MILLION DOLLAR BABY: STORIES from the CORNER by F.X. Toole

 

Originally published in 2000 as Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner.

F.X. Toole (1930-2002) worked as a trainer and as a corner man in support of boxers for decades.  Think of the character Mickey in the Rocky movies and you have an idea of what he did.

But, unlike the barely literate Mickey, Toole was a powerful writer of boxing short stories. All I know about boxing comes from having watched all of the Rocky and Creed movies, so I freely admit that I know almost nothing about boxing. But, that did not matter because Toole made these short stories compelling, even if they were full of boxing jargon and practices that I was unfamiliar with. 

There are six stories, most are very good. The story that the Clint Eastwood movie Million Dollar Baby was adapted from is extraordinarily powerful and haunting. The story that was original title story for this collection, Rope Burns, started out very strong, but the ending was so over the top that it ended up being the worst story of the collection. 

I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: 

MILLION DOLLAR BABY: STORIES from the CORNER by F.X. Toole.

THE COLOR of LAW (audiobook) (Scott Fenney #1) by Mark Gimenez

Published in 2005 by Random House Audio.

Read by Stephen Hoye
Duration: 12 hours, 21 minutes.

Unabridged

Scott Fenney has it all. The former college football star is a partner in the premier law firm in Dallas. He has a beautiful wife, a daughter that adores him, a Ferrari and a house in an elite neighborhood. 

Dallas, Texas

One day, a federal judge asks Fenney to take on a tough case. The son of a prominent resident of Dallas is alleged to have been murdered by a prostitute that he had picked up earlier in the evening. He was shot in the head by her pistol and her pistol was found by his body. Fenney was asked to defend the prostitute in court because the judge was convinced by a speech Fenney gave about how Atticus Finch from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird should be the role model for all lawyers. Plus, Fenney's big-time law firm actually has access to the resources needed to defend a death penalty case

It is a federal crime because the victim held a federal job. He held that job because his father is one the Senators from Texas and is the leading Republican nominee for President.

Fenney accepts the job even though he really doesn't believe the hyperbole from his Atticus Finch speech - you simply cannot turn down a federal judge. But, he has no idea what he is up against and he finds out the old boy network is strong...

*****

The Color of Law is really two stories in one. The legal aspect of the case (the accused person, her case, her lawyers) is pretty cut and dry. But, the case is necessary for the more important part of the story - the changes that happen to Scott Fenney.

The narrator of the audiobook telegraphs this angle of the story from the very beginning. He has a sort of mocking tone - the tone of an all-knowing narrator that is setting up his character for a lot of well-deserved uncomfortable change. 

This was a an interesting audiobook. It was not a great novel - it was often heavy handed and obvious. But, it was entertaining and I wanted to find out exactly what happened in the end. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:THE COLOR of LAW (audiobook) (Scott Fenney #1) by Mark Gimenez.

THE DECISIVE BATTLES of WORLD HISTORY (The Great Courses) (Audiobook) by Gregory S. Adlrete

 

Published by The Great Courses in 2014.
Lectures delivered by the author, Gregory S. Aldrete.
Duration: 18 hours, 29 minutes.

Unabridged.

As long as there has been war, there has been discussions about which battles were the most important, the most pivotal. This takes some analysis, since the temptation might be to simply discuss the battle that finally ended a long conflict, like Appomattox was the functional end to the American Civil War. 

The temptation might also be to collect a list of the biggest battles of history, but that would exclude Aldrete's tiniest choice - the Battle of San Jacinto. While that battle had less than 2,500 soldiers, he persuasively argues that the battle not only made Texas independent from Mexico, it also set off a chain of events that led directly the the American Civil War, Reconstruction and more.

In The Decisive Battles of World History, Adlrete presents the battles in chronological order and spends at least as much time on the background information of each battle as he does on the battles themselves. A few of the entries are not battles, but are entire campaigns.

The Battle of San Jacinto

Almost all of these lectures are informative and entertaining, but I did find the one set in Medieval Japan to be very hard to follow. I found that to be surprising since I took two classes on this topic back in college. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE DECISIVE BATTLES of WORLD HISTORY (The Great Courses) (Audiobook) by Gregory S. Adlrete.

IRON MAN: STEEL TERROR by Dean Wesley Smith

 

Originally published in book form in 1996.
Published in 2019 by Marvel.
Read by James Patrick Cronin.
Duration: 2 hours, 15 minutes.
Unabridged (but maybe not - see below)

As the Avengers settle down for a Christmas Eve dinner in Tony Stark's mansion (which doubles as Avengers headquarters), they are interrupted by news of a robot attack on a super secure research facility. TESS-One, a World War II era robot designed to counter super serum soldiers if it turned out to be necessary has returned from the dead. Can robots die? No matter - this robot was thought to be disposed of, but it is back. 

TESS-One

Even worse, it is under the control of another robot - the dreaded Ultron. He was also thought to have been killed/destroyed, but he is back and is pursuing his goal to kill off humanity...

My take:

******Caution - spoilers*******

The Iron Man: Steel Terror audiobook was created from a 160 page novel published in 1996 by Pocket Books that was aimed at 12-15 year-olds. If you are expecting a continuation of the characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), you will be disappointed. 

The details for the audiobook say that it is unabridged, but I think that 2 hours and 15 minutes is simply too fast for a 160 page novel to be read. An abridgement would explain the breakneck pace of the plot. For example, Black Widow travels from New York to Russia (and has a fight) and then back to New York and then to Antarctica (and has an even bigger fight) and then back to New York in the span of about 12 hours. 

Featured heroes include: Iron Man, Black Widow, Jarvis the butler, Vision, Quicksilver, Crystal, Hercules and Hank Pym as Giant Man.

This audiobook was not particularly riveting. There was room for a lot of character development, but instead it became a punch fest (or energy blast attack fest) and Ultron was defeated by lab work done by Hank Pym that took him no more than half an hour to think up, create and then place on a rocket that he programmed to go to Ultron's lair. 

Missed opportunities to go for a quick buck on the good name of Iron Man from the MCU..

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: IRON MAN: STEEL TERROR by Dean Wesley Smith. The original 1996 book can be found on Amazon.com here: Steel Terror: Iron Man Super Thriller by Dean Wesley Smith.

PEEPS: A NOVEL (Book #1 of Peeps) by Scott Westerfeld

 

Published in 2005 by RazorBill (Penguin Group)

In the novel Peeps, author Scott Westerfeld has written a very original take on one of the oldest monster stories of all times - the vampire story.

Cal Thompson knows something that almost nobody knows - he knows that vampires are real because he is one. Sort of.

Cal Thompson also knows how vampirism is spread. The bite on the neck made famous in the movies is really just one way to spread. It is commonly spread sexually, much like HIV. The virus compels its host to engage in sexual contact, ensuring the spread of the virus - much like rabies encourages animals to attack and bite other animals in order to spread rabies. Infected people are called "parasite positive" or "peeps".

Cal Thompson was infected as the result of a one night stand sexual encounter on his first day in New York City. However, he is one of the rare carriers of the disease. He has some of the characteristics of a vampire such as being able to see in the dark and increased strength, but he is not a full-blown vampire. He has been trained and recruited to join an ancient secret organization that captures vampires to limit the spread and maybe offer some therapy to help with this infection.

Cal is new to the job and he knows that the vampires in this story are not like movie vampires - capes, weird accents and sleeping in coffins, etc. But, he is finding things that he had never heard during his training and no one back at the home office is taking his concerns seriously...

I loved the twist on the vampire story that this book presented. Just as interesting were the even-numbered chapters presented information about behavior-changing viruses and microscopic parasites (like rabies that I mentioned above) presented in a conversational way that reinforced the underlying premise behind vampirism in this book.

The only reason that this book is not receiving a 5 star rating is the ending. I thought it could have gone a lot of ways, but the way it went was underwhelming. 

Still, this was a good read and fans of vampires would really enjoy it's take.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on PEEPS: A NOVEL (Book #1 of Peeps) by Scott Westerfeld.

GUNSLINGER: THE DRAGON of YELLOWSTONE (Mythic West Series)(kindle) by Edward Knight

 

Published in April of 2021 by WordFire Press.

Gunslinger: The Dragon of Yellowstone is part of a series of books set in post-Civil War years, but with a major twist - the giants from Norse mythology crossed through a thin spot between their reality and Earth in an attempt to conquer Earth. 

The fighting began in Andersonville, Georgia. It interrupted the Civil War but everything East of the Mississippi was basically lost. As the army of the giants pushed west, they were finally stopped in an epic battle featuring a number of names that were big names in the normal timeline of the Old West and an uneasy truce is in place, mostly because both sides have exhausted themselves.

This book features a threat to end that uneasy truce that is investigated by a minor character from other books in the series, a teenaged gunslinger named Beth who was trained by none other than Wild Bill Hickock himself. 

I really appreciate the world building that went into this series. This reminds me of the kind of work that Harry Turtledove does (with a little extra oomph) and I liked the combination of Norse myths and American history. 

I also liked the way that characters just didn't simply shake off injuries. When a character got hurt, they had to deal with the injuries for an appropriate amount of time. 

However, I kept feeling like I was reading a story where the best parts were being hidden from me.  I was getting a little tiny story when I really wanted to know about the bigger story. Did Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln decide to join forces? Did Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant make a mega army? How hard was it for the two sides to put aside their differences, or did they just fight independently and maybe even continue to fight one another?  How badly did those Civil War armies maul the invading giant army? How was the entire East lost? From what I can tell, those stories have not been told in this series, which is too bad.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: GUNSLINGER: THE DRAGON of YELLOWSTONE (Mythic West Series)(kindle) by Edward Knight.

THE GOD WHO SEES: IMMIGRANTS, the BIBLE, and the JOURNEY to BELONG (audiobook) by Karen Gonzalez

 

Published by Tantor Audio in November of 2020.
Read by Joana Garcia.

Duration: 5 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.

This is the second time in less than a month that I am reviewing and audiobook that covers the topic of immigration written by an Hispanic immigrant. In both cases, I came to the book highly prepared to like it and in both cases I was disappointed.

The author, Karen Gonzalez

I have no problem at all with the points that Gonzalez makes in The God Who Sees. As a Christian, I think many Christians have been on the wrong side of this issue for decades (including me, for a while).

However, this book just doesn't seal the deal. It says a lot of the right things, but it doesn't do the trick.

Issues:

1) There are pieces of sloppy research, or maybe just sloppy writing or editing.

For example, when the author asserts that the concept of borders came around with the end of the Thirty Years War and the series of treaties known as the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. I think she was referring to immigration and borders (which would be stretch), but the way it came out is that there were no defined borders. I found that to be quite ridiculous - all the more ridiculous considering the audiobook I am currently listening to discusses the peace treaty between Ramses II and the King of the Hittites which laid out clearly defined borders and led to peace between the two empires for more than 100 years. Not to mention the Great Wall of China - some of it has been in place for more than 2,700 years. 

Another example is when the author argues that "chain migration" is different than commonly understood (in very short terms, family members of current American residents are given priority when it comes to legal immigration). She uses her own family as an example, but her example is pretty much a version of chain migration.

2) The audiobook reader is Joana Garcia. Her reading was so slow that I had to change the setting on my app and play it at 120% of the normal speed. This is my 602nd audiobook review (no kidding), this is only the 3rd time I have had to adjust the speed.

Garcia reads a lot of Spanish in this audiobook, including a long passage from Psalms. The problem is, in this Spanish teacher's opinion, Garcia is not particularly proficient at Spanish. She sounds like one of my more advanced high school students, not a native speaker. I found a listing for her as an audiobook reader online and they only mention skills in reading English. Why would they hire a reader to read a lot of Spanish who really can't read Spanish?

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE GOD WHO SEES: IMMIGRANTS, the BIBLE, and the JOURNEY to BELONG by Karen Gonzalez.