Red Clark at the Showdown by Gordon Young

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


It’s good to come across an honestly terrible book to remind the reader how bad a book can be. Thi sis certainly one of the worst I have ever read. Poor plotting, writing, characters, etc.

Part of the problem is Young’s effort to have the character’s dialogue as it might have been in the late 1800s. He does this poorly. In that there is also poor punctuation and Young’s inability to connect the character to the dialogue a good deal of the time makes for an impossible book to read.

Making it all worse is what seems a very good idea for a plot executed in the most confounded way possible. Young tries to keep the mystery going by characters pondering what is happening. This is done in first, second and third person. Auuugh!!

I could go on,but the idea should be evident.

Bottom line: I do not recommend this book. 2 out of 10 points.



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Video of me inking a portion of the large 20″ x 30″ illustration produced a couple of weeks ago for the Florida Springs Institute during the Springs Celebration at O’Leno State Park just north of High Springs, Florida.

The inking was done using brushes with no pencils or reference and made up as Rob went along.

Hell is a woman by Garrett W. Deas

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


For me, a predictable story due to one very obvious element. If you don’t notice it, you may be very surprised by the outcome. The story is set up generally well with the setting of the stereotype of the crooked Southern town. This being a stereotyped Florida Southern swamp town with the typical characters usually portrayed.

There are lots of technical issues in the book. Largest one being that the law enforcement characters are written as of the county sheriff’s office. However, the entire story approaches the law enforcement officers as municipal officers and not county. The writer clearly didn’t know the difference. I believe his effort to use stereotypes confused this.

The plot is still interesting and the bodies that pile up drew me into the story further. Still that one obvious element I noticed hovered over the book the entire time and proved to be true.

Side note: I love the cover art.

About the Florida setting: The setting is described as east of Tampa and Gator Creek is nearby. There is such a place in our state of Florida. Though the county name is not the same and there is no city portrayed anywhere near by. I believe the writer made use of a map.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 6 out of 10 points.



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Personality Plus: Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock by Edna Ferber

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


From my Algonquin Round Table Collection:
I’m such a fan of Edna Ferber. She is so good at intertwining characters and dialogue within a story that would be hard to imagine being interesting. Ferber was genius and this book is just another example of that.

This is very low key and not a book of epic proportions as her others. She was able to layout a talein any size she wanted.

Bottom line: i recommend this book.10 out of 10 points.



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The Specialist / by Charles (Chic) Sale by Charles Sale

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Saw Chic Sale again in a film, ‘Treasure Island’, last week and thought if I saw another of his books again, I’d nabbed it. So I did a few days ago. This tiny little thing has not much more than a transcript of a monologue. It’s a neat monologue telling of the business of outhouse written in a humourous way.

As fun as this is, I just wish there was much more to it all. though, I understand this is all Sale wanted this to be.

I understand this was a huge best seller and more came after it. I know of other little books like this one that did very well. I wonder why we see so little of this today.

Bottom line: I recommend this. 7 out of 10 points.



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The Angry Wife by Pearl S. Buck

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Buck sure knows how to leap from comfort to great complexity of ideas. Though issues in this book are pondered in her others. With this book she moves it all to post-War Between the States. She’s structured the plot and story to explore her views of race, the South, America and the Civil War. She does this all very well by creating an epic story of a family.

The examination of the family unfolded is accomplished extremely well. Buck vastly complicates the tale by pulling the family apart in a particularly difficult way that leads to Buck having to move characters around in all sorts of directions. She does all of this very clearly and leaves the reader intrigued to move the pages. Excellent writing and plotting.

The characters are well written and distinctly different. Something hard to do in a book that includes so many children. Many, many books have broods of kiddies, but Buck includes the same and makes each interesting and separate from another.

A note about the time I wrote this: Today’s (Not long ago or time to come) American population is extremely ignorant to the time period that is the basis of the book. Points of history presented in the book, once taught in public school,today is almost entirely not taught or mis-taught. Some might read this and react emotionally without the knowledge of what Buck is writing about. Certainly Buck took extreme melodramatic license to create the book and never intended for readers to believe the families in this book were representative of all in the South or the North. Buck’s goal was to complete a book that could be sold and read. Not sculpt factual history.

I think the only draw back to the book is, while trying to string so many characters together, Buck dropped the ball in some consistency and leaving some holes in the story never filled. Tiny stuff when paired with the whole. Also the title is silly.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 9 out of 10 points.



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SEAL Team Six by Chuck Dixon

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


This was a cumbersome book. The majority of it made up of biographies of all of the characters and some not even otherwise in the book. That would be fine if the book was 600 pages. But at 145, the endless background is just poor plotting and editing.

What’s left is substandard, predictable action and very bad dialogue. Both usually have to do with undefined characters. That’s what makes all of the character background superfluous – All of the characters speak with nearly the same voice. There is one that repeats the last few words of a sentence. That this stands out to separate one from the others, should give an idea of the sameness of speak.

The ending is nothing new and under performs some of the biographies included.

Dixon is a very successful machine in comic book story production and I hoped to find he accomplished what most all in the comic book writing field hasn’t been able to do: Be successful in writing a novel. This is not an example of that.
I figure Dixon was hoping to follow in the foot steps of Brad Thor and Vince Flynn or Alex Berenson. This book is mighty far from any of those. Based upon this book, Dixon might want to reach toward the direction John Gilstrap takes.
I won’t give up just yet. I’ll try another Dixon soon.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 2 out of two points.



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I used no pencils for most of this illustration that is 20″ x 30″. I inked using brush pens mostly.

Pride of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This entry was during the Smoke Jensen series where needless and irritating flashbacks were common. A few books before this a number of the books had nearly a fifth of the novel set in flashbacks.At this point the flash backs had lessened, but still makeup 15 pages or so. This was among the problems with the book.

Depending on the ghost writer a version of Smoke is presented. In this one Smoke curses and less sure of himself (Which does lean away from the typical super hero antics of gun play). The entire tenor of the book is much more violent and gory than other tales of Smoke. The writer further veers from consistency with the series characters acting out of character and the plotting being better than others in the series.

The direction of the plotting would make this book better than most, but I recognized the plot from other books of the Johnstone Clan. There are also errors editors should have caught. The real problem is the entire construction of the book with the Johnstones, editors, writer and cover designer not paying attention to the 21 books before this one or the make up of this book.

This is still another book in the series with a silly book title and cover.

Bottom line: i don’t recommend this book. 5 out of ten points.



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Mother West Wind ‘How’ Stories by Thornton W. Burgess

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


After reading the collection in ‘Mother West Wind “Where” Stories’, I figured the next collection read couldn’t continue the same over used template in the last set. i was wrong. This book is much the same. Basically the same story over and over. Apparently Burgess had no ability to flesh out plots from any other angle. This collection is a wee better with a few stories having a bit more to them, but the concept is the same.

Adding to that is the title of the book. Two books in and I still not read one word about a “Mother West Wind”. Also this one has “How” in the title as the last has “Where”. Yet, the first book has nothing to do with “Where” and the “How” is questionable here.

I also don’t care for the fantasy of this “Mother Nature” altering creatures as a plot device.

The writing is OK, beyond the repetitious wording.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 5 out of ten.



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