Riding for the Brand (audiobook) by Louis L'Amour

Good, but predictable

Audio version originally published in 1986 by Random House Audio
Multicast performance with sound effects
Duration: 55 minutes.

I like Louis L'Amour. His descriptions and conversations are top notch. However, his plots are predictable so I really am grading this on a curve.

Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson,
Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings

I am also rating the audio version of Riding for the Brand which is interesting because it is told by Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. It was quite enjoyable to hear the four of these men work together - they were all quite good, especially Kristofferson and Nelson.

This audio edition has features that most don't, including special effects and a music soundtrack that was sometimes reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's Spaghetti Westerns and sometimes reminiscent of Silverado. The inclusion of the special effects did speed the plot along (you don't have to describe that people are knocking on the door or riding horses, etc.) but sometimes they are distracting (one scene in particular had an overly loud clock ticking over the top of everyone's voices).

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Riding for the Brand.

Reviewed on January 26, 2005.

A Separate Country by Robert Hicks

Tries too hard to set a mood, loses focus on the history.

Published in 2011 by Grand Central Publishing.

As a history teacher, I love well-written historical fiction. It places the reader right in the story. A judicious author can blend the history and the fiction together in a harmless fashion and tell the story in an accurate and entertaining way.

A Separate Country does not live up to those standards. It it presumptuous of an author of historical fiction to take the first person with a very famous historical figure. Commonly, if a first person perspective is used it is with a fictional character - an aide to a general that witnesses events but does not effect them, for example. In this case, Hicks has taken one of the "name" generals from the Civil War and turned him on his head. He has sacrificed the "historical" in the name of the "fiction."

Hicks places John Bell Hood into a series of historic events, some of which are quite true (such as the lottery drawings - many Confederate ex-generals were lottery commissioners) and some of which are of dubious truth (Hood's fascination with the comatose Pascal, for example). A great deal of the book is supposed to be Hood's secret autobiography, but it reads more like a modern blog than a Victorian era journal.

Confederate General John Bell Hood
(1831-1879)

The problem is that Hood's real life story is subordinate to this fiction in the story. It is peopled with characters with symbolic names (for example, Pascal's name is like paschal - an Easter term referring to Jesus and his sacrifice). Hood becomes a part of a much larger morality play about race, love and sacrifice. He even works in a young Homer Plessy, of later Plessy vs. Ferguson claim.

The author, Robert Hicks, is fascinated with Hood's performance at Nashville and Franklin, TN but almost completely ignores his other battles, which read like a roll call of the war itself: The Peninsula Campaign, 2nd Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg (Also, another historical inaccuracy - Hood never would have heard Lee apologize to the survivors of Pickett's Charge - Hood was in the infirmary trying to save his mangled arm), Chickamauga (where he lost his leg) and Atlanta.

The book is just tedious. The use of three points of view to tell the story guarantee us extended descriptions of the heat, humidity and the lush plant and insect communities of New Orleans. Page after page of descriptions of the plagues that strike New Orleans. Enough already!

This history teacher says pass on this one.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: A Separate Country by Robert Hicks.

Reviewed on August 3, 2009.

Apocalypse Troll by David Weber

A solid sci-fi story saddled with a fantasy genre name

Published in 2000 by Baen Books.

Just seeing the title of this book you would assume that David Weber's first solo novel is all about ogres, witches and elves. The cover shows differently, of course. The Apocalypse Troll is an action-packed bit of sci-fi that includes time travel, a threat to planet earth and a lovely lady.

Here are the plot basics: an alien race from the future lands on earth in an effort to destroy it and humans from the future arrive in an effort to stop them. But, their defense was less than successful so current day humans are left to fight on with the advice of a surviving human from the future.

And this story works.

Mind you, this is not "great" literature - but it is a romp through space and time with plenty of military action, a truly evil villain and lots of snappy dialogue. Be warned, there is not a lot of character development and the reader really doesn't know the entire backstory until about 1/3 of the way through the book, but it's still a worthwhile read.

 
I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Apocalypse Troll. 

Reviewed on August 9, 2009.

The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II by Judith M. Heimann

Originally Published in 2007

An odd and interesting bit of history from the Pacific Front in World War II

The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II  is a well-researched telling of the story of two sets of American fliers (one Army and one Navy) who were shot down over Borneo by the Japanese. The survivors end up living with the Dayaks, the famous headhunters of the highlands of Borneo.
Borneo was largely unmapped and unknown to the West. It was, and still is, one of the remotest locations on earth. Most of Borneo's interior is like the old line, "You can't get there from here." Well, you can if you jump out of an airplane.

The author, Judith Heimann
doing research in Borneo

The author, Heimann, does a good job of giving the reader a feel for the Dayak way of life, but the shortage of maps makes the story of the soldiers being moved from village to village for their protection a frustrating experience. At times, the story bogs down in a series of descriptions about a series of malarial infections, boils that need lancing and endless rice-based meals.

Don't let that stop you from reading this book, though. Any student of World War II should pick this one up just to learn one of the more interesting tales from a remote location in a truly world war.

A PBS documentary was also made with the same title based on the book.

I rate this book 4 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Airmen and the Headhunters.

Reviewed on August 11, 2009

Promised Land by Robert B. Parker

A pivotal moment in the history of the series and an artifact of the 1970s

Published by Random House Audio.
Read by Michael Prichard.
Duration: 5 hours, 27 minutes.
Unabridged.

Over the years I've read all of the Spenser novels, but since I do not have a photographic memory I'm going back and listening to them as audiobooks during my commute.

Promised Land is a pivotal moment in the series because this is the moment in which we meet Hawk - Spenser's erstwhile partner in anti-crime in so many books in the series. Hawk is in his full glory here - a bad man who kills, roughs people up, and intimidates, but still lives by his own code that Spenser somehow senses and respects.

It is also a pivotal moment because there is an incredible amount of conversational psychoanalysis throughout the book, a trait that most Spenser books feature (often to their detriment, in my opinion). Spenser's personality is discussed, male/female relationships, what it means to be a man or a woman, responsibility and more. Out of these discussions come the foundation for the ongoing relationship between Spenser and Susan Silverman that continues throughout the series. Sometimes this is interesting but towards the end I wearied of it and it hurt the flow of the book and my enjoyment of it.

Robert B. Parker

Promised Land is a wonderful artifact of the truly revolutionary nature of the 1970s (For years I've contended that the 1970s were more of a decade of change than the 1960s were). We meet revolutionaries who arm themselves to overthrow "phallic power", we see the changing nature of husband/wife relationships. 

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Promised Land by Robert B. Parker.

Reviewed on August 26, 2009.

Rizzo's War by Lou Manfredo

A different kind of hard-boiled cop story

Joe Rizzo is a detective in NYPD's 62nd Precinct. He is partnered with a young whiz kid newly minted detective and together they solve crimes, talk about crime and we learn how a determined detective can trade favors to skip bureaucratic steps.

Rizzo's War is, in a lot of ways, a non-traditional detective story. Usually, there is an overarching plot (the big crime, in a detective story) and lots of smaller crimes pepper the story as interesting filler. In this book, we get a lot of little crimes to introduce the characters and give the reader the feel for the environment. The actual "big" case doesn't occur until about halfway into the book.

But, that's okay. The characters are interesting. The environment is interesting. The cases are interesting. The book feels like it is an introduction to a series and I hope that it is. I'll look for more Rizzo books.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Rizzo's War by Lou Manfredo.

Reviewed on August 26, 2009.

Rain Gods: A Novel by James Lee Burke

A dark, wearisome and depressing novel

Published in 2009.

Crime novels come in all sorts of varieties and flavors. At one extreme are the slapstick Evanovich Stephanie Plum books. At the other end come moody and brooding novels like those that James Lee Burke produces. I have read several of his books and I know that they are not fun-loving romps, but the morose nature of this book takes the cake.


James Lee Burke

With the exception of two brief scenes Rain Gods: A Novel was relentless in its brooding tone. I found it wearisome. Every male character is burdened with evil deeds, obsesses over them and then acts out in self-destructive, often violent ways. All of the female lead characters offer wisdom, strength and guidance. There are literally more than a dozen bad guys and it seems that this desert Texas countryside is full of nothing but broken people, hookers, alcoholics, criminals and a couple of cops. Where are the regular people?

The book was just too much death, despair and regret for me.

A wearisome and disappointing read.

 

2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Rain Gods: A Novel by James Lee Burke.

 

Reviewed August 26, 2009