Had our monthly Socrates Cafe meeting tonight and, for the first time in about a year, I broke out the sketchpad during it. Part of the reason is that I’ve been lax posting art here and knew this would give me something to place here artwork-wise.
Our discussion started with the question as to how much we carry our family history throughout life. Brought up was the ability to pick and choose our traits. Next came a discussion about a story heard on the radio about a child being left out of a game with other children and what should a person’s reaction to that be. Discussion went from cooties to hammering morality.  Last discussion involved whether we should all just have a revolution and get it all over with. This led one of the group, Robin, to declare that she is willing to take the world over, be queen, sell books and become a church onto herself for the well being of all.

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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Here’s my newest watercolor painting! This one is of Six Gun Territory. The scene is lifted from a postcard and the humans are replaced with frogs. This is the Father’s Day card I gave to my father this past week.

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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Meant to post this weeks ago. Here’s the finished watercolor painting that I had posted a photo of the pencils of a while back.
This is a commissioned piece of a family’s chickens and their self made chicken coop.

Here’s the pencil drawing: