Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe by Jerald T. Milanich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very thorough book. Covering Florida’s early history, how the Spanish explorers roamed the state, the indian interactions, archaeological evidence found. There is an enormous amount of information set in a very readable format.

I did find an unevenness to it all, though. I found another book I read involving Milnach. It seems to me the unevenness may be caused because of the large amount of details and a tough time arranging it all. This is a minor swipe, but something to bring up if others feel it, too. It’s almost a good reason to set the book aside and come back to it.

A larger concern is the charge that the indians mostly died due to disease. The author at one point points out that there is no “documented evidence” that the indians died of disease, then proceeds to continue leaning on the idea. One minute the author is very concerned about the archaeological backing of presumptions and then tosses evidential concerns aside when writing about the fate of the entire indian population in Florida at the time.

About the wiping out of the indian population, I’m becoming more convinced that, based on documented evidence that a good amount of the indian population was massacred and the rest were enslaved by the thousands and thousands and hauled off the peninsula by the Spanish explorers. Both are touched upon and then quickly run away from. I wonder why.

Overall, this, in being one of the few of it’s kind, is an important book to read involving Florida’s history – just with a wary eye at times.

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Law of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

‘Law of the Mountain Man’ follows the trail of the four books in the series before it and tends to rehash most of those plots. Either Johnstone was trying to best the books before ‘Law of…’ or the publisher asked for more of the same. There are some definite differences and it’s still a good book, but the fundamentals are way too similar. For someone reading just this book, the novel is very, very good.

The writing is very good as a whole, but there are some obvious missteps that even a bad editor should have caught. Seems to me that Johnstone found himself in the midst of starting this series along with pumping out other books in different genres and ran into trouble.

A huge gold star goes to Johnstone in having a ton of characters in this book and being able to discern who is who. Something I had trouble with in the book I read before this by Louis L’Amour.

I’ll continue on from here and hope for better in that this series has continued from this 1989 book to now, 2013. I’m getting pessimistic, though.

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A scavenger hunt that apparently requires the use of a rocket. Now that’s a challenge. This Laser Book #25 has a cover by the legendary fantasy artist Kelly Freas. He painted all of the covers I’ve found so far. Some 50 plus. All with a similar layout.

Showdown at Yellow Butte by Louis L’Amour

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I noticed this with a few other L’Amour books I’ve read: Within twenty pages the reader finds themselves dumped in a sea of names with little to no background as to who they are. In this case it was worse for a couple names are similar. Worse, as the book goes on, some switch from good to bad and vice versa. Many characters are hardly explained throughout the book except for what side they are. I had trouble keeping track of who was through throughout the book. Here’s further credit I can give for the William Johnstone clan and their westerns that are often peppered with lots of characters as I’ve yet to get so confused.

However, I thought the story was a good one even if I did get lost at times. There’s a good mystery that can keep you guessing until the end and plenty of shootouts. I kinda wish L’Amour had done more with series, because I do like the main character, Kedrick, and wish there was more of him. Especially outside the Western genre as referred to in the book.

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This book makes 30 books read so far this year.

I thought I’d share one of the many book covers in my book collection. Here’s “Plague Ship’ by Andre Norton. The cover art is by Ed Emshwiller. Love this artwork. The message is: When escaping a plaque ship, don’t forget your alien bird.

Tropical Heat by John Lutz
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

It’s been about ten years since I read my first John Lutz and decided I wouldn’t read another Lutz book. Years have passed, some perspective has changed, reading habits altered. I thought I’d give another one a try.

Oops! This book reminded me of my reasoning years ago. Though there is a good mystery stuck in the 246 pages, it’s a bit tough to get to with all else it’s sunk into. This complaint isn’t along the lines of my standard complaint of over writing that is common more today than when this was published in 1986. The extraneous story is fine, actually, and fits in the plot. It’s just that, plainly, the writing stinks.

But, wait, there’s more! Far more of a complaint is that Lutz set the story in an area he has little to no knowledge of. I remember this with the last book I read that was set in Florida. Years have gone by and I know my state far, far better now. His attempt to depict Florida is horrendous. Throughout the book most everything about the state, no matter where the plot wanders, has some mention of Disney World. That is a place he apparently knows about, though no part of the book actually is set there, nor could it, knowing how the Disney complex would put a cease and desist involving such an effort.

To get around not knowing about Florida, Lutz makes up cities and then drapes around a lot of typical stereotypes that most Snowbirds would know is ludicrous. There are constant drives from a coast in Florida to Orlando that make it appear as if the trip is only twenty minutes long and no traffic issues. Even in ’86 there were traffic issues getting from any east coast beach area to Orlando and back again. Then a “relatively short trip” to the University of Florida in Gainesville. that’s easily a two hour trip and, even then navigating through the U of F campus is not easy. Not that Lutz had to get into those details, but to shrug it off as a “short trip” is silly.

There are lots and lots of examples of ignorance of Florida. The worse may be his understanding of airboats. Airboats are very, very loud. Lutz obviously doesn’t know that and it really screws up reading a pivotal part of the book.

Even a few phone calls, consulting a map, a peek into an encyclopedia about locations could have solved the mess of location depiction. With this lack of knowledge of location, the descriptions of settings are limited and feel empty.

There is a good mystery here. It’s just not well written and not a book I can recommend.

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Revenge of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I figured if I kept reading books made by the Johnstone clan eventually I’d find one with kinks. This one had three that bothered me. One was having the main character disguised in a way that made little sense and did not fit the character already established in the three previous books. Also the overall plot was much like the last two. The story outside the rehash made it all worthwhile. The third is something I really like about the five Johnstone clan books I’ve read so far, but can’t mention here without giving away story secrets.

I otherwise recommend the novel. It’s exciting and fun to read as the other Johnstone clan books I’ve read so far. It moves the story of the Jensen family along and begs the reader to move on to the next in the series, which I will do as soon as I find the next one! 🙂

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Good People by Marcus Sakey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I hate it when I know the ending early in a book. It happened again. Why couldn’t the author had peopled the book with more people and elements to make it, at least, a bit difficult to know where the book was going??? There were complications that were nice surprises, but still mostly fillers to get to the conclusion. Which leads to….

The other complaint I have, almost consistently with recent authors – Too much excess needlessness. I get working out character motivation. But the emotional pablum is tedious. Obviously the publishers are demanding meaningless gunk pumping up the page count. There should be more actual story – and, thus, harder to figure out the ending.

The writing is OK, though obvious work is done to insert certain wording to give the book a pulp feel. The characters are well written. Each is distinct and the best part of the reading experience.

I was also disappointed with the ending. Especially after finishing ‘Home Invasion’ by the William Johnstone clan. Seems to me the Johnstone motto is something like: ‘Anything goes, but end with a great story”. Author Sakey should mine some Johnstone logic – if an editor will let him.

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Case Of The Phantom Fortune (Perry Mason Mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Not one of the best of Gardner’s books. The story is so-so to begin with. The problems lie in the story structure and, more specifically, the dialogue. It seems that at obvious points that separate paragraphs were constructed and pasted into the book. Considering how much one sentence dialogue is in this story, a large, descriptive diatribe about legal or investigative methodology doesn’t read cohesively. There’s a great story here, but the structure is off as the story slows and speeds at different points and then there are the technical speed bumps. Almost wonder if Gardner wrote this at all and if this was put together by a staff. There are far better Perry Mason stories and those should be read first.

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Home Invasion by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow! I liked this book a lot! I like how the characters are written, the plot, the pull of the story, the story, the writing, the plot twists, the ending, etc. I short the book a star due to a few items that bother me.

The book is about a small city in Texas taken over by a very large entity and more that will have to be discovered while reading. The great thing is that none of the takeover takes place right away. The story has number of threads and it takes a bit to tie it together. The reader knows it’s going to tie together and that is one of the things keeping you on the edge of your seat trying to figure how that will happen. This book starts on one level and ends up in a very different place. I love when i can’t figure an ending out and that was pretty impossible here. Another great things is that every character is expendable, which is typical of the Johnstone westerns I’ve read. Love how that worked out here. Made it all so much more realistic.

These days, in our current political atmosphere, the plot seems possibly not far off from possible. Staunch liberals will hate this book. People opened minded will greatly enjoy it. I sure like that conservatives are put in a good light here. I read so much contemporary mess where the conservatives, Republicans, patriotic people are evil. Though this book flips the favoring, it is still less strident than sooooo many authors I’ve read.

My concerns are mostly technical. I’m not a lawyer, but I believe there are some pretty big holes in how the court case early in the book is handled. Though I like the ending, I don’t quite believe everything would go so quick back to normal considering the premise of a fixated populace.

Besides a great story, I’m also amazed at the level this book is considering it’s coming out of the Johnstone mill. The amount of books pumped out a year by Johnstone and company would lead one to believe the books are just rot machine gunned out by ghost writers. This is the second book recently produced by the mill and am staggered at it’s quality. I really expected a loosey-goosey mess of a non-stop battle involving what I figured might be the “Invasion” before reading the book. As I read I discovered how very wrong I was. Have to almost wonder if some of the ghost writers are long-time professionals filling in some economic gaps by producing these.

I highly recommend this book.

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Savage Texas by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The seemingly never ending Johnstone literary legacy continues. I had to suspect that this relatively new entry into the fray might not live up to the early days of the Johnstone western series thirty years ago. With Johnstone himself long gone and seemingly a team of ghost writers pumping out volumes of books every year, I wondered if these spin-offs of spin-offs could sustain quality.

Well, this one does. It’s clear the framework setup by Johnstone oh so long ago is being strictly adhered to. The story draws you in and keeps you turning pages to the end. It’s a wonder why this rather innocuous series isn’t better known. This was far better written than any of the recent fiction I’ve read by contemporary authors. My usual complaint of over explaining everything is somewhat found here. But in no way to the degree of what i find in the current best seller market.

Someone else here found something that I, too, found. Part of the book is missing. I was mighty confused when one of the characters is alive one minute and dead the next. If the other contributor is correct, then the page count is the problem. However, my copy had even less pages- 314.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book.

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