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Faithful readers:

I have decided to switch from blogspot to wordpress and transferred the contents of this blog in their entirety to the new site. I will no longer update this blog.

Please go to the NEW home of Tales from the Bookworm's Lair at:

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Thank you!

Lulu Sale

They're being cute: from now through July 5, take $17 off an order of $76 or more. So not a bad deal at all if you've got multiple books you've been wanting to pick up.

Use code JULY4305 at checkout.

June 2010 Book Acquisitions

Yes, I skipped a couple months worth of acquisitions, but I'm not going to go back and recreate those lists. Here's what I picked up this month:

• The first two volumes of the Complete Jack Vance (originally titled the Compact Vance Integral Edition). For a decade or so I have been kicking myself for not purchasing a copy of the original Vance Integral Edition, but now I'll have every work of fiction Vance -- one of my favorite authors -- has ever written. Woo hoo! This one is a real triumph for me, and I'm very happy to have these in my collection. I can't wait for the remaining four volumes to become available. Expensive, but oh so worth it.
• I bought two books from Amazon (had a gift certificate to cover some of the cost): Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction (a reference work about a subset of the men's adventure genre; expensive, but a must for my collection given my interest in the genre) and The Girl Who Played with Fire, the sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I enjoyed the first one so much that I had to pick this one up. That's unusual because I typically don't like blockbusters, but the first in this trilogy really surprised me with how enjoyable it was.
• I purchased an autographed Polish edition of Glen Cook's The Black Company. No, I'll never, ever be able to read it but hey, for a couple bucks, why not? I've always found it interesting that Cook has such a following in Eastern Europe (of course, I can see that the bleak settings in his works would appeal to Eastern Europeans).

So that's it. I acquired 5 new books and read 20, with a net reduction in my "to be read" list of 15books. Not bad. I'm trying to have a new austerity program with my book purchases (wish me luck with that), though I am going to visit a new nearby used bookstore tomorrow. We'll see what they have. They're located in a dreary mall and I've heard that they're a tad expensive, so I don't have high hopes. But it should be fun, and I'm going to eat some damn fine Chinese food while I'm at the mall. Yum.

Dorchester Publishing $2 Sale

Dorchester Publishing has a number of their titles on sale for $2 each until July 30, including three Hard Case Crime novels (one of which I don't have), some horror, and some thrillers. They also have some westerns and romance novels on sale, but those aren't my bag.

You can read which titles are on sale here.

Crimespree Magazine Back Issues Sale

Forgot to mention this one in my last post. Crimespree Magazine is a great little magazine that is done by lovers of crime fiction for lovers of crime fiction. Editing of articles is...not great. But the content is very good and includes in each issue multiple interviews; lots of articles of crime authors; one or two short stories; tons of reviews of books, graphic novels, and DVDs; a recipe; and drawings for free books (just send in a postcard for each).

They are having a sale on back issues of the magazine from now until the end of July. Buy two or more and they are only $3 each, including shipping (US Only, Outside US we have to charge shipping). Some issues have limited copies left.

Complete list of back issues is found here.

Small Press Sales and Coupons

Here's a new feature for the blog: I'll try to list special sales and coupons for the small press publishers I come across.

First off: You'll have to move fast on this one, as it's only good for two more days, but Potomac Books is having a sale with a lot of their back inventory available for $5/book. Potomac publishes a lot of book on defense policy, intelligence issues, foreign policy, military history, and (oddly) sports. All of those categories are represented in this sale.

Potomac Books

Second up is a set of coupons for Wildside Press. They publish science fiction, fantasy, mystery, crime, and pulp reprints.

Wildside Press

Save $5 on your order of $25 or more. (Use coupon code 5BUCKSOFF.)
Save $10 on your order of $50 or more. (Use coupon code 10BUCKSOFF.)
Save $20 on your order of $100 or more. (Use coupon code 20BUCKSOFF.)

And lastly: use the code FREESHIP all summer (not sure exactly when the coupon will end) on Lulu for free shipping on all orders over $19.95.

Review: Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski

Warning: some plot spoilers are included, though I’m not purposely giving away the plot’s twists and turns.

This is an outstanding example of modern noir, though, oddly, it’s also a time travel novel. Our protagonist Mickey Wade is a laid-off journalist living in Philadelphia – an old, corrupt, seedy city I‘ve always enjoyed visiting – whose personal situation is rapidly heading from bad to worse. He’s got no job, no real career prospects, no money, and he’s forced to move into his hospitalized grandfather’s ratty old walk-up. The book begins with this dark backdrop as we watch the protagonist descend further into the kind of personal hell that’s become all too common in these troubled financial times. Then he discovers that some pills in his grandfather’s medicine cabinet allow him to travel back to the same location in 1972, the year of his birth. That’s when things really start getting weird. The people he encounters there are all intimately tied in with his father’s murder, which he attempts to solve after learning that the version of the story he had heard isn’t exactly what happened. The more he discovers about the past, the messier things get. As with most time travel thrillers, there are a few dangling plot holes that can’t quite be resolved, but generally the treatment of paradox and causation are handled intelligently.

This is a fast-paced, fun read, despite its inherently dark subject matter, and I had a hard time putting it down. Characterization is smooth and the dialogue flows effortlessly. The sense of place is palpable as we watch what had been a fairly prosperous lower-middle-class Philly neighborhood in 1972 slowly transform into a dangerous rathole in 2010. Swierczynski clearly knows his craft as a writer. Evocative full-page illustrations every few chapters add to the experience.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy noir with a science fiction bent. (Not to worry, even if you have a marked allergy to science fiction as I know many crime fiction readers do, I don’t think you’ll object too much here.) This was the first of Duane Swierczynski’s books I’ve read, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Review copyright 2010 J. Andrew Byers

Review: Halloween: New Poems, ed. Al Sarrantonio

While I don’t typically read poetry – I believe this is the first book of poetry in my library, with the exception of some epic poems and sagas – I do love horror and Halloween is my favorite holiday, so this was a natural section for me. This collection contains forty-one poems (Halloween is 10/31, so 10+31=41) by a variety of authors. Not all were familiar to me, but most readers will likely recognize the names Joe Lansdale, Al Sarrantonio, Gary Braunbeck, and Tom Piccirilli, among others.

The poems range in size from a three-line ditty to one long poem that goes on for more than twenty pages. Most poems take up a single page and are loosely grouped by topic: Trick or Treat, Pumpkins, The Season, Ghoulies, Ghosties, etc. They range in tone from light and full of whimsy to dark and bloody. Most, I would say, lean slightly toward the lighter end of the spectrum.

I don’t want to systematically go through all the poems and deconstruct them in this review, so I’ll simply say that the half-dozen by Lansdale clearly stand out head and shoulders above most of the rest (the man truly has a gift for words), so these are my favorites along with the one long poem, “Cap’n Hook,” by Bradley Denton.

I can see myself returning to this one during the Halloween season, so I heartily recommend it to those who love Halloween as a holiday as well as those who would enjoy a lyrical (and slightly whimsical) treatment of horror. Good stuff.

Full disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for a review. This has not influenced my review in any way.

4 stars out of 5

Review copyright 2010 J. Andrew Byers

Recent Acquisitions

I have a bunch of new books (what is the proper collective noun for books?) to report on, so here goes. I picked up a few at a flea market, and a few more from a library book sale, and a few more arrived in the mail. As usual, in no particular order, with a bit of commentary:

Science fiction:

• The Lost by Dan Abnett (The third Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus, set in the Warhammer 40k universe. Man, I love Abnett's writing and characters. Been waiting for this one to come out for a long time.)
• Communion by Whitley Streiber. I enjoy his fiction, and consider this one to be fictional too. I don't believe in UFO abductions personally, but I'm willing to believe that Streiber does.

Fantasy:

• The Anubis Gates by Time Powers. This one, along with the next bullet, were picked up my my friend -- nom de plume of bookstothesky -- at a book show in L.A.
• Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. Also autographed, courtesy of bookstothesky. For generosity and going above and beyond the call of duty, I hereby award him the Silver Tome medal, with distinction. He inadvertently selected literally my two favorite books by these two authors. Sheer happenstance, but it's really, really awesome.
• Changes by Jim Butcher. The latest Harry Dresden book. They're nothing great, but they're fun, light reads, and I always pick them up as soon as they come out. This one was a $10 special from Amazon, possibly because of the ongoing ebook wars. Bring on more of the same, baby!

Sherlockiana:

• A really neat manuscript package of all the "primary source" documents and clues associated with The Sign of Four. Hard to describe, and I didn't know it even existed, but it looks damn fun. I'm going to use it in conjunction with the actual text when I reread it.
• The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes by various. Should be interesting reading about other Victorian detectives.
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by Loren D. Estleman. I already owned this one. Oops.

Crime/mystery:

• Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski. This one showed up randomly in the mail yesterday. And it's autographed. Yes, this is insane. No idea why it was shipped here from the publisher, but I plan to read and review it soon.
• The Big Knockover by Dashiell Hammett. A bunch of short stories and novellas. Should be awesome.

Military fiction:

• War of the Rats by David L. Robbins. Fiction about Stalingrad. I'll save this one for when I need some light-hearted reading to pick me up.
• Emergency Deep by Michael DiMercurio. He was a submariner, so this should be a good sub thriller.

Chess:

• The three little chess books that came in my boxed set from Dover, packaged with a neat little traveling chess set. No, I'm not very good at chess, but I've always been fascinated by the game.

RPGs:

• All three of the Journal of the Traveller Aid Society (JTAS) reprints for the Traveller RPG. They were only $10 apiece on sale, when they're usually $30 each, so I couldn't pass them up. If you're not a gamer, this won't make any sense.

Non-fiction:

• Two memoirs by former CDC virus-hunter-type-dudes. I always enjoy reading this kind of stuff.
• Woodward's fourth book on Bush and Iraq. Unfortunately the copy I picked up has some underlining, etc., in it, but for a $1 hardback, it's hard to pass up.
• The West's Last Chance by Tony Blankley.
• Webster's American Military Biographies. Old and a bit out-dated, but again, great for $1.

So there we have it. Quite a haul since I last updated.

What am I reading?

Here's what I'm reading these days. Note that I always read multiple books simultaneously; can't help myself. I'm not counting the several books I have going at any one time as I work on my dissertation. These are only the books I want to read, not the books I need to read:

• Book I read while eating (my wife is in Germany currently, so I read while eating my three meals a day): War and Decision by Douglas Feith [I am making my way through the massive stack of non-fiction works I have accumulated on Iraq and Afghanistan; note that I dislike Feith a great deal.]
• Book I read while riding my recumbent exercise bike (this has to be relatively mindless because, well, my legs are pumping as fast as I can comfortably pump them for a half-hour every day): Penetrator #16: Deepsea Shootout [I mainly read men's adventure novels while exercising; this one is turning out to be a pretty decent Penetrator.]
• Other books: TNT 4: The Devil's Claw [I am re-reading this completely over-the-top series because I'm writing an article on it for Men of Violence zine and loving every minute of it.]
• Currently on hold: Necroscope 3: The Source [there's nothing wrong with the book, and in fact, I've read it before, but I just don't have a lot of time currently to resume reading the entire Necroscope series; I'll pick it back up when I'm done with the TNT books.]

Recent Acquisitions

These are (hopefully) the last two new books I'll acquire for a while. On my wife's last full day in town, we hit a new/used bookstore in town and I couldn't help but pick these up.

• War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History 1500 to Today by Max Boot [good popular military historian]
• King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman [mix of autobiography and history of the international chess scene; hopefully a lot more on the latter than the former]

Recent Acquisitions

Bought a number of new books while out booking with my wife. A couple new ones (because I had a gift certificate and coupon from Borders) and a bunch of used ones from Edward McKay's in Raleigh. Here we go:

Mystery/Crime:

• The Beekeeper's Apprentice and A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King [been wanting to check this series out for a long time]
• Omnibus: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula / Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by Loren D. Estleman [I am a sucker for Holmes pastiches]
• In the House of Secret Enemies by George C. Chesbro [these Chesbros are both hardbacks, though I've already read and own them in paperback]
• An Incident at Bloodtide by George C. Chesbro

Science Fiction:

• The Electric Church and The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers [these have sounded intriguing for a while now]
• In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker [the author just died and I've recently heard about the series]
• Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds [been wanting to investigate this series for a long time now]
• War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches ed. Kevin J. Anderson [love the original, plus I'm really curious to see what they say Teddy Roosevelt's reaction to the Martian invasion is]

Fantasy:

• Death's Master by Tanith Lee [I have been wanting to read this series for probably 20 years; I'm probably old enough to appreciate it now]
• Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston [read it years ago and gave away my copy, but I think I may appreciate it more now]

Men's Adventure:

• Casca: The Barbarian (#5) by Barry Sadler [one of the few Cascas I don't already own]

Horror/Thriller:

• John Dies at the End by David Wong [been hearing great things about this one]

Non-Fiction:

• Poplorica by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger [I love throwing historical trivia at my students, so this may supply me with some new material]
• Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile [been wanting to check this out for a long time, though I suspect that it seriously overestimates Wilson's importance; also curious what it says about Mike Vickers since I know and have worked with him]

Recent Acquisitions

I try to cut back on the number of new book purchases, I really do. This is especially important because I have a four-digit number of books in my library I intend to read or reread. But sometimes I just can't help myself from buying additional ones.

Here's what I've picked up lately:

• A really neat hardback, illustrated omnibus edition (from B&N) of the first three John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Love these books, and while I already own them all (the Del Rey editions are my favorites because of the awesome cover art), this is the first illustrated edition. Sadly, the entire series is not yet in the public domain (thanks Disney and Sonny Bono; say, Sonny, how're the slopes today?)
• A bunch of Fletch mystery novels by Gregory McDonald (and one of the Flynn mysteries too). Picked these up as a lot on eBay. I've always heard great things about them, and I loved the first Fletch movie. While I don't have the entire series yet, a couple folks on LibraryThing assure me it's ok to read them in any order.

Review: Mixed Blood by Roger Smith

A modern day crime thriller set in Cape Town, South Africa. Comparisons with George Pelecanos’ various efforts set in DC are almost inevitable, as Mixed Blood includes all the elements we’ve come to know and love: relatively ordinary folks, down on their luck, who make a series of very bad choices in their lives, and pay the consequences; a setting where the urban sprawl in which the action takes place is as important as any of the characters; corrupt cops and brutal criminals; grim, bloody violence; a series of apocalyptic confrontations.

Mixed Blood follows a man named Jack Burn, who was involved in a bank heist that ending with Jack and family (pregnant wife and young son) having to give up their outwardly normal lives and flee to South Africa. Oh and Jack’s marriage is dissolving, his son is kidnapped, the South African police begin to pursue him (some for the two million in cash he stole), and he runs afoul of various criminal factions. Then the story gets really interesting.

There are quite an array of minor characters who populate Mixed Blood -- all fascinating in their own right -- but I was initially skeptical that they would all play vital roles. I am pleased to report that they are all well-integrated into the story and help keep the novel’s pace moving rapidly. Aside from Jack, the main lynchpins of the story are the corrupt cop chasing Jack and an ex-con night watchman. Both are fun characters and excellent additions to the story.

Weaknesses of the book: first, the protagonist’s background. It’s only hastily sketched. He was an “Army officer” of some kind, who after some time in Iraq, opened his own security system company. What exactly did he do in the Army? How did that translate into a security system job? How did he develop the fake identities he and his wife use? I’ve known and worked with a heck of a lot of military officers in various specialties and not a one has the necessary skillsets. Guess we just have to suspend disbelief. In any case, the Iraq bit seems tacked on in an effort to tap into the current zeitgeist. Also, we just kind of have to accept that the protagonist has a gambling problem and perhaps a bit of a drinking problem and that’s why he made the very bad decision that led to his current situation. That’s more or less par for the course with most crime fiction, but I always crave a bit more justification for the truly bad decisions that characters make. The finale -- I won’t spoil it for you here, but once you’ve read 50 pages you know how it’s going to end, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing – really had a sense of inevitability, and I guess that’s the point, but the way it happened just kind of came out of nowhere. That could have been finessed a bit. I also would have liked a bit more detail on South Africa. I know essentially nothing about what it’s like there, and while the city was portrayed interestingly, I wanted a lot more setting details. I didn’t quite feel like I knew what all the places described look like, or what daily life was like there. I’m sure if I had more familiarity with it, the details provided would have been sufficient, but for me, I wanted more.

I highly recommend this book if you like modern crime fiction. It’s fast-paced, well-written, and violent. All good things in my book. If you like thrillers and contemporary crime novels, I think you’ll enjoy this one. Heck, you might even learn a little about Cape Town, as I did.

Full disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for a review. This has not influenced my review in any way.

4 stars out of 5

Review copyright 2010 J. Andrew Byers