Skin (X-files) (abridged audiobook) by Ben Mezrich

A competent, but not great audiobook

Published in 1999 by HarperAudio
Abridged audiobook
Format: Cassette
Duration: Approximately 3 hours
Read by Bruce Harwood

I heard Skin as an abridged audiobook. It was narrated by Bruce Harwood, who portrays the most 'normal' of the conspiracy-addicted threesome known as 'the Lone Gunmen' on the X-Files TV show. Harwood does a competent, but ultimately uninspiring job of narrating the story.

Bruce Harwood

In fact, this is also a decent description of the book as a whole. It is okay, but not great. The characters act like they are supposed to, but those wry comments from Fox are mostly non-existent and Scully is just not quite right throughout most of the book.

I am sure that the abridgment is at least partially to blame. The unabridged version is 8 and 1/2 hours. This one clocks in at three hours. Something had to give and it sounds like this one gave away its personality.

The plot itself was okay. The ending was a bit anti-climatic.

It's entertaining, but not great entertainment.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Skin (The X Files)

Reviewed February 16, 2005.

Wizards (DVD) by Ralph Bakshi

My opinion is all over the place with this movie

Originally released in 1977.

Another reviewer described Wizards accurately when he said it was "a weird, horrible, funny, enthralling cartoon movie". That is dead on. The animation is both bad and wonderful. The plot is epic, wonderful and poorly thought out and petty.

Ralph Bakshi

So, here are some random thoughts: 

The animation:

I LOVE the fact that Bakshi used a variety of animation styles and techniques. It made the movie visually interesting and some of the animation is great enough to rival Disney animation at its very best.

Sometimes, however, the animation is of such poor quality that it distracts from the action. At times, the animation is worse than SeaLab 2021 on Adult Swim - and they intentionally make the animation bad! Money became an issue as the movie was being animated and it is, at times, quite obvious that they cut corners in some segments.

The characters and plot:

Avatar putting the moves on Elinore

Well, you clearly have good guys and bad guys. However, you have muddled motivation for the mutant bad guys (led by the evil wizard Blackwolf) to attack the good guys. At first, it seems like Blackwolf's mutants are attacking because they are envious of the prosperity of the good humans and their allies, the elves and fairies. Then, about halfway through, we find out the mutants are forced to live in irradiated territories that the good wizard (Avatar) never quite got around to cleaning up with his good magic even though he comments that he could easily do it. Why didn't he? Well, apparently, he's too concerned with drinking scotch and lusting over his young, lusty, busty apprentice.

Blackwolf showing his movies

This throws the whole plot into a twist - are the bad guys really evil mutants? Or, are they victims of repression on the part of the non-mutants. If that is the case, than what is Bakshi trying to say by having the mutants being whipped up by Nazi propaganda movies? Is he trying to excuse the Nazis by making a parallel with the Peace of Versailles and the terrible terms imposed on the Germans that led to the rise of the Nazis?

No, I think he's just got a really, really sloppy script, as evidenced by the fact that half of the lines of his lead elf character (soon to be king) are incoherent battle screams - even when they're not appropriate. He must be a hoot at the dinner table!

Blackwolf's mutants on the attack.

And I really must ask, why do Nazi propaganda movies turn on non-German-speaking mutants and inspire them to fight? They can't understand Hitler - they just get excited by the pictures, I guess. Was Bakshi trying to say that cinematic violence inspires more violence? That is an interesting sentiment, considering the amount of blood spilled in the movie.

Once again, I don't think he was trying to say anything, I think he was just sloppy.

One more thought: was it just me - or were some of the battle scenes from this movie spliced into Bakshi's version of "the Lord of the Rings?"

Mark Hamill has a voice role in Wizards. He plays Sean, the "King of the Mountain Fairies" - a tiny character with a tiny amount of screen time. Sean in introduced, says something important, and then gets killed after being in the movie for 1 minute and 5 seconds. The character does bear a passing resemblance to Hamill.

I rate this movie 2 stars out of 5.

This DVD can be found on Amazon.com here: Wizards

Reviewed in February of 2005.
 

The Concrete Blonde (#3 in the Harry Bosch series) by Michael Connelly

A Great Read!

Originally published in 1994

Synopsis: Detective Harry Bosch of the LAPD shot and killed a suspected ritualistic serial killer in a controversial but "righteous shoot" several years before. Now, the killer's widow is suing the city for killing the wrong man and new victims of the serial killer are showing up - victims that definitely were killed after Bosch shot his man.

First - let's address the title. There are actually two concrete blondes in the book. One is the concrete statue of lady justice outside the courtroom. The other is one of the victims - a blond prostitute/porn actress who was found encased in the concrete floor of a self-storage unit.

Michael Connelly

Second - this is a great cop story. I won't go into much plot detail, but I will say that the story twists and turns in so many directions that it is hard to put down. Just when you think you have got it figured out, you find that Connelly has been waiting for you and your erroneous conclusions and he gleefully smashes them to pieces.

The Concrete Blonde almost caused me to be late to work two days in a row! I give this book an enthusiastic 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Concrete Blonde.
 
Reviewed in February of 2005.

Undue Influence: A Novel by Shelby Yastrow

Tedium followed by tedium. Did I mention the tedium?

Originally published in 1990.

Synopsis:

83-year old Benjamin Stillman dies and leaves $8 million to a local synagogue in his will. No big deal, except that no one can figure out where this bookkeeper for a brokerage house got $8 million.

Oh, and there's one other little fact: Stillman was not Jewish and had never even set foot in the synagogue.

A legal wrangle develops and everyone "lawyers up": the synagugue, the brokerage house, Stillman's doctors come up with another will leaving all of the money to their cancer treatment center and there's even a class-action lawsuit is filed by a sleazy lawyer looking to make a name for himself.

The Review:

Undue Influence was tedious. It started out well but I soon got very tired of all of the legal wrangling. It just got irritating to me and it made me very glad that I did not become an attorney. This book's genre was legal "thriller" but I was tempted just to skip to the end in order to see who got the money and leave all of the tedium behind. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Yastrow has another book and I doubt I'll be reading it. He was a former big shot corporate attorney for McDonald's and his name shows up quite often when you search him on Google. Like I said before, he really made me glad I did not become an attorney, assuming his book accurately portrays the legal wrangling.

This book can be found on Amazon here:Undue Influence: A Novel.

Reviewed in February of 2005.

Speedweeks: 10 Days At Daytona by Sandra McKee

Disappointing

So, Speedweeks: 10 Days At Daytona is yet another coffee table book. See, what it is is that I have a friend who knows I am a NASCAR fan so he didn't know what else to get me for Christmas so he got me 3 NASCAR books. One of them was this one and I was fairly disappointed, mostly due to the fact that the title does not accurately describe the book. Nor does it accurately describe Speedweeks, 

Daytona Speedweeks is a racing happening - a racing festival. There are a multiple motorsports events, culminating in the Daytona 500. Check their website!

This book, however, focuses primarily on the Daytona 500 (90%) and barely mentions the other events. In fact, some events it doesn't mention at all. I have no problem with the NASCAR Cup level focus, just give the book a different title, like The Daytona 500. This, truly, is a book that you cannot judge by its title.

I give this book 2 stars out of 5. The title thing annoyed me, but there was also nothing here about the history of the speedway or of the race. Beautiful book but not much here of substance.

This book can be purchased on Amazon here: Speedweeks: 10 Days At Daytona.
 
Reviewed in February of 2005 (edited in 2011 and 2025 to update the events offered during Speedweeks)..

America's Strangest Museums: A Traveler's Guide to the Most Unusual and Eccentric Collections by Sandra Gurvis

Originally published in 1998.

As the title suggests, America's Strangest Museums: A Traveler's Guide to the Most Unusual and Eccentric Collections is a tour of more than 100 bizarre little museums people (and a few corporations) have set up across the USA ( and a couple in Canada). Some include:

-The Museum of Menstruation (started by a single man in his 50s)

-The Tooth Fairy Museum (now closed)

-The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices (closed now, unfortunately)

-Spam has a museum.

-So does Combat, the bug spray company. They also have a contest in which you can send them dead roaches dressed up in dioramas.

-The Bull Hall of Fame.

My favorite is The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) in Massachusetts.

Since I am a proud Hoosier, I'm pleased to note that Indiana offerings include:

-The Old Jail Museum in Crawfordsville

-The Dan Quayle Center and Museum in Huntington

-Drake's Midwest Phonograph Museum in Martinsville

-The Bird's Eye View Museum in Wakarusa.


Anyway - fun book. Makes you wonder a bit about your fellow man and his collecting habits.
 
I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here:
America's Strangest Museums: A Traveler's Guide to the Most Unusual and Eccentric Collections  

Reviewed in February of 2005.

Nest of Vipers by Linda Davies

Not so hot.

Originally published in 1995.

Nest of Vipers features Sarah Jensen, a young, gorgeous, exceedingly bright (When are we going to have a book about an ugly, old not-so-bright heroine?) currency trader who is asked by the British version of the Federal Reserve President to go undercover at a trading house and see if they are using inside information to make millions of pounds. Much trouble ensues.

The female lead is a little too well-connected (she always knows just the right person to help her when she needs something) and I was kind of bugged that the characters used dollars and pounds interchangeably in their financial wheelings and dealings. Maybe that's the reality of international currency exchange and the power of the United States. If so, "Go USA!"

Back to the book - It's better than reading nothing, but you might want to read an old National Geographic instead.
 
I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here:  Nest of Vipers 

Reviewed in February of 2005.