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The Red Sea Sharks by Herge
Why didn't anyone tell me?!! :pac:
I have just realised that I have started every Tintin review with "This is" !! That really annoys me, as it feels like lazy writing!! :pac:
This is Another really good Tintin story and it is his nineteenth adventure. It was written around 1956/57. Tintin's friend, the Emir has sent his son to Marlinspike (the home of Captain Haddock) as the Emir has been overthrown. The Emirs son Abdullah is a very disobedient kid so Tintin, Snowy and the Captain decide to go and help the Emir regain control of his kingdom. Abdullah is meant to be based on King Faisal II of Iraq. He does look exactly like him pictured here!
Tintin learns that the coup against the Emir is financed by slave traders and they are led by his old enemy.....Rastapopolous!!
This story had accusations of racism due to the way that the slaves talked but this was no where near as bad as Tintin in the Congo.
Also in this story is the Al-Khazneh also known as "The Treasury" This is a temple in Jordan and I recognised it straight away as it was the 1989 movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In this adventure it is meant to be the Emir's Palace! Here is a pic of it that you may recognise too
The Red Sea Sharks is a very good adventure and Herge was just getting better and better with his plots and tales as he went on. It really is worth reading and very much recommended.0 -
Tintin in Tibet by Herge
When i was a kid, one of my favourite stories of Tintins was this adventure where he goes to Tibet. Tintin gets a vision of his old friend Chang Chong-Chien calling out for him after a plane crash. Then he hears of a plane that crashed in the Himalayas and his friend was on it. The authorities say that no one survived and thats that. Tintin refuses to accept this and feels his vision was true. He thinks his friend was calling out to him and is alive so Tintin goes to Tibet to find him. Of course Snowy and Captain Haddock go too!!
Chang Chong-Chien previously befriended Tintin in The Blue Lotus reviewed here. The Blue Lotus was written in 1936 and Chang was not in any other stories until this was written in 1958. Herge based him on a Chinese artist friend of his.
This adventure is unusual as there really isn't a bad guy that Tintin is up against yet it works so well and is probably the best of all the Tintin stories. The Yeti is in it but maybe he isn't a bad guy at all......
Highly recommended that you read this one as it is arguably the best Tintin adventure!0 -
The Castafiore Emerald by Herge
A different type of Tintin adventure here as all the characters and action takes place at Marlinspike Hall. This of course, is the home of Captain Haddock. The opera singer Bianca Castafiore makes an uninvited visit to Marlinspike and brings her entourage!
Haddock doesn't like Bianca and tries to leave but sprains his ankle on a broken step so he is stuck there. There is a Romany settlement nearby so Haddock invites them to stay in the grounds. Then magazines talking to Professor Calculus get the wrong end of things from him and think Castafiore and Haddock are engaged. Then a television crew arrive to interview Castafiore but her emerald then goes missing..... Who has done it? Tintin has to sort things out!
There are a load of laughs in this one with so much going on! Full of red herrings and stuff happening so its like a farce. Thomson and Thompson are added to the mix and the chuckles keep on coming until the very last page. I really enjoyed this one as everything was tightly knitted together and its very funny. The really simple idea of Captain Haddock who is annoyed already answering the phone and shouting "this is not Cutts the Butcher" on a wrong number call was hilarious!! Well worth reading this story!!0 -
Flight 714 to Sydney by Herge
I have a copy of this since I was a kid and the name of my one is Flight 714. This was originally published as Flight 714 to Sydney in French but then changed to Flight 714 in English. The English version was later changed to match the French title. Makes me wonder if my copy is worth anything??!!
Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus are on their way to a conference in Sydney and they have stopped in Jakarta while their plane refuels. There they meet their old pilot friend Skut. They met him in the Red Sea Sharks and he is also on the cover of it too. Skut is now the personal pilot for an eccentric millionaire called Laszlo Carreidas. The millionaire ends up inviting Tintin and the gang to travel on his new prototype jet. Unfortunately, there is treachery afoot as they all get hijacked and kidnapped....Tintin meets an old enemy again so can Tintin get all his friends out in one piece?
Another great story here with the interesting bit of a paranormal slant on things near the end. This seemed a bit unusual but as it is Tintin, I will always love what ever happens!! It was written in 1967/68 and this was four years after The Castafiore Emerald reviewed above. The bad guys are portrayed here as a bunch of idiots rather than their usual masterminds and a lot is played for laughs. I enjoyed it although the ending was strange compared to the other stories.0 -
Tintin and the Picaros by Herge
I have finally come to the end of the Tintin reviews......It's the final one done by Herge and it was completed in 1975/1976.
There is another one called Tintin and Alph-Art but that is an unfinished story that Herge was working on at the time of his death. I have read that but that really is just a collection of sketches and notes. The basis of a story is there but its unknown how it would have ended really. So I would only read it if you are just wanting to read everything. Otherwise I wouldn't bother.
Back to Tintin and the Picaros.....
Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus learn that their friends Bianca Castafiore and Thomson and Thompson have been put in prison in the country of San Theodoros. They have been accused of trying to overthrow General Tapioca there. Tintin, Haddock and Calculus are being accused of being the masterminds behind it all!!! The gang have to travel there to sort it out and meet their old friend General Alcazar.
This is clearly based on the Cuban Revolution with Generals overthrowing other Generals! It is a fun read but it is one of the poorer Tintin stories. Everything is a bit too jolly and seems too easy going to think of our heroes in true jeopardy.
In this story we learn the first name of Captain Haddock......which is.......drumroll please..................Archibald! Tintin also doesn't wear his usual plus-fours. These are his usual pants that stop on the shin in case you are wondering! He wears bell bottoms in this story. I found this the most weird thing to see! Tintin is also doing Yoga too!
So it is sad to come to the end of the Tintin adventures. 23 adventures, 24 if you count Alph-Art. They really reminded me of when I read them as a kid in my early teens. There was no better feeling finding one of these in the library. Later I started buying them and I haven't read them since then. They were only brought back out due to this covid situation. I had them in a bag stashed away for a long, long time. It was a lot of fun going back through them after all this time. Go back and give them a re-read if you haven't for a while. If you have never read them, them definitely go through the series like I have. They are great fun and take you back to being a kid again!0 -
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Tintin in the New World by Frederic Tuten
What is this? A new book about Tintin but written like a novel? It piqued my interest as I came across this book just recently. I was still reading Tintin so I said I may as well get this as I am on my Tintin ride!
This was first published in 1993 and the cover was especially created by Roy Lichtenstein. I knew he was some artist but not much else. I gather now he was famous! But Frederick Tuten is a writer that I learned did experimental kind of writing or at least that is what it seemed to me. So I was apprehensive starting this book as the writer strikes me as a bit of an oddball!
Remember this is written like a normal book so there are no drawings in it so I did give it a bit of leeway starting off. I read about 80 pages and there didn't seem to be any plot at all. Tintin is just talking to Captain Haddock but they don't sound like either one at all. I read about another 50 pages and it seemed full of rubbish. There is a dream sequence that goes nowhere so this book is full of arty type rubbish.
How anyone would like this book I would never know as it is nothing like Tintin at all. Tuten couldn't even get Tintin sounding like Tintin never mind the other characters. I realised that I was only reading this book as it said Tintin on the cover so I abandoned it. I didn't even want to know what happened at the end which is very rare for me. Tuten wrote a book about Tintin that made me not care at all about him so it was that bad!!
For any Tintin fans, avoid this book at all costs and if you don't know Tintin, go back to the ones by Herge that I reviewed above and read them instead!!!0 -
Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
After all my Tintin reading, its back to regular book reading with a Chuck novel. As usual he has some bonkers plots and this one is no exception! This starts with 13 year old Maddy waking up in hell and trying to get accustomed to "life" there. Or I should say the "afterlife" there!
She befriends a group of people that are like the characters from the movie The Breakfast Club so it ends up like the Breakfast Club in hell! This is exactly how Chuck himself described this book. Maddy believes that she has died of a drug overdose and thats why she is in hell but she gradually starts to remember what actually happened to her.
She winds up working in telemarketing in hell as they clearly are from hell! Then she can talk to the living and try to get them to go to hell on purpose as she thinks its great there.
There are a load of laugh out loud moments in this especially from the descriptions of what hell is like. She meets famous evil figures from history who are in hell too such as Hitler and Vlad the Implaler.
Palahniuk also described this book as The Shawshank Redemption having a baby with The Lovely Bones and raised by Judy Blume. I dont know the author Blume but she wrote "Are you there, God? its me, Margaret" and that book structure is meant to be copied within this book. The story is told from Maddys POV.
Chuck was meant to have written this book as a way to deal with his mother's death from cancer. I really enjoyed this book as it is very funny but as usual if you are not fond of Chucks books then this one won't make you a fan either. If you know you like his stuff already then I think you will love this too like I did. His books always seem so original!0 -
Doomed by Chuck Palahniuk
This is the follow up to Doomed reviewed above and continues right where it left off. After the events on Halloween, Maddy is now in Purgatory. This means Earth as us mortals know it! She has to wait until next years Halloween to get back to hell. She is now basically a ghost and we learn more of her life when she was alive and why she was damned to hell. Satan though, has her in his plans to being about a new era of eternal damnation for everyone living......
I know we shouldn't judge books by their covers, but this one is terrible. Its nearly all white and very hard to make out when the book is in your hands. But thats only a small thing that annoyed me!
I loved Damned but this book isn't as good at all. It just didn't grip me at all and it felt like Chuck had a few extra ideas left over from the first book. He threw them all together to produce this book and it felt a bit tiresome. Its more of a full backstory and then an ending to the whole story. I would have added a bit of the backstory and this books ending to the first book. A lot of this book felt drawn out but I did like the ending. It just felt a bit like treading water to get there as most of this was not very interesting or exciting.
If you have this book in your collection, then don't read it before Damned. This is only recommended if you want to see how the story of Maddy in hell comes to the end. So go read Damned but this book is optional!!0 -
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
A lot of hype about this book and when I saw the Stephen King blurb on the cover I said I would give it a go. This is about a young fifteen year old girl having a relationship with her teacher. So with the metoo movement this kind of thing seems in the news at the moment.
This is a debut novel by Russell so I was really thinking great things. A new author. A new voice. Lots of hype and talk. Should be good shouldn't it?
It is told from the point of view of Vanessa, the fifteen year old girl. She is in a new college and gradually starts getting groomed by her teacher. Of course she doesn't understand that and does not realise it. Eventually they have sex and of course this is sexual abuse and rape. Then as she doesn't understand things proceeds to protect him and becomes an adult later still kind of attached to him even though she has not seen him in years.
This started off really well and had me hooked right up until about a third of the book gone. Then the wheels come off and everything became tiresome. Vanessa is really annoying and very one dimensional. Her motives and personality don't make any sense at all. She complains over and over about the same things and reading it, I felt like I was stuck in a rut. I started off really caring about her and then after about a third of the book gone, I didn't care any more. Vanessa is obnoxious! She was being abused yet somehow I didn't care. That's Russell's fault as a writer. Vanessa is not a likeable character.
One part that I found laugh out loud bad and cringeworthy, is the teacher gives Vanessa a copy of Lolita to read!! Talk about "I am a Pedo and thats what we do "
Russell changes time periods to later in Vanessa's life and this was a real mistake. Vanessa seems now completely different to what she was like as a teen. I know we all change but it wasn't explained. What had me at the start of the book was what will happen to Vanessa and especially the teacher when and if it comes out about their relationship? Turns out nothing happens and the whole thing ends with a whimper.
Russell does have writing talent though but this whole book needed a rethink. I did think a few times of abandoning it but just about kept going. I wouldn't really recommend this book at all which is a shame. It feels like this could have been so much better rather than what it is. The same thing gets talked about over and over again and no real progression.
The way people praise this book baffles me now as this feels like the emperors new clothes to me. For another debut novel, I would recommend The Best Bad Things by Katrina Carrasco that I reviewed in May here instead.0 -
Livestock by Hannah Berry
After the heavy subject matter of sexual abuse above, I decided to read this graphic novel. It is meant to be some kind of parable on celebrity culture. On the cover is a blurb about how this tale is timely for the Trump era. :rolleyes:
Usually when I see this, I would avoid it but after having got this on a graphic novel buying spree ages ago, here we are reading it.
There are meant to be awards called the "Twammies" (think of the Brit Awards) coming up in Britain and Clementine Darling is supposed to be highly favoured to get Best Female Singer. Clementine has a new boyfriend called Devon Ayre but he is the former boyfriend of Clementine's nemesis and rival Coral Jerome. So they are in a high profile feud just as human cloning has been legalised in Britain and high level emails have been leaked from the government.
This is meant to be a satire I think......But to say it is a mess is an understatement. It is drawn like covers on a magazine profiling the feud in some places and social media posts too. There isn't any real plot and after finishing it, I still don't really know what was going on. The drawing in particular is not very good at all. I really liked Britten and Brulightly that I reviewed here and this is by the same author. What worked there was the darker colours and the surreal story. Here the colours are much brighter but look very gaudy and there isn't really a proper story. Faces seem to be drawn very poorly here in particular.
I would not recommend this graphic novel at all as it didn't really have a good story and doesn't make a lot of sense. Avoid it!!0 -
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Blacksad by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido
To get the awful Livrestock reviewed above out of the system, I read this graphic novel straight away! Blacksad is set in 50s USA and is like a Humphrey Bogart movie. It is drawn in a film noir style and Blacksad is a private detective. All the characters in this are anthropomorphic meaning they are drawn as animals looking like humans as you can see from the cover image.
So Blacksad is drawn as a black cat and here he is investigating the murder of a famous actress called Natasha Willford. He used to be a bodyguard for her and actually had a relationship with her so the case is personal.
This has a real gritty look and a real feel of the film noir movies. I loved the drawing and the story is great too. The only problem I had was that it was over too quickly! Each panel is really drawn well and had me looking at each for a long time. It is an adult story so there is a bit of nudity although its animal nudity if you understand me! Just saying that in case you might think its for children when it is not.
There are further volumes in this series that I must get and there is rumours of even a movie. I could see that working well as this is good source material. There is meant to be a video game that came out in 2019 based on this also.
I would definitely recommend this graphic novel to anyone. The only niggle is that it is a little short and I wanted a longer story as it was so good.0 -
The Rich and The Dead Edited by Nelson DeMille
A book full of short stories and they are edited by Nelson DeMille. He is the reason why I bought this book as I really like him as an author. There are stories from DeMille himself, Lee Child, David Morrell, Michael Connelly and others who are not as famous.
Each story has the same thing in common. They all deal in various forms of rich people and are mystery and crime stories. I have never read Lee Child or Michael Connelly so I don't know about their books. Here I found nearly all the stories very dull and boring. In fact there was only one that I liked and that was the Nelson DeMille short story. All the rest were just meh and didn't really make me enthusiastic about reading their other stuff. Bear in mind I have enough to read at my home already!!
I love a good short story but most of these were very dull so it's disappointing overall. I wouldn't recommend this book as there was just the one short story that I liked. So it's not worth your time.0 -
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The White Feather wrote: »
Somebody's husband, Somebody's son by Gordon Burn
This is a non fiction book about the story of the Yorkshire Ripper who terrorised people from 1975 to around 1980. His name was Peter Sutcliffe and he killed 13 women and injured 9 others. Usually he used a hammer and knives. To say his murders were horrifying is to nearly play them down.
This biography is in depth. When I say in depth I mean it! It starts off talking about his family such as his grandfather and father and you are kind of wondering what is the point of this. Then it goes into his upbringing and where he fitted within his family.It goes right through to his crimes and when he is caught.
Because this starts off about his family it takes a while to get going where we get to the stuff thats really interesting.Taken overall though it is a really thorough examination of his life and serves to give background to him. His crimes were horrific and are hard to read sometimes but this book was very good. I would probably have cut out some of the early stuff in the book but it still is a very good if harrowing read. If you like true crime stuff then this is a must read.
This book is a must read about the Yorkshire Ripper and I am only posting it again as the piece of sh*t died today from Covid and underlying conditions
https://www.rte.ie/news/uk/2020/1113/1177897-peter-sutcliffe/0 -
Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille
I own a load of DeMilles books so its about time I read more of him. I read that short story that he edited and just reviewed it. As I said, I have read Plum Island, Wildfire, Cathedral and the Quest. The Quest is the only one that I didn't like. It was a book he wrote when he was young and he went back to it to release it. I thought it was dull and not worth saving!
Here we have a book about the gold coast. I thought it was to do with the gold
coast in Africa but it is actually about the North Shore of Long Island in New York. It was an unbelievably rich area at one point with a load of mansions and americas elite lived there. It is an area of vast estates kind of thing.
This is told in the first person from the view of John Sutter, a wall street tax lawyer who lives there on a big estate with his wife, Susan. She is an heiress to a vast fortune and owns the estate. All is normal until one day Frank Bellarosa moves in next door. Who is Frank? He is a Mafia Don who wants to live in a secure area. Think of John Gotti or Tony Soprano moving in next door!
This isn't a comedy but had me laughing throughout due to the internal monologue of Sutter. There is loads of dry wit as John finds himself getting sucked into the Mafia Don's world when he doesn't want to be. It reminded me of the movie Analyse This if you have seen that. Sutter wants nothing to do with him but keeps getting involved no matter how much he tries to stay away.
So it is a story of an unlikely friendship, love, seduction and betrayal. It is 637 pages but I found myself really engrossed. The humour is very good as Sutter is trying to navigate his life around the Don and then things get very complicated. As usual, DeMille really writes a good story that had me hooked through the whole book.
This book is highly recommended.0 -
The Gate House by Nelson DeMille
This is the follow up to Gold Coast that I just reviewed above. John Sutter is back after 10 years. Back to the gold coast area of New York. He left after the events at the end of the first book and I can't say what happened without spoiling the first book!
The Mafia Dons son is also there as is Susan, the wife of John Sutter. So the incidents of the first book are key here, as old feelings come back which leads to intrigue and a deadly ending.
This is told again from the point of view of John Sutter so we get more of the same dry humour and wit as before. The problem with this book is that the incidents of the first book are told over, and over and over and over again. The amount of pages saying the same thing over and over is really silly. The first book was published in 1990 whereas this was published in 2008. Maybe DeMille thought that people would have forgotten the first book but it goes over the first book way too many times.
This book is longer than the first and is 677 pages. It felt like a total rethread. Now its still good but felt recycled. Especially as I went from reading the first to the second book with no break. I would have cut out over 300 pages and the book would have been better.
The climax is very good as usual just like the first book but this book was way too long. This is a book that you could take or leave really. The first book is very good but this felt a bit tiresome. I did love the end of it so it might be just worth it for that. I think you should read this if you have read the first but skim over the middle part and you won't miss much.0 -
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Shadow Warriors: The Irish Army Ranger Wing by Paul O'Brien and Wayne Fitzgerald
We don't hire the A-Team in Ireland for specialist operations, we have the Irish Army Ranger Wing. I wasn't even aware of our covert operations teams until I read this book about them. In 1980, a new unit was established in the Irish Army to deal with terrorists and hostage takings and things like that. This book details the beginnings right up until today.
Its interesting how it all started from plucking a few guys here and there and giving them specialist training. Then it progressed to sending guys to other countries and their specialist teams. Then that guy would come back and train the others and so on.
Now there are stringent tests and training before you even begin the actual training for the Ranger Wing. Selection is incredibly hard and this book details as much as can be said openly as the unit is a covert one of special forces.
What is interesting is that they want you to have all the skills obviously but you have to have the inner belief as well. This book goes through the formation of the unit right up until the present day and is the only account available of the unit. The authors were granted access to behind the scenes stuff so they have a lot of great information on how it actually happened.
My only gripe with the book that it doesn't really detail any operations that they have done as they are all still secret. Even a hypothetical one where they changed all the details would have been good but that's not the books fault. When everything is so secretive it's very hard to give things away as they are probably state secrets.
If you wanted to know how elite special forces teams operate then this book is a must read. I loved it as I didn't know anything about it and it does make me feel good and safe knowing these elite guys are there and ready to take down any bad guys in Ireland.0 -
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Woken Furies by Richard Morgan
Another book that I have only got around to reading now! This is the third book book in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy that started with Altered Carbon and Broken Angels and now this book. The reason that I am only reading this now is that I loved the first book but thought the second book was just okay. My enthusiasm really dropped off!
Morgan seems to be either great or awful. For example I loved Thin Air that I reviewed here and then I hated Market Forces.
I never looked at the tv series Altered Carbon even though I had meant to as I loved the book. Then I found out the show was cancelled so I said well never mind it so!
So with time passing, I said it's about time that I read the final book. Because I felt burned with the second book I had kept putting it off even though it seemed to stare at me on the bookshelf!
Here in Woken Furies, Takeshi Kovacs has come home to Harlan's World and off we go. This is a Sci Fi Cyberpunk novel in case you have no idea what the series is about and Takeshi is in a new "sleeve" or body. He is now on the run so he is ducking and diving trying to survive......
Kovacs was a fantastic character in Altered Carbon but in this book I found him boring. There are just under 600 pages in this book and I was 300 pages into it and I barely knew what was going on. Morgan throws so many different things like new technology and nothing is explained at all. This can be good if you pick them up over the course of the book but there were just too many.
It's like me saying "I used the oscillphone to render the picture to the Foreverarmy but they knew that pixelations were not under the proper sequencing"
That is a sentence I just made up but if you read it, you are saying what is an oscillphone, Who are the foreverarmy, what pixelations and why do they have to be sequenced? I do like this kind of thing in world building as you pick things up over the course of the story but in Woken Furies there are just too much of this kind of thing. You are just barely working out the last few things and a load more come along.
There are a few sex scenes in this that I thought were really badly written and came out unintentionally funny! lines such as "All of a sudden Sylvie's face is terribly sexual." made me both groan and laugh!
This whole book is a mess and I was really bored throughout it. I might have abandoned it but only because it was the last in the trilogy that I kept going.If you have never read any of these, just read Altered Carbon and leave it at that. Forget about this one.0 -
Mrs. McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie
Poor Mrs. McGinty. She got hit on the back of her head and was killed! Who did it? Police think its the lodger James Bentley. Bentley was short of money, knew where Mrs. McGinty kept her money and is tried and convicted of the crime. He is due to be executed and looks like an open and shut case. Superintendent Spence goes to Hercule Poirot as even though he thought the evidence pointed to Bentley he thinks that there is something not quite right and wants Poirot to look into it to ease his conscience and prove Spence was correct. But maybe Poirot might prove Bentley is innocent.......
This was written in 1952 in case you were wondering why there were still executions in the UK! From the interesting premise, Poirot goes to the town and as time has passed starts pretending he knows Bentley is innocent and knows who really did it. I liked this a lot as if you did a murder and there was someone else convicted you would be totally relaxed even if someone was asking questions. But if they were saying the guy was innocent and knew who really did it, you would be really nervous!
The name of the book is taken from some childrens rhyme from that time and this is said in the book. The character of Ariadne Oliver appears in this too and she is the novelist. Christie based this character on herself and the character talks about people spotting mistakes in her books! (the reference in this book is about the mistake in her book Death in the Clouds) Oliver plays a big part in this book.
This seems like a really simple mystery but I found it ingeniously clever. Bentley doesn't seem to want to help himself which complicates things for Poirot and as usual these small towns in England seem to have a load of intrigue! Poirot himself comes close to being bumped off too so I liked that turn of events too. There are a few references in subtle hints to other books/stories of Christies in this.
I really enjoyed this book and it is the perfect length. It is 328 pages. Any more and it would have felt padded but any shorter and I would have wanted more. This is definitely a must read if you like mysteries/Poirot stories. I really enjoyed it.0 -
Ladies' Man by Richard Price
I really like Richard Price as an author so I am trying to read all his books. He writes his own stuff and also does screenplays and writes for TV shows.
I have reviewed a few of his already in this log....
Clockers
Blood Brothers
Ladies' Man is told in the first person view of Kenny Becker. A door to door salesman whose life is spiraling out of control. This was written in 1978 so Kenny is navigating life in 1970's New York. His job and his girlfriend both come to an end at the same time so Kenny is on the look out for love, sex and whatever comes his way!
I was out of work for a while living alone and this book really reminds me of that time. The time where things are at a crossroads and you wonder who to call to go out with and what you should do with your free time. Kenny is yearning for any kind of contact and even just wants friends to hang out with. He is at a stage in life that he doesn't know what he wants and is just bouncing from one thing to the next. Even asking strangers to hang out and going to those peep shows where you pay by the time to watch women. A sort of pre-Cam Girls kind of thing. So you are in person rather than on a computer which is the way it is done now!! As Kenny says in the book " The need to get laid is an honourable need!" :pac:
Price really captures the loneliness and desperation of Kenny and there are seven chapters with each chapter a day of the week. So it is a snapshot of Kenny's life at this vital and vulnerable time. Kenny does constant sit ups as he thinks this will impress the women but no matter what happens he never is satisfied. From going to the peep shows and sex with strangers, he doesn't know what he wants. So when he gets something like a woman or a friend he pushes them away when they get close. As soon as they are gone, he wishes they were back and he cannot get out of this vicious cycle.
I really enjoyed this book because of the writing. The story wouldn't sound too exciting to me but I know Price can really write well so that is why I read it. You really feel like you know Kenny as we can read what he thinks before he responds to people. And Kenny thinks funny responses that we all do but obviously don't say in real life. As usual the dialogue is Price's strong point and here is no exception. Ladies' Man would not be for everyone but if you like his other books like I do then you will like this too.0 -
Sean Treacy and the Tan War by Joe Ambrose
I am very much interested in history and especially Irish history around the War of Independence. I had heard of Sean Treacy and knew he got killed very young but not much else. He got killed 100 years ago on the 14th of October 1920. So this is a timely read.
Being from Cork, I know a lot about Cork IRA as I have read a few books on it but this book mainly deals with Tipperary IRA and Sean Treacy as he was from there. This book covers the Soloheadbeg Ambush which effectively started the War of Independence or the Tan War as Ambrose calls it.
From this book, you can see that Dan Breen and Sean Treacy were very tough and daring patriots as they seemed to know no fear and took it straight to the British. Sean Treacy literally went down all guns blazing taking guys with him so he was incredibly brave and was only 25 when he was killed. Sometimes I forget how young everyone was at that time and the risks they took for our independence so these books are good to read to bring home the reality!!
There are a lot of great information in this book about heroes and patriots that I didn't know about before. You would wish these stories were talked about more as it was due to the bravery of regular people that helped us win. When you read about homes being burnt out and old people shot by the tans, you can see why the War was very brutal. This led to people providing safe homes for our patriots and so on.
So I think you can see that I enjoyed this book a great deal and it was great finding out as well as Treacys exploits fighting, he took time to practice his Irish as he was passionate about it.
Ambrose in this book, is critical of other books written on this period of Irish history which I found interesting. He says that they didn't understand the nuances as the writers were not Irish. I haven't read them so I don't know but I found it unusual!!
Needless to say this book is highly recommended if you are a history buff like me and all this happened exactly 100 years ago so its a good time to be reading this.0 -
The Hustler by Walter Tevis
This is yet another of the many, many books that I have been wanting to read and in my collection for years. I have seen the movie with Paul Newman but that was years ago so I didn't remember anything before I started this just that it is a hustler....hustling.....obviously! :pac:
This was written in 1959 and was the debut novel of Walter Tevis. This is one of those books that as soon as I read the first page, I was completely hooked. Tevis was a fantastic writer and really knew how to tell a tale. He taught literature and creative writing at a college and that would have been a great course to do!
The Hustler is about Fast Eddie Felson who travels from town to town hustling people in pool. Hustling is pretending you are not good and then winning when there is money involved in case you don't know. This is back in the day where you could roam around america and know one would know you! So Fast Eddie comes in and plays the local pool guy and then gets him to bet on the game. Of course then he beats him but he has to make it look close and good so as not to be too obvious.
In this book, you really feel on the road with Eddie as he goes around trying to win money. Eddie is super confident and has never been beaten so he heads off to Chicago to play the legendary Minnesota Fats! Fats is known as the best around but Eddie thinks he can take him.
The book deals with the aftermath of that game especially and is about how we can win or lose depending on ourselves and how we see ourselves within. This is an enthralling read and while the pool scenes are great, its even more than that too. This is a classic for a reason and is a must read by everyone.0 -
The Color of Money by Walter Tevis
The follow up to The Hustler reviewed above is The Color of Money and this was written in 1984. So it is set 20 years later than all the events of the first book and now Fast Eddie Felson lives a mundane life just running his own pool hall. We find out that he has a failed marriage under his belt and life is not really going great at all for Eddie.
Eddie sees that TV is now the number one thing and if you are on it, you can make money. He decides to track down his old foe Minnesota Fats who now lives in Florida. Eddie persuades him to go on a national tour that is filmed live for TV so they can both make some money.
Along the way, Eddie meets a woman called Arabella and they end up living together. Eddie has been playing a bit all his life still while running a pool hall but not competing at all and not at a high level. He decides that maybe he has one more run in him as now the pool players make a lot more money in tournaments than he did back in the day hustling.
The problem is he always played Straight Ball Pool and now to make money in the tournaments he needs to play Nine-Ball Pool. There are now a whole new wave of hot shots that he has to compete against and he is now in the budding relationship with Arabella. Can he do it in the pool tournament and will this new relationship work out? She is into art and wants to open a gallery and with Eddie's skills for wheeling and dealing it becomes a reality but can they make it a success?
Eddie has a lot going on as he is now much older than all the new players and they know Nine-Ball Pool so can he overcome the odds? Like the previous book, this is brilliantly written and had me captivated throughout the whole story. I really found myself pulling for Eddie as he competes but nothing is easy and Eddie has a lot of flaws which made it more interesting.
This was made into a movie with the same name in 1986 starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise and directed by Martin Scorsese. I remember this movie very well and it is much different to the book here. They decided to do the movie but changed the whole story. That movie was written by Richard Price who is an author I really like too. You will know this if you read this log! He wrote Ladies Man, Clockers and Blood Brothers that I have reviewed in this log. I loved the movie and loved the book even though they were both different. That has to be very rare!!
So this book is highly recommended to everyone but make sure you read The Hustler first obviously!0 -
The Strain (Strain Trilogy 1) by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
We are back into science fiction/horror with the first book in the Strain Trilogy. This is an update on the vampire story and brings it into present day and tries to throw in a bit of "reality" as in how it could work and make sense rather than a guy in a cloak!
To start of, this book is both great and stupid. Why you ask? It races along with a load of action set pieces and they are really enjoyable to read. But there is little if any characterisation.
The book starts off with a Boeing plane landing at JFK airport and the plane just sits on the runway. There is no communication from it and all its lights are off. The blinds are down in the windows so Dr Ephraim Goodweather heads a team to find out what is going on. It turns out that all but 4 people on the plane are dead so whats going on? Meanwhile an aged holocaust survivor knows that the war that he was dreading is about to begin.......
It is a load of fun as things get out of control and suddenly there are vampires everywhere. I liked the way that even though the news of them is out there, no one would believe it just as what would happen in real life. Everyone would think they are fake videos and come on, you would too!!!
Here the action takes precedence over characters and there is great action sequences. We are left with characters straight from casting calls. We have Wise Old Guy, Street Smart tough guy, the Brainy guy, the Clever Woman, the (Won't see Reason and Let the Brain see his son) Ex-Wife, her new husband (who is much better father than the Brain was) and the Son who just loves his parents who are now split up.
Then after doing all the effort to get away from Dracula and that type of vampire stories, the main bad guy comes along and he is a guy in a cloak! :pac:
I have read Chuck Hogans book The Standoff and this is very like that. It feels written for TV as in lots of action to keep tings going. I enjoyed that book and enjoyed this book too but you have to park your brain and just enjoy it. This was made into a TV show and I am not surprised as it felt like one reading it. I haven't seen any of that show though as I wanted to read this trilogy first.
Some chapters feel very out of place so you can see that one author sent it to the other to add it in. With all these complaints said, I still enjoyed the book. I really wanted to read more every time so that is a good sign. Once you accept what type of book this is, you will really enjoy it. I couldn't wait to begin the next one after finishing it!0 -
The Fall (Strain Trilogy 2) by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
Here we are with the second in the Strain Trilogy. It continues from where the first left off so vampires are nearly everywhere and they are aided by Eldritch Palmer (clear reference by the authors to my favourite author Philip K Dick) He is an elderly billionaire in the same vein (get my joke?! :pac:) as Rupert Murdoch and he has been promised immortality by The Master who is the leader of the vampires. Palmer has organised a news blackout and playing it all down while the vampires infect everyone.
We learn in this book that The Master is a strain or faction of vampires that come from seven Ancient Ones as they are called. They have been in the underground of the world since the beginning of time and they do just enough "vampire stuff" for their needs. Now the Master wants to take them out and take over human civilisation.
So its up to our casting calls to save the day! See the Strain review above if you don't know what I mean! Wise old guy is searching for a book that will defeat all the vampires but the Master is trying to get it too. Bit careless if you are after world domination to leave a book that could lead to your downfall out in public isn't it?! :pac:
The Brainy Guy is trying to protect his son from his now Vampire Ex-wife. Don't you hate it when your Ex is now a vampire?!! We also have another character, Badass-with-Weapons, in a pest exterminator who thankfully has a load of weapons and loves killing things! Just the guy you need in a vampire situation! The Ancient Ones enlist Street Smart Tough guy to help kill the Master as well. Badass-with-Weapons was booked by the Brainy guy already! We also meet Cool Hybrid Vampire character. He is half vampire and son of The Master but of course he loves humans. So he is a cool mix of vampire strength/ability. Handy guy to have around!
I am having a laugh with the characters but this is a lot of fun again like the first book. The characters make me laugh but the action is really good and this gives more background to all the vampires. The only problem it has, is that its a second in a trilogy so you know its a setter upper for the last book. But the action doesn't dip and I really enjoyed it. If it doubt, an action scene comes along to entertain you so you keep the page turning! I was reaching for the last book while finishing this so I really liked it.0 -
The Night Eternal (Strain Trilogy 3) by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
So the Strain Trilogy ends here with The Night Eternal.The Master began the Night Eternal at the end of The Fall by taking control of nuclear plants and weapons and creating a nuclear winter. Now the world only has roughly 2 hours of sun. Two years have passed and now society is ran like a police state. Vampires control everything. Anyone strong and likely to cause trouble have been killed and the weak are now in camps to serve as bloodstock for the vampires.
Our merry band of casting heroes survive like resistance fighters and doing what they can to fight back. Brainy Guy is now disillusioned and growing apart from the rest. His Son is now the Master's protege and is being being slowly turned to the dark side! In the most laughable part, Clever Woman doesn't love Brainy Guy any more. Leave it to vampires to get a woman to show her true colours! She now loves Badass-with-Weapons. Women always love Bad Boys! :pac: The book that can lead to victory is in their hands but wouldn't you know it, they can't decipher the code! Hate when that happens! If he just had google translate........!!
We also get a really boring backstory of how the vampires came into being. These parts I found very boring. It felt like a big information dump and not exciting. When they finally decode the book, this leads to information that leads to a final battle with The Master.....Who will win?!!!
The action sequences here are what kept me reading as they are excellent. The backstory felt a bit like padding but once that was over it was great again. I liked the realism of what society is like under the Master. This could have been an epic trilogy on par with the Lord of the Rings, if they had put more effort into the characters. I didn't really care about any of them but I loved the action! As it is now, this trilogy is still worth reading for a modern take on vampires and all the action. At least they are not angst ridden teenagers like Twilight or "cool" vampires like True Blood.
This trilogy is all action and once you like that you will love these books. Characters take a back seat to stabbings and fights!! I enjoyed all three books even with their flaws.0 -
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The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (Remembrance of Earth's Past #1)
Another book here that I have been meaning to read for a long time. It is a science fiction book from a Chinese author. As that seems unusual, (whether that's wrong or right) I was interested in it. It was written in 2006 but I am only getting around to it now! Better late than never!!
This is a hard book to review as there is so much stuff packed into it. There are a lot of good things in it but a lot of bad things. First off, this felt really different and unique. It starts off talking about events in the Cultural revolution of China and I was thinking where is the science fiction?! Then an Astrophysics graduate who witnessed her father being beaten to death during the revolution then ends up working at a secret base. She figures out how to send an interstellar message and sends it off secretly. Then 8 years later she gets a reply back! It is from an Alien pacifist who says do not respond or else the aliens will know where Earth is and come to take it over and kill mankind. As she hates humans now, she responds saying Earth would be better off with them taking it over.
The Aliens are called Trisolarians as they live on a planet within a three Body Problem. This is an actual physics problem about 3 planets or Bodies and how they effect each other. Basically it puts their home planet in turmoil every so often so they end up dying out, coming back and they keep repeating that pattern. So they want Earth as it is a stable planet.
This book starts off well enough then loses its way but thankfully finishes strong. It sails close to being almost a physics book at times but just manages to stay well enough away. This is in the real vein of Arthur C. Clarkes 2001: A Space Odyssey that I have reviewed here. It isn't as good as that at all but its like that. I wasn't riveted reading it but did want to read more as I went along. It is great at theory but not great at characters. People are thrown in and there was no one to root for. That can be fine but there wasn't even anyone really interesting from a character development view. This is the main part I found bad. This goes for more epic story vibe rather than characters and what happens to them. It ends well and sets up the second book. This is part of a trilogy.
So all in all I thought it was ok. The good things just about outweighed the bad things. As it felt very different, I think thats a good thing so I would just about recommend it. Don't expect to care about any characters though!0
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