Plunder of the Sun by David Dodge

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


OK cat and mouse caper south of the border. Well crafted with good twists and a satisfying while leaving the trail open for further tales of the main character. Characters well drawn. Locations mostly done well.

Dodge went too far trying to cram spanish language in spots making reading a bit of a stumble at times. Not being a fan of the spanish language, german or french would have been easy to read through.

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





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How to Succeed in Hollywood Without Really Trying P.S. You Can’t! by Melville Shavelson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a funny book full of tales of wrestling with Hollywood. The latter is pretty typical for a Hollywood book. Difference is, as others try, this one is funny.

This book does have a trouble throughout the entire book of very rarely noting the date or even year any instance happened. The reader is stuck having to figure out just what decade instances are helping. Not helping is Shavelson often bringing up flashbacks and then continuing the linear history. That’s when it’s tough to tell what time period he is writing about. Thus, the overall planning of the book is a bit slipshod. Luckily Shavelson is a good writer to carry through the troubles.

Shavelson revels that he can write whatever he wants due to, basically, self-publishing this book. That begs the question as to why he skips past many of his accomplishments. I’d guess this was his way of avoiding whatever it was he wanted to avoid. Those of us that knows he skips books and movies he worked on will feel short changed. Per chance this is a problem I have with Shavelson films. His films tend to be drawn out too long and seem to miss scenes to keep the film together.

A real plus is a very good index.

Bottomline: I recommend this book. 6 out of 10 points.



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Asterix and the Golden Sickle by René Goscinny

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The second Asterix book is Goscinny shoving a ton of little gags in between a very good story of the need of a golden sickle. Fulfilling that need becomes more complicated than planned and the chaos begins. The sickle thing is a bit of a silly plot device to send two pals off to adventure, but it works and the involved story ends satisfactorily.

Better still is the illustration work. The artistry is superb in layout, design and line stroke. Excellent work. Some panels are simply brilliant is construction.

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



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Man of Grace, Andy Capp by Reg Smythe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

• As i continue to read through books related more to my profession….
  I happened upon this at a thrift store last week and that reminded me I need to keep taking in the books of sequential storytelling.
  
  Quite a funny collection of Andy Capp comic strips. Certainly too much for today’s fad of sensitivity. Probably more acceptable in a few more years.
  
  Writer & artist Reg Smythe has a solid style of depiction and great consistency. Simple backgrounds easy to recognize. Mostly all foreground settings for easier effort of knocking out 7 of these each week. I peeked into how those who replaced the new dead Smythe are handling things. Humor is there, but the art is weak. You can see that here: https://www.gocomics.com/andycapp
  
  Worse part of this collection is a problem Fawcett had with many of their printings of comic strips: Bad printers. Some pages, the words and art are hard to see and read. These collections can be very inconsistent involving printing.
  
  Milling this same area over and over and producing these mostly very funny results is impressive since 1957 to the date of publication of this collection, 1974.
  
  Great fun!
  
  Bottom line: I recommend this book. 8 out of 10 points.
  
  
  
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Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


What a dopey book. Huxley wants to write a play and tucks the play into another story, neither of which make much sense.

I should start by stating I despise science fiction. Especially when it’s a weak dressing for bad philosophizing. I have a great deal of respect for philosophy and science. Huxley should have written this out as a treatise or a study of politics, than this silly bit of fluff.

He presents interesting ideas and retreads his own earlier work and others, like Thorstein Veblen. But the ideas are shackled to the fiction and there’s no supporting data presented to hold up his thoughts. It’s basically one liners encased in dialogue and narration.

He also doesn’t account for what happens if his theories come true. There’s no objective or challenging view points. Huxley writes that all are cowtowed by the setting and he escapes from anything deeper.

The characters are thin to nothing. The settings much the same. The writing is a jumble of OK to badly thought out.

All in all lightweight stuff, much like Vonnegut’s work later.

Bottom line: i don’t recommend this book. 2 out of 10 points.



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Deadheads by Reginald Hill

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book is more a series of character studies with a loose story connecting it all. Apparently the police have nothing better to do than chase after a silly story by a stated nut involving conjecture and no empirical evidence. Thus, I found the foundation unbelievable. One of the major characters is at a conference who happens to find himself with one person connected to the non-case case. The book meanders from character to character. It all ends in an interesting way, though likely a surprise to most mystery readers.

Hill ramps up his political hammering of his liberal views with little objectivity. Conisdering the overall book has little solid base, this politically trumpeting is distracting and irritating.

The writing is very good and dialogue very well done and the only reason to read this book.

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



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The Golden Age Spectre Archives, Vol. 1 by Jerry Siegel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Spectre has always been a favorite of mine. Specifically the mid-1970s comic stories written by Michael Fleischer and drawn by Jim Aparo. So, I thought I’d dash through this collections of the very first Spectre stories.

The forward well details the start of the series and the oddities of the character. All to point out, something forgotten in today’s comics, that this is all in fun. It’s silly science fiction.

The 13 tales are all good guy versus bad guy. With the bad guy able to do whatever the imagination of the writer concocts. All simple stories with outrageous ghostly marauding revenge to those who lurk in evil. All fun. These are really all comics should ever be.

The artwork is primitive to what was later seen in the late ’60s through the early ’80s. The effort to good storytelling is obvious and done as new ground is broken in comics artistry.

Note: I’m adding books of comics to my reading lot trying to keep my head in my work as a storytelling illustrator.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 8 out of ten points.



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A Killing Kindness by Reginald Hill

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Hill is building upon his effort to make more and more convoluted stories. Though, well written, this mystery could have trimmed 50 pages and been a tighter and stronger mystery. The fun is Dalziel.

The heavy handed politics in his books increases here. That would be fine if Hill included objectivity, but it’s more a matter of pounding views and any other side is not to be considered.

He does treat his stories differently from his politics. There is a tremendous amount happening with scores of people involved and way too much background of all. Hill shuffles all of this over and over again. Much like a shell game. This helps in making very difficult figuring out the ending.

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



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An April Shroud by Reginald Hill

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


An odd trail for the author to take one his main characters, Dalziel. Author Hill does it only partly successfully. but compromises a lot of the character to do it.

Sadly the plot is pretty flimsy. The typical murder a Hill reader might expect is not clear until deep into the book. At that point it was obvious to me what was going on, but Hill strung it out to the a rather ridiculous ending that really didn’t make sense.

Hill had the entire structure of a very interesting story of a family. He should have set aside his policemen and just focused on the family and fleshed out the underlining family tale. There are so many characters into that part of the story, Hill could have developed another series.

To me, the marriage of the family story and the policemen doesn’t work well.

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



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Preacher’s Fortune by William W. Johnstone

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book falls into the top 20 best Johntone Clan books. This is a great adventure with the usual excellent Johnstone characters. Even better than usual. A rather complicated plot, dialogue, setting are all very well thought out.

This tale has been told in other Johnstone Clan books. This is the best. The layering of sets of characters and getting them together, apart and together and apart and then adding in more is extremely hard to pull off successfully. especially of such well defined characters. Excellent work by the Ghost Writers.

Bottom ;line: i recommend this book. ten out of ten points.





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Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars by Robert V. Remini

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is an excellent chronicle of Jackson and his obsessive efforts to rid lands of the U.S. of indians. The book would’ve been even better if author Remini wasn’t being P.C. and acting as apologist to the sensitive readers far too often throughout the book. So, again, comes the trouble of recent books as authors weaken the writing with apologies. Of all books histories should have no apologies from the writer. History is history.

The bulk of the book is very well constructed with dates that are often left out of most histories, so the reader can know when they are in the book. The histories of the various packs of indians and soldier encounters are detailed well with motivations and results. Added are adjacent happenings in the U.s. and abroad providing a very well rounded view of the history included. This, in my opinion, is best parts of teh book: Remini’s expertise shining through as he gives various perspectives though out the book.

The last few chapters were not as keenly written as the early bulk of the book. The book wraps quickly with questions left unanswered and truncated resolutions to issues.

Bottom line: I recommend the book. 8 out of 10 points.



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