Here is the pencil rough for an illustration I’m developing for a client. I’ll try to show the progress of the art was I work on it.

Gold Coast by Elmore Leonard

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is part of my Swampy’s Florida book collection.

Not sure why I had trouble connecting with this book. It does occur to me that I’ve had trouble connecting with characters in past Elmore Leonard books in the past. It was particularly difficult with this book. It could be that I’ve recently been reading books with very well drawn characters. These are well defined, but in the typical Leonard caricature that I struggled with. I should add there is one character that has a few levels that appear along the way.

This is a 1980 book that set a tenor that got expanded further by Carl Hiassen and Tim Dorsey, amongst others. The wacky Florida mystery stories really began with Leonard and this is one of the first. The story sops up the south Florida lifestyle of the rich and famous and adds the contemporary dark characters with gusto. The story is good and this book is well written. Many today are likely to be dissatisfied with the ending but, as occurs in Leonard novels past the characters, the story has a unique ending.

I’m chalking up my dissatisfaction with the characters with reading recent strong character driven novels and so the bottom line is: I recommend it.

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Here’s a large group of University of North Florida students with little stuffed Swampy of Swampy’s Florida. I was there to entertain with caricatures and I’ll post later about those.

Breakdown by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I figured with the unending sea of novels coming from, what I call, the Johnstone Clan of writers, eventually, one would be a dud. Here it is.

I’ve read about ten of the various series and stand alones. 2011’s ‘Home Invasion’ is one of my favorite books in recent times. So, I am quite a fan and have about thirty more Johnstones to be read – though, I’m aiming to read them in order. I’ve got lots more to add to the stacks.

This one has the first problem of being extremely poorly constructed. It is very hard to catch on at the beginning as the two main characters are thrust at us with little background except that they both are on diametrically opposed sides of the political realm. The writer presents each character with the political viewpoints and expects us to buy the relationship due to their sexual relationship. To buy that would mean to accept two people who inwardly dislike each other or two very shallow souls. As the book continues, shallow fits neither. The book is hampered by the main characters being very unbelievable.

To me most all of the characters are unbelievable and points out how different this book is from the typical Johnstone book that paints vivid images of the characters involved.

A story structure issue that was badly mishandled was setting. This book purports to span the United States. But, only a handful of locations are used. In that this story is about taking over the country, you’d think the action would be more widespread. Other locations are mentioned, but the main characters fly back and forth to the same place. (Side thought is that if a country is being taken over by whoever, someone would be sure to have landing strips monitored and closed. There are a ton of these details that are overlooked.)

Another setting issue involves characters finding each other as if they were wearing GPS units that are never mentioned. How these characters go out into a large wooded area and happen to find one person they are looking for so quickly is beyond believable.

The story is just a mess. All about various groups taking over America, all dissatisfied with government and how the country is being run. This story fantasizes that Americans have the wherewithal to walk away from their TVs, booze and other entertainment and fight each other for ideas I don’t believe most Americans understand much at all – which would be why certain politicians are in office that could manipulate them to usurp the population with controls, to begin with. If people are willingly putting people in power to take away freedom, why would the population fight the people they elected???

To me, the book reads as science fiction without the science.

This book is also hard to swallow in that it preceded the tragic day of September 11th, 2001. Seeing that Americans seemed to have set aside patriotism for materialism since then, shows the unlikelihood of this story idea ever happening. I’d say it’s impossible.

AS can be the case with the impossible story, the ending to this book is more than predictable. There are few surprises throughout except the ongoing poor story construction.

OK, how can this book be justified at all? It seems to me the attempt is to create a parable of political philosophies. Not well created, but I think that is the attempt. The book is riddled with lengthy treaties of political viewpoints – all conservative – that really don’t advance the story, but advances the political viewpoints of the writer(s)involved. There’s an effort to get a lefty viewpoint in by way of a main character, but that is mostly dismissed by way of a conservative view point. Being a conservative myself, that would be fine, but the idea is to present a non-fiction story that is readable, not a book like ‘Breakdown’.

This would have worked far better if confined to a small city, much like the later written ‘Home Invasion’. Maybe that’s why ‘Home Invasion’ came about, to produce a more coherent book about a take over of an area. It’s obvious, at the end, that this was to be the start of another Johnstone series. I guess sales or realization that this didn’t work, stopped that.

Considering the hyper sensitivities of many of today’s young and the effort of censorship of ideas that aren’t “politically correct”, I even more strongly discourage them reading this book. The lack of understanding of diverse political ideologies will lose the sensitive who will want to childishly label parts of this book racist and written in “hate”.

Bottom line: I do not recommend this book.

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Here’s the newest Swampy’s Florida print- ‘Sea Turtle Christmas Surprise’.

Here are the pencils and preparatory art for the watercolor I’m about to add to this artwork. It is a photograph and not a scan of the work. Didn’t have a scanner with me.

This is for a set of Christmas cards and prints available soon. The setting is Key Biscayne, Florida. That’s the Biscayne lighthouse in the background. The size is 11″ x 14″.

I’ll post the finished watercolor version soon.

Dream of Orchids by Phyllis A. Whitney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is part of my Florida collection. Setting: Key West.

First, Phyllis Whitney is a tremendous writer. There is so much to point to that is so well crafted in this book. Her character development is excellent. The story is great. The turns in the story are unexpected and well presented. This book is so very unlike recent books of the past twenty years where I know who did it and what happened withing the first fifty pages. I didn’t figure any of this until the answers were revealed. I had a good idea of a plot turn, but wasn’t sure as her writing didn’t just tell the story, but examined the characters, setting and background. Each is well done.

The Florida part: Unlike the experience I had a couple weeks ago with Robert Wilder’s ‘The Sea and the Stars’, this book does what Wilder should have in including Florida history. The book has plenty to learn and it’s accurate and interesting. The history peppered through the book would entice anyone to want to visit the locations mentioned. Have to wonder why Whitney didn’t get to travel writing, she does such a great job with location description. Whitney makes Key West sound fascinating and a place to visit.

The book itself: As much as she writes so well, this book does drag at times as she shuffles the shells to keep the reader guessing about the twists and turns. The goal is perfect, but the execution could have been culled a bit better. I’d mention editing, but that would be laughable considering so much needless waste in other contemporary fiction being published today.

This is clearly a book written with a woman’s viewpoint. Lots about male and female interests, relationships, etc. There is plenty of mystery, too. Males are likely to struggle a bit with this book wanting it to move faster. The young of today, who are being weened on adrenaline and less on thinking, will really struggle with this book.

Bottom line: I recommend this book.

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Our monthly Socrates Cafe meeting on Tuesday covered an assortment of topics. Above and below are a series of sketches about the topics brought up. The first was the struggle of selfishness. The second was about how open we should be about our private life. Then the question of where conscience comes from. Next a question of perception….

The next to last discussion was asking where complaints come from. Finally, the standard philosophical question of the connections of truth and beauty.

Resort Nurse by Diana Douglas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is part of my Florida book collection.

I picked this up noticing the Florida location and considered it a romance novel. I hadn’t read one before. However, after reading the book, it’d be more accurately described as a life novel. There are romantic overtones, but this is just as well following a lady as she takes a new job at a hotel in the Key Sud hotel somewhere amongst the Florida Keys. Based on hints given in the book, I’d guess on Big Pine Key. Seems the author would mention Key West. Though, some distances mentioned don’t seem to be that far down the Keys.

Location information is a bit lacking, but a number of Keys, Homestead, Miami and Miami Beach are mentioned. The author knows a bit about driving from Dade County through the Keys by her descriptions and must have traveled it herself.

The story was a bit predictable to me involving the turn in the story. Which guy the nurse ended up with was not as obvious. Overall the writing is direct and well done. Very good dialogue. Douglas does a tremendous job of depicting a teenager in the 1960s.

This 1969 book further shows me how poorly books today are assembled. From writing, to story to the actual publication, what’s happened to the book industry? If books today were at a higher caliper I would give this book a lower rating. Due to appalling mess of the book industry in the past fifteen years or so, i have to give this a higher rating. This book is certainly cheaper and better written and I didn’t notice any misspellings or punctuation issues I see in so many of today’s books.

Bottom line: I recommend this book.

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The Cat From Outer Space by Ted Key
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a light book, but it is also a good book. It moves mighty fast. But it’s a fun fast.

Where this book soars is comparing it to contemporary fiction. Specifically comparing it to the last book I read, ‘Sea Change’ by Robert Parker, this book is genius fiction. In ‘The Cat from Outer Space’ the characters are well defined, the settings are well described, the story is understandable – and no nasty language and sexual mess.

Unlike my complaints of a current book’s over abundance of everything, this one is a bit too trim. But, it works and I finished the book satisfied. Love the ending involving the Pledge of Allegiance. Can’t imagine a book ending like that today.

Another neat thing about this book is that it was written by ‘Hazel’ cartoonist, Ted Key.

It’s short, it’s fast and it’s fun. I recommend it.

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Sea Change by Robert B. Parker

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Reading as part of my Florida collection:

Robert Parker dovetails his typical Massachusetts setting for his Jesse Stone character with locations in Southeast Florida involving a crime involving yachts, wild kids and sex. Not that it had to be Florida. He could just as well had the alternate location in Virginia or New Jersey. To do that, though, more narrative would’ve been required. So, Parker takes the easy route and assumes the reader is carrying a stacked knowledge of Florida stereotypes. Big house, rich and arrogant people, beach bars are about as detailed as Parker gets in this book involving Florida.

What I found odd was the lack of narrative in describing scenes in Massachusetts, too. In fact, this book is nearly fifty percent dialogue. The writing of that is Ok, but it’s difficult to often know much of anything involving the surroundings. Seems to me a deadline to get the book in to the publisher got too close and Parker slung this out. The format I picked up this book in was the taller $9.99 version. A ton of kerning happened to stretch this book to fit it and is further indication that Parker may have quickly written this to meet a deadline.

My usual complaint of fluffing a contemporary book up is certainly the case here. This time, though, it’s the dialogue that needed severe trimming. There’s a side story involving Stone’s relationship with is ex-wife that doesn’t fit well.

overall this book does have Florida locations, but are not well written and locations are very general. The overall book seems to me to be a whole lot of dialogue looking for a good story.

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