A Lone Star Christmas by William W. Johnstone

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Am I ever surprised that i found a book worse than the last Johnstone book I read a couple weeks ago. This is the 4th out of the last six Johnstone books I’ve disliked, this one being the worse. This is one of the worse I’ve read in a decade. I better check reviews and be sure to dip into a good one of the Johnstone clan or it’s going to be real difficult to continue with so many books I still have ahead of me in the various series.

This book is atrociously written. One thing that writers are taught is to cover the who, what, why and how in a story. However, don’t actually use the words. This book is full of the ‘w’s and ‘how’s. Throughout the book the rhythm changes constantly. The ending is completely ridiculous as suddenly out of the 15 or so Johnstone books I’ve read, a supernatural silliness occurs. Then their are all sorts of historical issues involved.

This book raises questions for me such as how many writers were involved with the project? The book’s writing style swings from heavy romantic to violent gunfights. Neither of those two written the same way. There are many scenes that have other styles. The supernatural scene suddenly finds no one asking “who”, “what, “why”, etc, when then it just might fit. The dialogue of Smoke Jensen also changes throughout the book depending on scenes. Apparently this was a collaborative effort gone real wrong.

Was there a continuity check? The usual setting descriptions are nearly gone. The only character who seemed to stay the same as in other books is Sally Jensen.

The book appears to have been planned with an ending in mind that, based on the 15 books I’ve read, is a real easy , simplistic plot device, that has to have the reader wonder if there are other astral entities floating about in the series not yet revealed. Is Smoke so fast because he’s really an alien from another planet? Will that be a plot in a future Johnstone entry? When a series suddenly breaks out into fantasy, readers have to wonder what the heck is going on.

The underlying Christmas theme is spotty and otherwise dreck.

Something that may not be helping is that just before this book i was reading one of Nancy Atherton’s Dimitry series books that is beautifully written. Coming to this is a major let down.

I almost took a further step down. This morning I thought i would start Rite Mae Brown’s ‘Santa Clawed’. Got three pages in and realized that I was about to read something worse than ‘A Lone Star Christmas’ and, for the first time I can remember, put the book down. I’m pretty sure cats and dogs are not thinking such trite, shallow human thoughts as applied by Brown. Yuck!

I feel pretty cheated by ‘A Lone Star Christmas’. However, I’ve had fun in this past year tracking down the Johnstone series and don’t want to give up on it. The next book I read will be selected carefully and I sure hope for far better results.

Bottom line: Don’t read this book.

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Penciled and prepped this caricature yesterday afternoon before wheeling out to the event I posted about last night. As was the case yesterday, i met with Kristina, below, who requested this illustration. Yesterday we met in Winter Garden, Florida, and today met in Leesburg  to watercolor the artwork at the Leesburg Library coffee shop.

I watercolored the artwork with the exception of the orange color seen. Used a Prang marker brush to really pop the color out representing the colors of the Tennessee college that has a football team, the Volunteers.Not surprisingly I know more about the name of the volunteers and it’s place in Civil War history than the name of the college that has a football team with the name. 🙂

When I woke this morning I had no idea the day would take so many sudden turns in so many directions! First I answered the call for a last minute caricature by changing plans and meeting the client and doing the artwork. While I was working on the caricature with the client, I got a call about a last minute caricature gig about an hours drive from where I was. Decided to meet that challenge and head in the opposite direction of home and drew at that event for a few hours. Now I’m staying overnight nearby and plan to see home tomorrow afternoon….. Depending on last minute requests! 🙂

Here’s a preview of Sunday’s Swampy’s Florida cartoon which has something to do with horses and telephones. Want to guess what the subject is? 🙂

This is part of sketches for a project I’m working on that is being bounced around by the clients and I. We’ll come to a final rough drawing along the way for me to build on for the final illustration. I’ll likely post pieces of that project as it comes along in the next week. I’ll be penciling and inking on paper and coloring using Photoshop.

This is a small drawing for a much larger project. It’s a fill-in piece. Tomorrow, I’ll be embarking on larger illustrations. Saw this blown up much larger on Facebook and realize, I need to use a brush even when doing tiny drawings like this. I disliked it so much that i pulled it and whipped up this Santa Frog to go in the shopper lady’s place for the Daily Inks.

This watercolor cartoon of frog and turkey is for someone else on Thanksgiving. Realizing I was giving a painting to one person on Thanksgiving involving frogs, had me realize I needed to do one for another, too.

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

Taking this as a stand alone novel that hasn’t had a series of books before it with very similar plots, this is a good book. In regard to it’s part in a series with repetitive storylines, this is the best of that lot. I’m baffled as to why Johnstone decided to repeat the same plot so many times of the series character, Smoke Jensen, going to save a town under the thumb of a series of bad guys.

This one has better character development involving the bad guys and others. As is mostly typical of the Johnstone Clan books, the dialogue is very good. There is a slight twist involved, but it’s not at all well presented.

This is the first where there are many scenes that are repeated from the other books. Too many similar plot devices and settings.

To just regard this as a single piece gies the book a higher rating from me. In view of being part of a series, it gets low marks. As i read, i thought of better stories that could have been told involving many of the characters. I hope future parts of the series get better.

Bottom line: If you’re reading the series, I don’t recommend this book. If you’re not reading the series and can’t get to the first book to start the series. This is a good entry point.

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The last of the sneak previews of my Christmas card for this year. This is another of the many critters that are in the illustration. Taking the card to get printed tomorrow.

Here’s another peak at my annual Christmas card as i continue to work on it. Native Florida critters always dominate the illustration along with a Florida historic site. Here’s the Bald Eagle that can be found statewide. I should have the card finished tomorrow. Hope to start distributing cards Thursday and this weekend in southwest Florida.

Pioneer, Go Home! by Richard Powell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Part of my Florida collection –

Can’t ask for more from a book than a great story, great writing and a consistent tone, in this case, of humor. This is very different than other Richard Powell writings I’ve read before. His knack for humor will have me hunting for anything else he did in the same genre.

The characters are spot on and the setting is well thought out. The story is rather simple, but it’s the interaction of the characters that make this book shine. The first person narrative and dialogue is just incredible. It’s very hard to be consistent with humor. It’s darn hard work just to be funny. Powell achieves the effort with a rash of gold stars.

Making the effort even more difficult is that the narrative is written in a certain dialect throughout. His knowledge of certain terminology involving the dialect is impressive. Some might question how the characters could have come from rural New Jersey with such a dialect, but that’s how Hollywood has managed to stereotype Southerners.

This book was transformed into a film starring Elvis Presley. The adaption is amazingly faithful including the location of the shooting of the film in Yankeetown here in Florida. Practically the entire book is present in the film with most scenes that read straight from the book. The most dramatic change from book to film is swapping the characters coming from New Jersey to Georgia. I guess Hollywood can’t have people from New Jersey seem like bumpkins.

Powell based this book on a story involving a road opening and some problems associated with it. Something not new to Floridians. Powell does swap the Florida name for “Columbiana”, I guess not to make Floridians upset, though it’s clearly in Florida with mentions of “the Glades’ and the like. The book also well describes US 19 at the time.

This is a well written, hilarious book that should be read by anyone wanting a good time!

Botom line: i highly recommend it – IF you can find it! Check your local library.

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