I haven’t read Osborne until now and this was a fine introduction to the author.
On Java Road is a story of a British journalist whose career seems to be on a steady downward trajectory. It’s a story of a decades-long friendship hitting its largest snag ever, morally, ethically, legally. And most of all, it’s a story of a place on a brink of a radical change. Adrian Gyle is an Englishman in a small faraway colony he’s come to love and call home for the past couple of decades, making a living by writing. It isn’t much of a living but then again, he doesn’t need much, and Java Road is cheap enough for him. Plus, he has his best friend, a local millionaire playboy who makes it possible for Adrian to experience all the finer things in life just by providing company, wingmanship, etc. It’s a comfortable life about to be turned upside down through political and personal upheavals. And it’s told marvelously. Osborne has that unique quality of a natural storyteller. There is a lovely rhythm to his narrative, a terrific elegance to his sentences – why, there are as elegant as a perfectly tailored suit and the analogy is apt for there is a strong (almost peculiarly strong) focus on sartorial matters in this novel. And so, the characters come to life as you read this book…plus, you’ll always know what they are wearing and how good them look in it. But more importantly so, the place comes alive. This novel is a stunning example of place as character and the author obviously sent some time there because he writes about it so vividly, with such attention to detail and colors, flavors, textures…it’s transporting. In a way only the finest literature can be. This novel is, very much, a work of proper, fine literature. It’s a pleasure to read. And it has such a reasonable page count, demonstrating that the author likely knows he’s good at what he does but chooses graciously not to overstay his welcome. Will his protagonist overstay his in a place that may no longer be welcoming to his foreignness, ethics, morals, etc.? Read and find out. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
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Ah, very nice. Volume three returns to the form established by book one and all but abandoned by book two – standalone tales featuring the man audacious enough to wear white to fight crime. At night. A bunch of thrilling tales in this one. And the art is a step up too from the last one and more on par with book one. Fun read.
I enjoyed the first entry in this trilogy much more. In this volume, instead of five fun standalone stories of its predecessor, there is a continuous albeit chapter separated narrative that has to do with Moon Knight’s shrink, her mysterious past and her current lethal ambitions.
I didn’t like this one as much. The story didn’t especially interest and the art was quite crude. Serviceable, but nothing special. Moving onto the next one. On the British isle of Lute people march to a different beat. One that resonates particularly every seven years when a tithe of seven lives must be paid for the safety and prosperity of the islanders.
It’s an ancient tradition dating back to the Druids, but Nina doesn’t know any of it when she marries Lord Treadway and becomes the Lady of the island. She finds out almost the day off and by then, of course, it’s much too late to do anything but ride The Day out. And yes, advertising the novel as The Wicker Man meets Final Destination works, lazy as it may be. Folk is all the rage in genre right now and Lute is a solid entry into the realm. Not especially original, but quite well executed with almost live time intensity of the narrative and a tight focus on the protagonist’s fish-out-of-the-water perspective. It isn’t without faults, chief among them women’s fiction undertones of Nina’s suddenly overexciting love life and a backdrop of WWIII aka Waters Wars with USA and UK on the opposite sides which seems to go nowhere and do nothing outside of providing the reason for the locals to be distrusting on Nina the American. In fac, the novel kind of reads like it’s set during WWII and then texting is mentioned and you go, oh, modern time. Well, modern time with a. twist, but you get it. As for the estrogen overload, well, you kind of have to look at the author’s oeuvre to know that should have been expected. In fact, all things considered, it is understated in Lute. And then there’s the granddaddy of them all – the logic. Logically, would such sacrifices perpetuate in modern times? On an island THAT small? I mean, for a population of 200, seven sacrifices is pretty extreme. And everyone seems quite cavalier about it. But the sacrifices themselves are written nicely, interestingly, and very creepily, so kudos to the author on that. And the ending does the underlying logic good service by introducing much needed modernization to an ancient concept. So overall quite a fun read, entertaining enough, not too long. The cover is underwhelming. Folks, what folks get up to on remote islands is a quite disturbing. But you already knew it. Likely from The Wicker Man. Thanks Netgalley. Of all the reasons to build a house, spite probably isn’t the best of them. The house might come out…angry, hungry, flat-out mean.
But there is such a house in this book. A lean thing built on a hill by a man scorned. A house that terrifies its current owner who, looking to undo some generational damage, is looking for proof of the house’s nightmarish nature. Enter Eric Ross and his two daughters. Eric is a man on the lam, desperate enough to take a job no matter the dangers if the pay if right. And so, he gets to stay at the place and tango with the nightmares of it. This was an interesting and original take on a haunted house genre. So kudos for that. The eponymous place was brought to life nicely - creepily and vividly. The writing was strong throughout, including the character writing. Even the kids. The things that didn’t quite work were minor. Some of it might just be debut novel jitters. The plot eventually got busy in a dizzying way, overcomplicating the story. The author tried to put so much in under 300 pages that he had to resort to exhaustive span of perspectives that shifted constantly. It got especially convoluted toward the end with explanations of the house’s evil nature. Also, some of the pacing dragged in some places. But overall, it was solid enough of a read and showed a lot of potential, so I’m going to round up my rating. Plus, what a great cover. Thanks Netgalley. I read Jeff Lemire’s Moon Knight trilogy and was left thoroughly unimpressed. And I’m a HUGE Lemire fan. It was mostly the Moon Knight himself that didn’t do it for. Or so I thought.
And then, primarily due to our library’s scarcity of choices when it comes to quality e-versions of graphic novels, I read more Moon Night. Once more, a trilogy. But this time done by three different authors. So I read book one and lo and behold, I saw the appeal of the man in white. I even learned why he wears white to fight crime at night - it’s because he’s so kickass, he wants the criminals to see him coming. So where did Lemire go wrong and Ellis go right? Well, for my money, Lemire’s concept took things too seriously concentrating on Moon Knight’s very messed up state of mind, thus making it interesting and moody and dark but also, oddly enough, not that compelling. Or maybe just not what I expect or like in conventional superhero fare. Ellis just kind of had fun with it. Less text, more action. Less inner thoughts, more outer swagger. Plus, the graphic novel comprises five individual self-contained stories, which I really liked as a format for this sort of thing. And it read very quickly. So yeah, I’m gonna read the other ones in this trilogy, see if the quality holds up. Moon me, Moon Knight. Ah, finally. I’ve been waiting to read this book for a while, ever since Netgalley offered a deficient ARC. The first chapter engaged me absolutely and then I had to wait until the publisher reached out and ever so kindly furnished a proper ARC. So naturally the question is…as it worth the wait?
The answer is YES…mostly. The story did take some directions I didn’t quite expect from the first chapter, but hey, don’t you want your books to surprise you? I love con stories. I find them uniquely American, like apple pie and gun violence. I’m sure there are con artists all over the world, but there’s something about the very specifically American blend of stupidity/gullibility, rampant and baseless exceptionalism and individualism and, above all, the greed and exigencies of Mammon that makes the art of con proliferate and thrive here. This is very much a con story. A story of two young men - the proverbial odd couple of charm and brains – that sets up a personality programing cult. Well, technically they start off small, but cults are where the real money are, so they turn to that. And they are killing it too, for a while. But then, like every tower that reaches too far… What gives the story its emotional backbone is the profound, obsessive, and ultimately destructive love the two men share. Or, more specifically, one of them has for the other. The balance is way off between the geek and his Adonis and it ends up being as messy and complicated as such dynamics tend to go. And so, in three classic acts, you get to witness a version of the American dream. The pursuit of green at all costs. All that. And yes, it is compelling and well-crafted and clever. Like a good con. Not sure how much I enjoyed the characters as far as emotional engagements go. There’s something tragically pathetic about the geek and something oddly vague and unfocused about the object of his desperate attentions. But overall, this was definitely a very good read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley. I didn’t love Every Last Fear, but Night Shift was really good. Based on those two, Finlay showed enough promise to make me download the ARC of his latest without even getting into the plot description. I mean, those are mostly similar anyway, aren’t they?
There are only so many scenarios that popular thrillers take on and this is a standard one: a group of friends did something terrible in the past and 25 years later it comes back to haunt them. But…what have they done? Well, from the prologue, it looks like they murdered someone. And now, someone is trying to kill them. Though most of them have drifted out of each other’s lives, now that must ban together once more to figure out what’s going on. To survive. So, if the basic premise isn’t all that original, it’s all about execution. And Finlay executes this one just right, weaving all the separate narratives cleverly both as separate strands and as a cohesive sum total, creating ever-so-slightly clichéd but compelling characters, staying with the dynamic pace throughout. The entire novel kind of reads like one long exciting chase scene, in a good way. Plus, there are some very good plot twists in the end. Done just right, meaning not telegraphed early one or tricked out into implausibility. Overall, lots of fun. A genuinely exciting thriller. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley. I liked Wynne’s debut, Madam, so I was interested in checking out her sophomore effort. And well…what a disappointment. Not just a dud, not just a read that dismays, but the one that actively causes disgust. (more on that later). I’d love to be able to say that you can see the traces of Madam in here and that the book merely missed something, but that would be a lie. Because this obnoxious, tedious, pretentious stab at a murder thriller is a sad excuse and a waste of talent/promise, etc.
Yeah, sorry, this is harsh, but the thing is, I hated this book. In concept more so than in the execution, meaning objectively Wynne CAN write, she just needs stronger stories. Meaning, a tale of a bunch of young girls vacationing with their utter disgusting parents and family friends isn’t that strong of a story. Sure, Wynne dragged it out into one, but she did so by selecting the nastiest aspects of it and dragging it out into a very specific brand of tedium. And now, for some specifics: this is a book about child abuse. (And no, I’m not one of those squeamish readers who only wants tales from the sunny side of life; fact is, I usually prefer the other kind, but…) The adults in this story are TERRIBLE. You have three male friends from way back and their respective families, wives, kids, all of it. All are wealthy English, vacationing in the French chateau belonging to one of them. And yes, it’s set back in the mid 80s and yes, the British are notoriously withholding and polite and all that, but at least one of the adults exhibits active peado behaviour, molesting girl after girl, often in plain view of others, including the kids’ parents and no one says Boo, or if they do, it’s barely a reprimand, more like…Oh, you. It’s just him being himself, etc. And this goes on and on and ON. The bulk of the story takes place in the past and that’s most of the past. Adults bicker, fight, and misbehave and kids cower in terror of them. On repeat. Yey, what fun, Wynne, what fun. And while Wynne can indeed write, here she very deliberately chooses a very tedious, poshly pretentious tone of the upstairs portion of the upstairs/downstairs dynamic that makes the novel read like something decades and decades older than it is. The overall effect is obnoxious (stupid?), like teens who dye their hair grey. Also, because of all the childrens’ perspectives, the novel reads oddly young at the same time. And slow, so very slow. Same thing repeat over and over, after we long established the adults are perverts, and the kids are playing out their own dramas that read like BBC historical tv series at their most drawn-out and maudlin. This entire novel is a stuck up fifth digit holding up a starched crisp serviette. Affected pretension personified. With not enough of a story to excuse itself. Infuriating. Slow. Frustrating. Waste of time. Pass. Thanks Netgalley. Where would superheroes be without their villains? And what greater villain than Lex Luthor?
The thing that makes the bold gazillionaire so interesting, co compelling is that like many great villains he isn’t awake of being one. In fact, in his own eyes he’s a superhero. Which is a pretty awesome premise – the flip of perspective. In Luthor’s eyes, Superman is a dangerous alien who’s helping people for now, sure, but can flip at any moment and then what? And Luthor’s main frustration is that no one else sees Superman that way. So, like many men with a potent superiority complex and more money than they know what to do with, Luthor comes up with a plan to discredit the world’s great superhero in the eyes of the public. It’s a complex and convoluted plan, one that ultimately only serves to reveal the real depravity of its mastermind, but as we watch Luthor brainstorm it, explain and justify his actions and ideas, we are presented with a complex and layered portrait of a complex and layered man. Luthor here is moral but it’s a morality of his own making. Flawed but compellingly so. Even romantic albeit in a kind of frightening way. In other words, a fascinating character to read about. So the writing is aces. Combine that with an absolutely epic looking artwork and you got a great book. Recommended. |
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