points the techno-speak overwhelms the book and it becomes about as interesting as reading a router installation manual. But, the positives of the the book overcome these dry areas and make this book just about must-read material for early 21st century America.

Here's a quote I really liked from the book: “I can't go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom is something you have to take for yourself.” 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

Reviewed on November 25, 2014.

BELOW ZERO (Joe Pickett #9) by C.J. Box

Published in 2009 by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Years ago, person who left a comment on one of my Amazon reviews told me about C.J. Box and gave me the title to his first book featuring Joe Pickett. I found it at the library and I was hooked. If you like Michael Connelly or Robert Crais, you will love C.J. Box. If you like Tony Hillerman's Navajo Tribal Police books than I am sure that you will enjoy Box's descriptions of the local landscape and the people of Wyoming.

In Below Zero Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett is working on two cases. The first case (and the minor one in the story) concern's Joe's pursuit of the Mad Archer, a poacher that likes to shoot his arrows at just about anything. Besides out of season game, the Mad Archer has shot a bald eagle and Tube, the ultra-friendly Corgi-Labrador mix that Pickett has adopted. Joe arrests him and he promptly skips town while out on bail and Joe goes back on the hunt for him.

The main story concerns a dying Chicago mobster enforcer named Stenko and his ultra-environmentalist son who wants Stenko to make amends for the gigantic carbon footprint that he has accrued over a lifetime of high roller living. Stenko and his son are roaming through South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado looking for opportunities to stop people from contributing to America's overall carbon footprint. Typically, this involves Stenko using skills with a pistol to kill heavy polluters or try to shake them down to pay for carbon offsets.

At first I was thrown off by the heavy-handed tactics of Stenko and son, thinking that it was over-the-top nonsense. But, I started doing some more thinking and I remembered some quotes from ultra-environmentalists like these:

"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems." -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

"Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental." -- Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First!

and

"To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem" -- Lamont Cole

So, take these comments and add action to them and Stenko and son don't seem quite so unrealistic. 

Normally, Joe Pickett wouldn't be too worried about this mobster since it is not really a game warden issue. But, when Joe's daughter gets a phone call from April Keeley (their foster daughter that was presumed to be dead from a federal raid in an earlier book) he cannot help but be curious - even more so when it looks like April is being forced to ride along with Stenko and son...

Nate Romanowski plays a large role in this story. Normally, I am not a fan of Nate, but I liked him quite a bit in this one. In fact, I liked this book quite a bit. I tore right through it.

Great quote from the book: "...there is no sound in nature that makes men move along faster than the pumping of a shotgun." (p. 39)

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: BELOW ZERO (Joe Pickett #9) by C.J. Box.

HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE: THE RISE and DECLINE of WESTERN THOUGHT and CULTURE (audiobook) by Francis A. Schaeffer

Originally published in 1976
Published by Christianaudio.com
Read by Kate Reading
Duration: 7 hours, 51 minutes

Presbyterian minister and philosopher Francis A. Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live? is a history of the West and a fairly sophisticated bit of Christian apologetics wrapped up in a fairly small package. At times this book rolls along at an enjoyable pace and is quite the listen, other times it is much more difficult. 

Here is a listing of the chapters:

• Chapter 1: Ancient Rome - Schaeffer compares Roman pagan beliefs with Christian beliefs and blames the pagan beliefs for the collapse of the Empire - they were not inclusive enough and the Greco-Roman gods were little more than bigger people with the same issues that all people have.
• Chapter 2: The Middle Ages - Despite its reputation, the Middle Ages had positive points. Threads of Classical thought were re-discovered and fused to Christian beliefs.
• Chapter 3: The Renaissance - Schaeffer offers up the Renaissance and the Reformation as competing thought processes about man and his relationship to God. The Renaissance is essentially the re-birth of Greco-Roman humanist thought with a Christian veneer.
• Chapter 4: The Reformation - Explores the art and culture of The Reformation and compares them favorably to that of the Renaissance.
• Chapter 5: The Reformation – Continued - Looks at the philosophy of the Reformation and how even non-Christian thinkers of the time were influenced by Christian thought.
• Chapter 6: The Enlightenment - Human-centered thought leads directly to the excesses of the French Revolution.
• Chapter 7: The Rise of Modern Science - Science's foundation came from confidence that God had created an orderly world that we could understand.
• Chapter 8: The Breakdown in Philosophy and Science - Philosophy and art are symptoms of the thought processes that are now permeating science.
• Chapter 9: Modern Philosophy and Modern Theology - Humanism creeps into theology.
• Chapter 10: Modern Art, Music, Literature, and Films - Schaeffer offers commentary on several "modern" works.
• Chapter 11: Our Society - How the values of personal peace and affluence have worked their way into our society.
• Chapter 12: Manipulation and the New Elite - Is an authoritarian state ruled by elites coming as a natural result of Humanist values.
• Chapter 13: The Alternatives - Schaeffer makes the argument for a return to Christian values.

The audiobook is quite enjoyable until Chapter 8. I was not a fan of the discussion of all of the different philosophers. The commentary on current movies, art, music and literature are stilted seeing as how the book was originally published in 1976. There is no discussion of Heavy Metal, rap, hip-hop, Star Wars, the current trend towards super hero movies or celebrity pop culture authors like Stephen King. His discussion of modern science is similarly stilted. It's not his fault, it's just the reality of listening to a re-released book.

So, do I buy into what Schaeffer is arguing?

Yeah, mostly. Once you get past the fact that he is still talking about hippies it's still pretty solid.

Kate Reading's narration was neither good nor bad. She did not hurt the interesting parts and did not make the slower parts better. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE: THE RISE and DECLINE of WESTERN THOUGHT and CULTURE by Francis A. Schaeffer.

Reviewed on November 17, 2014.

GOING SHOGUN (audiobook) by Ernie Lindsey

Audiobook version published in 2014
Performed by DJ Holte
Duration: 6 hours, 19 minutes.

Set in a future America with strict caste system, Going Shogun is a buddy story and a heist story with a bit of romance thrown in. 

Chris and Forklift are waiters at Wishful Thinking, a trendy restaurant that mixes odd combinations of flavors like gravy-flavored ice cubes, banana mustard and wintergreen tomato popsicles. The customers can't seem to stop coming in and business booms every night. But, Chris and Forklift (especially Chris) want to move up in in this strict caste system and they think they have developed the perfect plan - steal the recipes from their boss, sell them online and use their new found wealth to "ascend" and maybe take the hot waitress with them on the way up the social ladder.

But, this is more complicated than you might think. Everything, including the internet is tightly regulated so Chris and Forklift have to find a hacker to get them online before they steal the recipes and that is where the trouble starts. Unexpected trips, the surprise return of an old flame and a dead body make this a night that changes everything...

The world imagined by Ernie Lindsey is certainly an interesting twist on a science fiction staple - the ultra-stratified future society (imagine Brave New World but much sloppier, much less regimented). 

At first this story is confusing. Forklift has an odd style of speaking with a series of unique slang words and phrases and it took me the first two hours of a six hour audiobook experience just to get the hang of his personal way of communicating. It took me almost as long to get a strong feel for the structure of this future society. Because it took so long for me to get "up and running" I nearly didn't finish this story.

Audiobook narrator DJ Holte

But, I continued on because of the voice work of the reader, DJ Holte. I listen to a lot of audiobooks (this is my 274th audiobook review) and I don't remember every hearing Holte before. If he is new, I can only assume I will be hearing a lot more from him. If he has done a lot of voice work, it is a pity that I have missed him until now because he is gifted. The voices he created made vivid images of the characters in my mind - much more than any of the descriptions from the text.

The story got better once I started figuring everything out. It was worth the initial slog. I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be purchased on Amazon.com here: Going Shogun.

Note: I received a free download of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Reviewed on November 1, 2014

CRAZY IS NORMAL: A CLASSROOM EXPOSE (A MEMOIR) by Lloyd Lofthouse

An Honest Look at Urban Schools

Published in 2014 by Three Clover Press

Throughout the 1994-95 school year Lloyd Lofthouse, a veteran high school English and Journalism teacher teaching in a rough "inner city" type of environment in California, kept a daily journal of his experiences. Finally, he worked them up into the book Crazy Is Normal.

First, I think that I need to tell you that I am a 25 year teacher and I have spent 15 of those 25 years teaching in what some would euphemistically call "urban" schools. I also agree with Lofthouse's comments about so-called education reform and fads in education like the self-esteem movement.  For those reasons I found this book to be compelling - I simply flew right through it.

The book is mostly a set of journal entries with the occasional expanded commentary and, rarely, a reference to an article or a study about education. The way the book is set up is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The book rolls along day after day just like a real school year does - unrelenting,  seemingly unending yet with never enough time. Each class has its own distinct personality, some kids improve but most bad students just remain, sadly, bad students. Quite simply, he nails the day-to-day grind of teaching. 

But, the lack of elaboration on the school, its students, its staff hurts the book. Lofthouse leaves out almost all details about his family. When he mentions he has a wife I was shocked. When he mentions his son at the end of the book I was even more shocked. The home vs. work balancing act is a tough one for most teachers and deserves a lot of exploration. 

Lofthouse's commentary on district-level administration and the way they forget what it is like in the classroom is dead-on correct. I would have loved to have read what Lofthouse thought about some of the new trends in education like Common Core.

Lofthouse's confession that he found himself attracted to one of his students makes for uncomfortable reading. Thankfully, he never acted on those feelings but it leaves an taint on the book. 

Despite that, this book is one of the very few serious descriptions about from a real teacher with real students about education in the real world that I have read. That alone makes it worth reading.

Note: I was sent a copy of this book at no cost in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Crazy is Normal: a classroom exposé.

Reviewed on October 28, 2014.

NPR DRIVEWAY MOMENTS: ALL ABOUT ANIMALS (audiobook)

My daughters and I give it 5 stars

Published in 2007 by HighBridge Company
Multicast performance
Duration: approximately 1.5 hours

NPR has a series of audiobooks published through HighBridge Company called Driveway Moments with the added thought that these are "radio stories that won't let you go." These are designed to be the types of stories that you sit in the car in your driveway and continue to listen to after you've arrived home.

In this collection the stories are about animals. We've got cats, dogs, raising baby hummingbirds and letting them go (it brings a tear to the eye), a giant turtle in Vietnam, a drive through pig semen store, a parrot that talks with the voice of the storyteller's deceased mother's voice, and a farm for retired racehorses. There is also a long story about how pets made it through the chaos of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. This is a tough story with lots of sad stories and great stories of re-uniting people and their animals. 

The collection ends with a touching tribute by frequent NPR contributor Daniel Pinkwater to his recently deceased dog. It is so touching that I have gotten a catch in my throat both times I have tried to describe it to my wife.

I listened to this collection with my two daughters (3rd and 9th grade) and it generated a pretty good discussion over the Hurricane Katrina story. The pig semen story went over the little one's head and the last story by Daniel Pinkwater touched us all.

The audio quality is very good since these stories were all broadcast over NPR. My kids did not appreciate NPR's offbeat musical interludes between stories, but all three of us rated this collection 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: NPR DRIVEWAY MOMENTS: ALL ABOUT ANIMALS.

Reviewed on October 27, 2014.

CODE BLOOD by Kurt Kamm

The twisted tale of a paramedic, an albino with a vampire fetish and a blood researcher...

Published in 2012 by MCM Publishing

Code Blood is the story of three people whose lives are tied together in this thriller but barely interact throughout the book.

Photo by Werner Vermaak

Colt Lewis is a brand new paramedic in the Los Angeles area who is struggling with the emotional toll this sort of job can cause. He is an open young man who became a paramedic because he truly cares about people and wants to help them. But, he is struggling with the reality that some of the victims he helps just cannot be saved. He keeps on going back to his first run and the beautiful young woman who was found on the side of the road after having been hit by a hit and run driver. She died while Colt was reassuring her because her foot had been amputated in the accident. Strangely, the foot was never found and Colt starts to obsess about this woman, the tragic loss of such a young life and the total creepiness of the kind of person that would steal someone's foot.

Markus is that creep. He is an albino who lives a goth vampire lifestyle in which he not only dresses like a vampire, he also drinks blood and has developed a sexual fetish about blood. He is also in serious need of cash and he is running out of options. That is, until he meets a Chinese blood researcher named A Li. A Li has a rare blood type that Markus craves. He also knows that he can sell it for a lot of money to his vampire friends.

A Li is struggling in America. She is a minority in China (from near Tibet) and political repression has forced her to give up everything and dedicate herself to science so that her family can prosper back home.

One thing I enjoy about reading is that, if you are lucky, a book will take you someplace you have never been and teach you something new. These three characters are all part of a larger story that delves into all kinds of interesting new places. I learned about paramedic training and how many cars actually fall off of those twisting mountain roads around Los Angeles. I also learned about rare blood types, the city morgue, the underground market for body parts, real-life vampires and more. 

The story gets off to a pretty slow start but once it gets going and all of the pieces are in place it is quite good. Plus, it did not have the ending that I figured it would so it's always good to be surprised!

This book was sent to me at no charge in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Code Blood by Kurt Kamm.

Reviewed on October 23, 2014.

REPUBLIC: A NOVEL of AMERICA'S FUTURE (kindle) by Charles Sheehan-Miles

Very well-written and guaranteed to make you think.

Originally published in 2007.
Approximately 346 pages.

Set in America's near future, Republic is a look at the authority of the federal government run amok in the name of national security. Imagine, if you would, the government's reaction to a series of timed bombings that target the Pentagon and the first responders that come to save as many of the victims as they can (as was common in the Iraq War) but instead of a foreign attacker, the culprit is a domestic terror group. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sweeps in and starts to get very nervous about every sort of domestic disturbance.

In this environment a profitable factory closes down in a small West Virginia town that depends on this employer for its very existence. The profitable factory closes because its holding company determined that it can make an even larger profit by relocating to Indonesia. When the newly unemployed American workers trespass and occupy the factory and resume production the DHS is called because, now, even labor disputes are a risk to national security.

When the federal building in West Virginia's capital city is bombed federal agents assume that it must be Muslim terrorists and start rounding up literally all Muslim males above the age of 14 in a neighborhood known as "Little Cairo". They are not arrested, just "detained". The West Virginia National Guard is supposed to assist in locking down the neighborhood but an idealistic officer is shocked at the gestapo tactics of the federal agents, intervenes and a firefight ensues, resulting the in the death of a guardsman and an agent.

More importantly, the tactics of DHS are exposed for all to see and a constitutional crisis starts when the federal government demands that the lead officer of the Guard unit be turned over for prosecution for the death of their agent. West Virginia's governor refuses to turn her over and a grassroots secession movement adds fuel to the fire that only gets bigger as a ham-fisted DHS raid and various federal pronouncements make the situation more and more tense and everyone prepares for a second Civil War...

I picked this book up three years ago on my kindle when it was temporarily offered free of charge but I never got around to reading it. On a whim I started reading it on my phone and I found that this was an absolutely compelling read. The characters are kind of stock characters, but they are clearly drawn out. They really just a means to a larger discussion about the federal government's growing reach in to so many things and the militarization of situations that really just need common sense and some level-headed discussion.

The battle scenes in this book, especially those with the tanks fighting in the mountains in the winter, are strong (they ought to be, he is a Gulf War veteran and served in a tank unit) but the real thing that is impressive is that he works in a discussion of the proper role of DHS and just how much security is too much security and when does it become just another excuse for government to curtail rights throughout the book and it does not seem artificial or forced.

Read my review of Insurgent, book two in this series by clicking here.

I rate this novel 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Republic: A Novel of America's Future.

Reviewed on October 16, 2014

THE RACKETEER by John Grisham

 

It's not great literature but it is certainly entertaining.

Originally published in October of 2012

John Grisham and I have an on again, off again relationship (as reader and writer, I have not had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman in person.) I grew tired of his legal thrillers and of late I have been occasionally listening to his regular novels like A Painted House or Bleachers. 

The Racketeer is my first legal thriller of Grisham's that I have read in more than five years, but even Grisham admits in the author's note that as a thriller it's fairly long on story and not so deep on the minutiae of the courthouse. All that is true, but it is a compelling read - a real page turner that I blasted through at a very fast pace for me (I tend to doggedly plod through books rather than blast through them).

The story starts out simply enough. A small town black lawyer named Malcolm Bannister gets caught up in a real estate scheme thought up by a Washington, D.C. insider. This is a spectacular case of fraud, bribery, prostitution and all this small time attorney did was help broker a small real estate deal. He is innocent He knew nothing of the overall plan but he is accused and convicted of the federal crime of racketeering (obtaining money illegally, such as by fraud or extortion). He loses his wife, his family and the respect of his father. He has nothing.

Bannister has serves as a jailhouse attorney while he is serving his sentence in a low security prison and he has heard lots of stories from his clients (his fellow prisoners). When a federal judge is murdered Bannister approaches the warden and tells him that he is sure that he knows who did it and will trade that information for a full pardon and a new life in the witness protection program.

However, once Bannister gets out he starts to act very strangely and this is when the story gets interesting when Bannister puts on his white Panama hat and begins to act on his own plan that he has been developing in prison for all of these years...

Like I said, this story caught me up and carried me away. It's not great literature but it is certainly entertaining.

I rate this novel 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Racketeer by John Grisham.

Reviewed on October 16, 2014.

HARD PLACE (short story) (kindle) by Ernie Lindsey

Published in 2013 as an e-book short story.
Approximate length: 46 pages.

Alan Parker is a professional killer who works for an employer called The Company. His wife also works for The Company but she is currently in the last stages of an unsuccessful fight with cancer.

It is not really clear if The Company is a government entity or not, but any way you slice it The Company has lots and lots of resources, including an impressive list of hired assassins. Parker (nicknamed "Boom") is one of the very best, but a series of mistakes made his last hit a failure and The Company rarely forgives failure.

Photo by Niels Noordhoek

So, "Boom" Parker knows that he cannot mess up his new assignment. He has been sent to kill a female scientist that is working on a bio-fuel that threatens the big oil companies.

But, this case starts out badly (it looks like someone has already killed his target or, at least, botched an attempt on her) and as he looks for her he finds out that she has been working on a side project and may have developed a cure for cancer. So, does he kill his target and doom his wife or does he save his target, save his wife and doom himself?

This is a solid short story with a heck of a moral quandary. The ending is a little too quick and a little too neat but this is worth your time. The middle of the story when "Boom" Parker is struggling with his options is quite good.

I rate this short story 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Hard Place by Ernie Lindsey.

Reviewed on October 15, 2014.

IT'S SUPERMAN (audiobook) by Tom De Haven

How Hard Is It to Nail Down Superman's Personality?

Published by GraphicAudio in March of 2014
Adapted from the novel It's Superman by Tom De Haven
Multicast performance
Duration; Approximately 7 hours


Let me be clear from the beginning about two things:

1) I am a Superman fan

2) I do not mind re-makes or re-interpretations so long as they are done respectfully of the source material.

However, It's Superman does not do that, with the exception of Lex Luthor.

This re-imagined world of Superman is set in the 1930s, which I liked as a choice because that's when Superman was created. Most of the first part of the book deals with a struggling Lois Lane living with a a freelance photographer named Willi Berg in an apartment in New York City (the book dispenses with the Metropolis conceit). Lois is much more worldly than I have ever seen her, but I was fine with that. 

Willi Berg witnesses Lex Luthor, a New York City politician, in the middle of a crime and discovers that Luthor is muscling out the established crime bosses and using his position in city government to provide him cover. Berg flees the city and eventually winds up in Smallville, Kansas.

Up to this point Clark Kent has definitely been the back burner story in this book. You might has well have called it, "It's Willi Berg!" rather than "It's Superman!"  Clark has been in the story a little bit, mostly to show that he and his father are not racists while the rest of Kansas is. Fair enough, 1930s Kansas was not the center of racial inclusiveness. 

Jonathan Kent has, as far as I can tell, always been described as a fantastic father figure.  Think of the 1977 movie version played by Glenn Ford or the Man of Steel version played by Kevin Costner. So much of what Superman is comes from being raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent. In this story, though, Jonathan is inconsistently described an indifferent man (with a hint that he is mentally ill due to a reference to his own father who cut his own abdomen open in front of a mirror) who hates churches with a passion and shows sporadic flashes of being a great father. 

Clark is shown as an earnest cub reporter who hates being treated as a small town rube. He and Willi partner up and head to Hollywood after being tramps for a while, cruising America and doing odd jobs. During this middle part of the book Clark has to be encouraged to use his powers to help people or be restrained from using them to hurt people. This is not Superman's character, at all. I know it's a re-write of the basic story but this is too much of a re-write because now it is not a Superman story. Superman's character is what makes him Superman. He is the constant Boy Scout, the living embodiment of an ideal. Take, for example, this quote from the Man of Steel movie: "You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But, in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders."

This version of Superman has no compass except for the external one provided by his friends. Rather than being a leader, he is a follower. How can he inspire anyone when he cannot even move himself? Superman is not nuanced. He is not filled with gray areas.

Positives:

The characterization of Lex Luthor is well done and interesting. His evil nature is obvious from the start but his true nature only becomes more obvious as you go along. Funny how Lex's character remains a constant but Clark Kent/Superman does not.

I liked the way 1930s current events and people were peppered in throughout the story. 

As always, the performance by the GraphicAudio team is amazing. My complaints with this audiobook have nothing to do with the way they performed it or with their adaptation of it. If you adapt a weak text you will have a weak adaptation.

My rating: 2 out of 5 stars.
Reviewed on October 13, 2014.

A FISTFUL of COLLARS (Chet and Bernie #5) by Spencer Quinn

Chet and Bernie Break into the Movies!

Published in 2012 by Atria Books.

I have four mystery writers that I regularly follow: Robert Crais, Michael Connelly, C.J. Box and Spencer Quinn's Chet and Bernie series.
 

The premise of the series is simple. They are buddy books featuring Chet and Bernie, crime-fighting partners much like Holmes and Watson or Spenser and Hawk. Except for one important point - Chet is Bernie's dog. 

The story is told from the point of view of Chet, a trained police dog that never quite graduated from the academy to a "leaping" incident that "involved blood." 

Chet understands enough about human society so that the story doesn't bog down but he has that easily distractable live-in-the-moment quality that all dog lovers recognize.

In A Fistful of Collars Chet and Bernie are hired by the mayor (a politician that Bernie hates for a variety of reasons) to safeguard the city's interests while a major Hollywood film is made right there in the Valley. This Western movie stars Hollywood's current top-of-the-heap pretty boy action hero with a whole bunch of hidden problems. Chet and Bernie are supposed to keep this star out of trouble but soon enough Bernie finds that some things don't seem quite right and soon enough Chet and Bernie find a dead body and a possible connection to something else that could derail everything...

Although I was not convinced by the way that Bernie initially discovers the problems, once the mystery gets going it is pretty good. However, this may be the best book for Chet. I thought that his character was pulled off especially well. Better character writing tips the balance and makes this a 4 star book.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Fistful of Collars (Chet and Bernie #5) by Spencer Quinn.

Reviewed on October 10, 2014.

THE SEA of TROLLS (Sea of Trolls Trilogy #1) (audiobook) by Nancy Farmer

Published in 2004 by Recorded Books
Performed by Gerard Doyle
Duration: 13 hours, 51 minutes
Unabridged

Brilliantly read by Gerard Doyle, The Sea of Trolls is essentially the story of a young boy living in 793 England who is kidnapped by Vikings, taken back to their home and eventually returns home.

But, this story is so much more than that.

Jack is an adolescent that lives in an English coastal village with his parents and younger sister. This world is Christian with a hefty bit of pagan practices thrown in. This is not a comfortable mix.

Jack is invited to be the apprentice for the local bard. Bards are more than mere story-telling musicians - they can weave magic by being in touch with something called the Life Force. Their music can enhance and focus their magic. Jack's mother exhibited such tendencies as well but she was never formally trained.

While in the midst of his training, Jack's teacher is magically attacked by a half-troll Viking queen (married to King Ivar the Boneless) and the village is soon physically attacked by Berserker Viking raiders from the same kingdom. Jack and his sister are captured by these raiders and their leader, the fearsome Olaf One-Brow plans to sell them as slaves back in the kingdom of Ivar the Boneless.

A Viking Longship in the Bayeux Tapestry.
Photo by Urban.

While traveling back to the Viking kingdom, Jack's nascent talents as a Bard are discovered and he moves into a new, precarious position - still a slave yet also valuable to Olaf as a weaver of spells and singer of his praises. But, if he casts a spell incorrectly or sings a song wrong his life may be forfeit.

A mistaken spell in the great hall of Ivan the Boneless and his half-troll wife sends Jack, Olaf and the sullen young shield maiden Thorgill on an epic quest across the Troll Sea into a land that only exists in legend - a land filled with trolls, man-eating plants, giant spiders, sea monsters, dragons and more...

This is a fun story, has lots of depth and plenty of opportunity to talk about how people are rarely all good or all bad. For example, the Vikings warriors are thieves, slave traders and brutal murderers of an entire village. But, they are also honorable friends, wonderful hosts and fantastic family men.

I listened to this audiobook with my freshman daughter. It was her first audiobook experience and she absolutely loved it. I was more than impressed by the narration of Gerard Doyle. He voices men, women, boys, girls, trolls, crows, and even more with great skill. 

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE SEA of TROLLS (Sea of Trolls Trilogy #1) by Nancy Farmer.

Reviewed on October 12, 2014.

Read my review of The Land of the Silver Apples, volume 2 in this trilogy by clicking HERE. 

DOCTOR WHO: DESTINY of the DOCTOR #3: VENGEANCE of the STONES (audiobook) by Andrew Smith

Published in 2013 by AudioGo (Blackstone/BBC) 

Read by Richard Franklin and Trevor Littledale

Duration: 1 hour

Unabridged.

As a part of the 50th Anniversary celebration of Doctor Who, the BBC released a series of audiobooks called Destiny of the Doctor. Each of the Doctors has a 1 hour audiobook story.

In Vengeance of the Stones the Doctor and UNIT are called in to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a RAF fighter jet from the skies above Scotland. While the Doctor is poking around he encounters Lt. Mike Yates for the first time (who becomes Captain Mike Yates and a companion in the television series). 

The Doctor soon discovers that the disappearance of the jet is the work of an alien species that has a ancient grudge against humanity and that they are the reason for the prevalence of so many recumbent stone circles in this area. 

A recumbent stone circle in Scotland.
Photo by Bill McKelvie

Also, he discovers that these aliens are more than willing to inflict their revenge upon humanity even though it has been hundreds and hundreds of years since they were wronged. Of course, the Doctor leaps to the defense of humanity but the story is amusing and entertaining and certainly will be of interest to any Doctor Who fan. 

The two readers were very solid, both being veteran audiobook performers in this series. Richard Franklin, of course, played the part of Mike Yates, the character he played in the television show from 1971-1974.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctor #3: Vengeance of the Stones.

Reviewed on October 10, 2014

TUNNEL VISIONS by Kurt Kamm

Gritty Realism and Eco-Terrorists in This Firefighter Adventure

Published in August of 2014 by MCM Publishing

Over the years I have read a ton of books about police officers of all sorts: cops on the beat, homicide detectives, FBI agents, Secret Service and more. But, Kurt Kamm specializes in writing very detailed, authentic feeling books (as far as this high school teacher can tell, anyway) about an equally visible group of first responders that I have rarely read any books about: firefighters. 

In Tunnel Visions fire captain Nick Carter, an expert in underground search and rescue missions, is called in to a task force that is investigating a possible terror attack on a gigantic underground tunnel that helps supply the water for Los Angeles. His fiancée, an ATF Special Agent, is on the ground looking for the same eco-terrorists.

The book uses a series of flashbacks to go back and forth from the current day story of the terrorists to Nick's childhood and early career. He was inspired by the story of his father, a man who died in a horrible accidental explosion while digging the very same tunnel that the terrorists want to destroy. But, as the story progresses we learn that Nick has been hiding multiple secrets about his father and those secrets could destroy his career and even his relationship with his fiancée. The Sylmar Tunnel explosion was an actual event. It happened in 1971 and killed 17 miners. Click here for more information.

This is a very readable book with lots of danger and suspense (and really bad traffic). The flashbacks sometimes feel like they are getting in the way of the real story but, in the end, the flashbacks pull the whole thing together in an ending that may be a little too nice (but a happy ending is okay every now and then!)

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Tunnel Visions by Kurt Kamm.

 Note: I was sent a review copy of this book at no charge in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this novel 4 stars out of 5.
Reviewed on September 12, 2014.

LION of BABYLON (Marc Royce #1) (audiobook) by Davis Bunn

Published in August of 2011 by Christian Audio
Read by Paul Boehmer
Duration: 10 hours, 40 minutes
Unabridged

Veteran writer Davis Bunn (also known as T. Davis Bunn) is known for writing Christian historical fiction and Christian thrillers. Lion of Babylon is a Christian thriller centered on an intelligence operative named Marc Royce. 

Royce is one of the best of the best but he has recently been forced to retire due to the petty whims of his boss, a well-connected adviser to presidents of both parties. But, one Sunday after church Royce is picked up and offered the chance to return to his job in order to investigate the disappearance of one of his closest friends who was on assignment in Iraq. Even though Royce knows almost nothing about the Middle East he is sent to Iraq to solve this mystery.

Once there, Royce is immersed into a world of intrigue and double-dealing. Royce discovers that his friend is involved in a lot more than anyone ever suspected and all sorts of people do not want him to be found including staff members the American embassy and the ruling elite of Iraq. 

As Royce begins to investigate he quickly develops a reputation as a straight-talking man who tells the truth, has no hidden agendas and is simply too tough to be killed. Once he finds an Iraqi Christian man named Sameh el-Jacobi with a similar reputation for telling the truth and searching for truth and justice they begin to find out what was really going on and discover a religious and political movement that no one could have predicted...

I have to rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It takes far too long to get up and running, the "precocious" and perceptive niece of el-Jacobi was far more irritating that she was endearing. The religious movement that begins to make over Iraq in this novel sounded like an incredible fairy tale when contrasted with the real-life religious atrocities (beheadings, crucifixions, mass murders to name a few) that were occurring under the banner of ISIS as I was listening to this audiobook. While I would hope that this book could be a signpost to a possible future of Iraq, realistically, I have to doubt that any of it could ever happen. Sadly, I think the way of ISIS is a much more likely future.

Paul Boehmer's reading of the book, including a good grasp of accents and the ability to differentiate a great number of characters, was solid but did little to assuage the underlying weaknesses of the book.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: LION of BABYLON (Marc Royce #1) by Davis Bunn.

Reviewed on September 12, 2014

MILDRED (short story) (kindle) by Sean Ryan O'Reilly

Published in 2014 by RSO Publications.

The short story Mildred has a tone and plot that is reminiscent of a Stephen King story. Certainly, O'Reilly could have stretched this 42 page short story (novelette) out a bit more like Stephen King would have, adding much more detail but not have really adding much to the story itself. 

Instead, O'Reilly goes for a much quicker, more minimalist approach, letting the reader try to figure out what is going on while a creepy vibe and sense of dread build.



The story begins with a family fight between an aunt who is a realtor (Denise) and her niece (Josephine). It turns out that the aunt has convinced her niece to invest in a shady business deal and Josephine has decided to cash out by just taking one of her aunt's homes. This home is crammed full of consumer products. Josephine clears out a space and sets up housekeeping.

When she discovers the diary of the former owner of the house she learns that her aunt was much more depraved than she had ever suspected. Plus, there's the odd noises and other strange things that keep on happening...

I rate this short story 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: MILDRED by Ryan Sean O'Reilly. 

Reviewed on September 3, 2014