Tag: From the Archives Page 17 of 28

sorry for the rushed nature of this one, but I wanted to get something up today and didn’t have time to polish it right.

You just have to love this concept. An illiterate cowboy in 1890’s Montana hears about Sherlock Holmes due to the republication of some of Watson’s accounts in American periodicals. He’s drawn by what Holmes does and sets about getting his hands on all of Watson’s reports he can. And then he makes his brother read them to him over and over and over so he can learn how to do what Holmes does. At some point he thinks he’s learned enough to start, and puts himself in a situation to put his skills to the test. And presto, you’ve got yourself a novel.

So much for the concept–how was the execution? Ehhh, not as good. It was dull, downright slow, filled with a bunch of cliched Western types. It was interesting enough to keep me reading, but man, did it get sloggy in parts. I’m glad I persevered, because the conclusion was satisfying (even if it’s pace was 200% of what preceded it) and the central characters were amusing.

These brothers offer a great take on Holmes/Watson, and I’m sure I’ll get to the sequels pretty soon. Hoping that now that the series has been set up, the next ones will pick up a little faster.

Dusted Off: Side Jobs by Jim Butcher

By HCNewton

On November 3, 2010

In Fiction, Harry Dresden, Jim Butcher, Urban Fantasy

I’m not big on the short story form. Outside the Nero Wolfe short story collections, I could count on one hand the number of short stories I’ve read in the past 5-10 years. Lately, there’s been a decent number of my favorite Urban Fantasy writers contributing to short story collections–usually on a theme, and usually using characters I really want to read about. But being short fiction, and being surrounded by stories about characters I don’t care about/don’t know/don’t have time to get to know even if I wanted to, I don’t get around to getting my hands on them.

From what I can tell, that’s resulted in me missing some interesting stuff–even the start of a series I’m invested in (maybe more than one, come to think of it, but I’m not going to double check now).

Which is a whole lotta rambling set up to saying why I was very happy to hear that Jim Butcher was going to release a collection of previously published and new Harry Dresden stories. And even happier to get my hands on it last week.

Being short works of fiction, basically every story was this–some sort of problem, Harry investigating rather quickly and then moving right on to the fireworks, usually dazzlingly so. Wham, blam-o, thank you, sir. Each of them also tended to focus on at least one member of the supporting cast in a way we don’t get enough of in the novels. I really appreciated getting to spend a little time with each of these people in this setting.

It was, admittedly, a mixed-bag. The first story, “Restoration of Faith,” was the first Dresden story, and it’s clearly that. There’s a lot to our favorite wizard PI that is recognizable here, and a lot that get’s tossed before Storm Front. A fun read, but I’m glad Butcher tweaked things the way he did.

The rest were better executed–mostly because Butcher’s grown a lot as a writer since then, all were good reads, some better than others.

A couple of other stand-outs for me were the lighter, “Day Off” about Harry’s fruitless quest for a quiet, relaxing day; “The Warrior” in which we get to see post-Small Favor Michael in action–even if it was a tad preachy, Butcher pulled it off, and I was so, so glad to see Michael like this; and “Love Hurts,” which is the kind of story we’ve seen/read countless times about what happens when two will-they/won’t-they friends fall under a spell/temporary delusion/whatever and fall madly, temporarily in love–it’s been done a lot, frequently poorly, but not here.

“Love Hurts” was also a perfect set-up to the novelette Aftermath, which starts up hours after the jaw-dropping/rage-inducing last page of Changes and was, for me, worth the purchase price. If I’d remembered that this was going to be at the end of this collection, I’d have finished the thing in one setting, rather than over a period of days. Great, great story, both for the plot/characters itself, and for what Butcher shows us about how these characters will act without the man in the duster around. Loved it.

Now, this hasn’t convinced me to get these other collections I mentioned earlier–but I just now have hope that some of my other favorite authors will get in gear and publish collections like this one.

Dusted Off: Happy Birthday, Archie

By HCNewton

On October 23, 2010

In Authors, Calendar Items, Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin, Rex Stout

On Oct 23 in Chillicothe, Ohio, Archie Goodwin entered this world–no doubt with a smile for the pretty nurses–and American detective literature was never the same.

I’m toasting him in one of the ways I think he’d appreciate most–by raising a glass of milk in his honor.

Who was Archie? Archie summed up his life thusly:

Born in Ohio. Public high school, pretty good at geometry and football, graduated with honor but no honors. Went to college two weeks, decided it was childish, came to New York and got a job guarding a pier, shot and killed two men and was fired, was recommended to Nero Wolfe for a chore he wanted done, did it, was offered a full-time job by Mr. Wolfe, took it, still have it.” (Fourth of July Picnic)

Long may he keep it. Just what was he employed by Wolfe to do? In The Black Mountain he answers the statement, “I thought you was a private eye” with:

I don’t like the way you say it, but I am. Also I am an accountant, an amanuensis, and a cocklebur. Eight to five you never heard the word amanuensis and you never saw a cocklebur.

In The Red Box, he says

I know pretty well what my field is. Aside from my primary function as the thorn in the seat of Wolfe’s chair to keep him from going to sleep and waking up only for meals, I’m chiefly cut out for two things: to jump and grab something before the other guy can get his paws on it, and to collect pieces of the puzzle for Wolfe to work on.

In Black Orchids, he reacts to an insult:

…her cheap crack about me being a ten-cent Clark Gable, which was ridiculous. He simpers, to begin with, and to end with no once can say I resemble a movie actor, and if they did it would be more apt to be Gary Cooper than Clark Gable.

In case you’re wondering if this post was simply an excuse to go through some collections of Archie Goodwin quotations, you wouldn’t be totally wrong…he’s one of the fictional characters I like spending time with most in this world–he’s the literary equivalent of comfort food. So just a couple more great lines I’ve quoted here before:

I would appreciate it if they would call a halt on all their devoted efforts to find a way to abolish war or eliminate disease or run trains with atoms or extend the span of human life to a couple of centuries, and everybody concentrate for a while on how to wake me up in the morning without my resenting it. It may be that a bevy of beautiful maidens in pure silk yellow very sheer gowns, barefooted, singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” and scattering rose petals over me would do the trick, but I’d have to try it.

I looked at the wall clock. It said two minutes to four. I looked at my wrist watch. It said one minute to four. In spite of the discrepancy it seemed safe to conclude that it would soon be four o’clock.

“Indeed,” I said. That was Nero Wolfe’s word, and I never used it except in moments of stress, and it severely annoyed me when I caught myself using it, because when I look in a mirror I prefer to see me as is, with no skin grafted from anybody else’s hide, even Nero Wolfe’s.

Dusted Off: Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner

By HCNewton

On September 13, 2010

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

What’s this? Chick Lit here?

Sure, why not?

I’ve actually read a piece or two lately about how useless the term is, and where people like Franzen or Tropper or Hornby can write about the same themes that appear in the better Chick Lit works and not be dismissed with a label quite as easily. Maybe that’s true, probably is. At the same time, it’s a label that works pretty well most of the time–and like all genres, the better works don’t get the recognition they deserve, but those who are up on things will get rewarded.

Anyway, I do read Chick Lit–at least a couple of titles a year. I’d read more, but I try to be picky. So this weekend, I finally got around to taking my wife’s advice and tried Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed (probably helped by seeing it set forth as an example of the better Chick Lit being ignored in the articles I mentioned). I’m glad I did, and will likely read more of her. Not anytime soon, nothing against her, it’d just take time away from the mysteries I’m binging on lately.

Wow, I’m rambling today, eh?

So on with the book…our protagonist is Candace (but call her Cannie), an entertainment reporter for a Philadelphia newspaper. She’s funny, smart, has good taste, a neat dog and is…well, fat. On the whole, she’s okay with that–she’s healthy and active, and though she’s tried a few diets/diet programs, none of them has stuck. Still, overall, she has a nice life. Until her ex gets a new column in a Cosmo-like mag and starts off with an article called “Loving a Larger Woman” (or something like that). It’s actually a pretty decent piece, fairly considerate–and everyone who isn’t Cannie or her best friend really likes it.

This launches Cannie on a quest for self-improvement–emotionally, professionally, and physically. And honestly, I’m not sure how to go on from here without a lot of spoilers.

There’s a big fairy tale ending here, but it’s quickly derailed into something still unrealistic, but far more satisfying. Funny, insightful, touching (without being obviously sentimental), and charming. It’s a satisfying read (and would probably hold up to a repeated read or two), no matter what label gets attached to it.

Dusted Off: Hello Kitty Must Die

By HCNewton

On September 7, 2010

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

I’ve often felt conflicted about my appreciation for protagonists/leading characters who are murderers–professional hitmen (Peter Brown, Jimmy the Tulip, Martin Blank, Hawk, Jules Winnfield) or serial killers (Dexter Morgan, early Hannibal Lecter), but I can usually get over it because of what their creators do with them. But Angela S. Choi’s Fiona Fi Yu, from Hello Kitty Must Die, doesn’t get to join their ranks in my book. There’s little to commend her, or the book, if you ask me (which is sort of implied if you’ve read this far).

Fi is a successful, thirtysomething Chinese-American lawyer, living with her parents, who stumbles into serial killing (I’ll leave the details to those who read it). An unpleasant childhood, filled with overbearing parents, a strict Catholic school, and one sociopathic friend primes this perpetually single (and proud!) woman for an adulthood that’s even more unpleasant. Until the aforementioned stumbling, anyway. She’s a whiny, selfish, me-first person all the way, with a personality only a parakeet could love. Essentially, she’s a very unpleasant person–beyond the murdering. Sure, she can mix pop culture references into her narrative like Dennis Miller in his prime, but in a post-Tarantino/Whedon/Apatow/Abed Nadir age, is that really so noteworthy? Besides, if Humbert Humbert taught us nothing at all, he taught us that “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”

What about the story itself? It starts off semi-promising, and then goes straight downhill from there. Well, let me amend that. It starts off offensively, but it’s a staged, calculated offensiveness. Choi trades in an actual narrative hook for a hook constructed of shock value. But a few pages later, it gets semi-promising. There’s no redemption of the character–not even growth. Nothing commendable about the events, characters, or cultural commentary.

On the other hand, it was a quick read.

Dusted Off: Zorro by Isabel Allende

By HCNewton

On August 28, 2010

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

It takes a certain kind of skill to write a boring book about a character like Zorro, and apparently, Isabel Allende possesses such. It also takes a certain brashness to pronounce your protagonist as “fun” in the first paragraph–and several times following that–and then fail to produce any real evidence of it.

I was excited about the prospect of this book–a great pulp hero like Zorro in the hands of someone with Allende’s lit cred? It’d have to be great, right?

It took maybe 20-30 pages to disabuse me of that idea. Allende’s narrator sets out to tell the origins of Zorro–starting with events years before his parents met, and then proceeds at the pace (and in a style) fit for a medium-sized biography. We’re less than 60 pages from the end before a 20-something Don Diego de la Vega returns from Spain to California and begins his career as America’s first superhero in earnest. This would be something like making the audience sit through 90 minutes of Aaron Smolinski and Jeff East working on the farm with Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter before Christopher Reeve catches Margot Kidder and the helicopter (and then foils Lex Luthor’s big nuclear missile into the San Andreas fault/real estate scam in 15 minutes).

Again, it read like a biography, and an unimaginatively written one at that. He did this and then he did that. He was this adjective, and was that often. Over and over and over–no showing, plenty of telling. For a couple of paragraphs on either side of a section of his life/escapades, the narrator would break in with a little commentary and bordered on developing an engaging voice, but that would disappear within a page. It had to be the slowest 390 page book I’ve read in years–I kept at it, waiting for her to pull it around once the setup was finished. What a mistake. Save yourself from following in my footsteps.

Dusted Off: Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci

By HCNewton

On August 23, 2010

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, YA/MG/Children's Books

Victoria Jurgen is an honor student, a budding photographer with a heck of an eye, a social misfit, a movie geek (there’s a correlation of the two), who’s nicknamed herself after a SciFi movie character. All this makes her (a goal for her, a criticism for her mother) “boy proof.”

She has no real friends at school–only rivals, acquaintances, and those that she ignores. Until a transfer student rattles her cage, awakening ideas, feelings, and goals she’s not ready for.

Victoria is what Bella Swan could’ve become if she were a bit geekier, and didn’t fall in with the supernatural set. Speaking of ol’ Bella, early on in Boy Proof, there’s a scene involving a transfer student, the only empty seat in class, and the newcomer’s odor that is very reminiscent of a scene from Twilight. IMNSHO, Castellucci pulls if off better than Meyer did.

There’s nothing ground-breaking here plot-wise, but Victoria’s character and voice are so strong, you don’t care. This book is about watching her change and grow. Could the book have been more than that? Sure. Did it need to be? Nope. I wish I could remember what blogpost/tweet/whatever it was that tipped me off to this book, but whatever it was, I’m glad I read it.

Dusted Off: I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

By HCNewton

On June 2, 2010

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Dan Wells has pulled off quite a feat with his debut novel, I Am Not A Serial Killer–he’s written probably the creepiest book I’ve read this year (and since I’ve read 3 Val McDermid novels this year, that’s saying something), but more importantly he got me to care for and root for the creepy protagonist. (I’ll try to stop using forms of the word ‘creepy’ now). He got me to read the book with the hook, and the promised thrill, but he won me over with charm and characters.

Rather than try to summarize the plot, I’ll just embed the teaser here, okay?

That’s really all you need to know about the plot–it refreshingly deviates a bit from standard serial killer plotlines, but that’s not Wells’ strength. It’s in making us care about the individuals surrounding the plot–primarily the “hero.”

I was just thinking the other day about how nice it would be to have a novel about a teenager that wasn’t directed at a Young Adult audience (although there’s nothing about this book that would keep it from being labeled YA) and lo and behold, here one is. John Wayne Cleaver is an atypical teen written convincingly enough to appeal to older readers. The way he deals with his inner “monster”, the serial killer nature he’s known for years is lurking beneath the surface, is reminiscent of Dexter Morgan, but he’s not a knock-off. Unlike Dex, John’s not looking for an outlet for his desire to kill, he’s looking for a way to deny it.

The rest of the cast (both teens and adults) are not as fleshed out, and we could spend more time with all of them, but they feel just as “real”. It will be interesting over the next 2 planned installments to watch them develop and react to John and his struggles (especially as his struggles become more and more overt as I suspect they will).

The exterior conflict in the novel is well done, and has a satisfying conclusion (that had me sitting on the edge of my seat), but the payoff to John’s interior conflict is even better–and somewhat surprising to the reader as well as John.

I’ll pay Wells one of the highest compliments I can think of–I was about 50 pages away from the end when I started to get anxious about getting my hands on the second entry in the series–which doesn’t look like it’ll be available here for another year.

Dusted Off: An Open Letter to Jim Butcher

By HCNewton

On April 14, 2010

In Authors, Fiction, Harry Dresden, Jim Butcher, Urban Fantasy

Dear Mr. Butcher,

I just finished reading your latest Dresden Files novel, Changes and would like to thank you for one of the best reads I’ve had in months. And by thanks I mean to say that I hope you die a slow, agonizing death. Not anytime soon, mind you, it needs to be after you’ve completed the next novel (if not the whole series). Still, I hope it happens, and I hope you dread its coming.

I actually am just kidding, sir. If nothing else, the intensity of my initial reaction speaks to the connection that exists between the great characters you’ve created and your readers. Honestly, you seem like a pretty cool guy, I’d love to buy you a Whopper some time and just chat–‘course what I’d really love is to take that Whopper and shove it so far down your throat that…

maybe I should finish this some other time.

Sincerely,

Dusted Off: Too Many Women by Rex Stout

By HCNewton

On April 13, 2010

In Authors, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin, Rex Stout

Alright, once again, picking up after a pointless break in a surely vain attempt to catch up with my little project, this time looking at the classic, Too Many Women. Like The Silent Speaker, this one gets re-read more than others in my collection, and is still fun to read every time.

The president of the large engineering supply corporation, Naylor-Kerr, comes to Wolfe with an interesting problem. During a recent survey of departments about employee turn-over, an employee of the company is listed as “murdered.” Which is a pretty good reason to no longer come to work, but the idea that one of their employees has been murdered (particularly when the police think he was just a victim of a hit-and-run) is a bit too scandalous for such a fine and upstanding company, and could Mr. Wolfe please rid them of such rumors? Wolfe takes the case, mostly to get Archie out of the office for awhile–they’re getting on each other’s nerves and could use some space. So Archie poses as a personnel consultant and goes undercover.

The first thing Archie notices on his arrival at the offices is that there are a whole lotta women (clerical staff, on the whole) working at this company (see quotation below), enough to ensure that he’s got plenty of incentive to stick around and do a thorough investigation. He’s not there too long before he begins to find evidence that the murder accusation might be well founded after all–and before you know it, there’s another body (shock!). The first victim was some sort of lothario, who didn’t like to go far for his pray, so the suspect list is pretty large. Archie bounces around from attractive female suspect to attractive female suspect, questioning, wining and dining, and all other sorts of verbs, until his boss puts all the pieces together.

This is a breezy novel with plenty to recommend it in matters of style, humor, fun characters and plot quirks. Whether it be the petty bickering between the two stars, the patter between Archie and the women, or Archie having to put up with one individual’s health food nuttiness; the interplay between various characters is definitely more than enough to draw the reader in.

I can’t help but note, each time I read this, how much books like this disprove many of the assumptions we have about this time period–particularly those propogated by groups wanting to imagine the mid-20^th century as some sort of moral oasis

I could reproduce pages and pages of Archie’s descriptions of the staff of Kerr-Naylor to give Stout a chance to strut his stuff, but will leave them to their proper context, just listing two here for a sample:

…as far as space went, it was a room about the size of the Yankee Stadium, with hundreds of desks and girls at them. Along each side of that area, the entire length, was a series of partitioned offices, with some of the doors closed and some open. No stock of anything was in sight anywhere.
One good glance and I liked the job. The girls. All right there, all being paid to stay right there, and me being paid to move freely about and converse with anyone whomever, which was down in black and white. Probably after I had been there a couple of years I would find that close-ups revealed inferior individual specimens, Grade B or lower in age, contours, skin quality, voice, or level of intellect, but from where I stood at nine-fifty-two Wednesday morning it was enough to take your breath away. At least half a thousand of them, and the general and overwhelming impression was of–clean, young, healthy, friendly, spirited, beautiful and ready. I stood and filled my eyes, trying to look detached. It was an ocean of opportunity.

She was not at all spectacular…but there were two things about her that hit you at a glance. You got the instant impression that there was something beautiful about her that no one but you would understand and no one but you could help her out of. If that sounds too complicated for a two-second-take, okay, I was there and I remember it distinctly.