Chadzilla ROARS!!!

Star Trek New Frontier Book Four: End Game - by Peter David

Thanks in large part to DVD and Tivo, I can watch a fair amount of TV shows without suffering the hassles of having to watch broadcast TV.  I can also pick and choose when to watch an episode of a show, according to my own personal schedule, rather than having to adjust my schedule to catch an episode of a show that I do not want to miss.  I am also old enough of a show to remember even those pre-VCR days, when, if you missed an episode of a show, you could really and truly miss it; for it might not be rebroadcast, much less released for syndicated reruns.

While these changes in technology are a distinct improvement over my viewing options of old, I can still fall behind and miss out on "my shows," losing track of the serial threads running through the various characters and story arcs.  Which is what I discovered to have happened when I started tearing through End Game, the concluding chapter in Peter David's four part serial introduction to his popular, and ongoing, Star Trek TNG tie-in spin-off series, New Frontier. There were moments when I was just lost amongst all the political backstabbing and skullduggery, for I had allowed far too much reading time to elapse between installments. This really is a series that would be best enjoyed as one book, not as four separate ones.

The definite highlights in this chapter were the scenes involving Si Cwan and Zak Kebron in captivity.  I must admit that Kebron the Brikar has become my favorite character in the series.  The low points were the tiresome arguments over that pesky Prime Directive of non-interference (and the non-surprise that whether or not it should be invoked as a reason NOT taking action is an entirely subjective one, rather than an objective one) and the rushed and oversimplified manner in which the hostage situation that was The Two Front War's cliffhanger was resolved.

Then again, the book's climax features what appears to be a giant Anti-Matter Space Buzzard.  Something that David dubs The Great Bird Bird of the Galaxy.  It is impossible for me to dislike, and thus not recommend, a book that features a one-two in-joke.  Although I doubt that Peter David intended to make any reference to The Giant Claw. Or did he?

Creature from the Black Lagoon: Time's Black Lagoon - by Paul Di Filippo

The year is 2015 and Global Warming is changing the Earth's ecosystem.  Forward thinking scientist Brice Chalefant believes that humanity's long term survival depends on its adapting to a more amphibious state of being.  Big fan of Waterworld, I guess.  Although his theory is not embraced by the scientific community, Tarquin Hasselrude, an elderly and highly respected scientist, shares with Chalefant the startling discovery of an honest to goodness Gill-Man in the upper Amazon in 1954...

There's more to it than that, stuff involving time machines and ancient Gill-Men and women from the stars, I think, settling Devonian era Earth, but I didn't make it that far.  I gave up at the start of Chapter Five.

When Dark Horse books first announced that they would be publishing a series of novels based on the classic Universal Monster movies of yesteryear (Frankenstein and his Bride, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon) I was every bit as excited and I was intrigued.  What better place to start, I thought, than with my all-time favorite Universal Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon?

I went into Creature from the Back Lagoon: Time's Black Lagoon hoping for a loving retro-style return to the "Lost World" pulp adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs and others.  What I got instead was a mix of shoddy futurist dystopia tinged science-fiction, clumsy plotting, and stick figure sketching that was somehow meant to pass for character development.  Not once in the sixty pages I managed to wade through did I find a single solitary moment of 50s B-movie fun.  Where were the larger than life heroes?  The smart talking heroine that delivers coffee to the LTLHs before getting carried off, kicking and screaming, in the arms of the Creature?

Come to think of it, where was the Creature?  Yes, I know, there was that prologue featuring a "smart and gentle" Creature fleeing from the "Coarsened Ones".  But that wasn't the Creature of the 1950s movie series and that, more than anything, is what I wanted.  I wanted Beauty, Beast, and a square jawed Man of Action that fights the Beast to save the Beauty for himself.

I know enough about write-for-hire projects to not lay the blame entirely at author Paul Di Filippo's word processor.  Whoever was given editorial control over how the property was handled by the owner of the rights to the Creature (which would probably be someone representing the commercial interests of Universal) is to blame for allowing the Creature to be mucked up this badly, and mucked up badly it was.  I tossed Creature from the Black Lagoon: Time's Black Lagoon back.  It can sleep with the fishes as far as I am concerned.

Dirty Harry #11: Death in the Air - by Dane Hartman

"Dirty" Harry Callahan's investigation of a young woman's murder at a busy BART station uncovers a rogue government scientist's experiments in germ warfare.

For a short while, the first three quarters, say, I had my hopes up that I had cracked open a Dirty Harry novel that was not only fun to read, but was actually going to be a Dirty Harry story that felt like a Dirty Harry story.

No such luck.  The novel goes off the rails in the last forty to fifty pages, right around the time that Harry decides to skin a man alive.  Stepping on a gun wound to save the life of an abducted girl, an event from the first Dirty Harry film, that I could buy.  But skinning a man?  That seems a bit over the top, even for a cop as tough and no nonsense as Dirty Harry Callahan.

But while my hopes were up, I was enjoying Death in the Air for the disposable escapism that it was.  The opening crime and action set pieces are quite close in tone to the film series that inspired the spin-offs.  Harry even does his "Did I fire six shots or only five" schtick and the author (Dane Hartman was a publisher created pseudonym) manages to get the "Do you feel lucky, punk" quote right this time around.

The rest of the book is really just a protracted action sequence littered with gun fights, fist fights and various chases that alternate between Harry doing the chasing or Harry getting chased.  The trick is to keep the all the non-stop action rooted in something that feels true to the source material.  It's a trick that this tie-in almost pulled off.  Close, but no 44. Magnum this time around.

Friday the 13th (#2): Hell Lake - by Paul A. Woods

After he is executed, the serial killer Wayne Sanchez - a.k.a. the Devil Boy, so-called for his penchant for carving pentagrams into his numerous victims - finds that Hell IS a bad place to be.  The corner of the Underworld he has been consigned to is crowded with countless psychotics and perverts, all of which seem happy to take their boundless frustrations out on one another at a moment's notice.  The only good thing that could be said about Hell is that Sanchez finally gets to meet one of his beloved idols, Jason Voorhees.  Sanchez's other idol, the Big D itself, is noticeably absent.

Sanchez and Voorhees manage to bond and, before the boredom of eternal damnation can drive the former Devil Boy mad, Sanchez convinces Jason to lead a revolt to escape Hell.  They are successful and, on Friday, January 13th, 2006, the damned souls of innumerable serial killers, rapists and perverts erupt from the once placid waters of Crystal Lake.

Okay, what can I say about Friday The 13th #2: Hell Lake that I haven't already said about each and every other Friday the 13th / Jason X tie-in novel published by Black Flame?

While the novel's central idea is certainly an interesting one brimming with potential, it does not marry all that well with the established Friday the 13th mythology.  Also not helping is how Jason disappears for large chunks of the story and when he does appear, he does not behave all that much like Jason.

After starting off the story and getting the revolt of the damned underway, Wayne Sanchez also disappears from the story.  He does not resurface until the end, when he and several other characters can have their "just desserts" moments of poetic justice.  Why go to all the trouble of introducing and developing a strong character, only to have that character vanish and NOT interact with the protagonists?  It makes for a weak and fragmented story.  The various plot threads should come together into a tight little know of tension, not continue to slither off in opposite directions.

Then there is another, quite different problem with the story.  Jason has routinely returned from the dead since Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. Why does he need a go nowhere friendship with Wayne Sanchez to motivate him?  Hell, the simple fact that there is a sex, drug and rock n' roll fueled rave being held on the shore of Crystal Lake on his birthday would be more than enough to get the murdering behemoth stomping back to his killing grounds.

Oh, and why is his mother absent?  Shouldn't she also be in Hell, considering the body count she racked up?

Then there is the fact that this book just drags on and on and on...which brings me to my previous criticisms of these Black Flame tie-ins.  They're just too damn long and overwritten.  Paul A. Woods spends way too much time over developing characters and over describing details because there is a completely uncalled for 90,000 plus word count to be met.  Yet again a potentially fun story (and this story could have been a Hell of a lot of action packed fun, all that was missing was a wise cracking demon, or two) is drug out to a maddening snapping point.  This book not only over stays its welcome, it eventually dies from the morbid obesity of its excessive word count and then begins to rot.  Eventually the only thing it managed to accomplish was to stink up my inner Reading Place.

Star Trek New Frontier Book Three: The Two-Front War - by Peter David

Si Cwan and Zak Kebron fight to escape the deadly snare that has entrapped them.  Calhoun is distrustful of the generous offer made by a scavenging species.  Dr. Selar demands a special favor from Soleta.

The third part of the four book set that launched Peter David's popular Star Trek New Frontier series bubbles with action, excitement, and healthy doses of the author's trademark humor.  It's terrific reading, if taken as part of a larger whole, which it is.  But the book is as far removed from a stand alone novel as it could get.  So any and all newcomers to the series will be hopelessly lost if s/he should choose The Two-Front War as the book to start the series with.  Stuff happens, you know?

That having been said, David breaks in some of his supporting cast members with some rousing action set pieces (the Si Cwan/Zak Kebron section) and more than a few intense emotional fireworks displays (the Dr. Selar/Soleta section).  The former, as entertaining as it is, is pretty much your average buddy action movie arc.  Si Cwan and Kebron dislike each other intensely, but eventually learn to work together and even manage to bond...a little bit.  Although he has not, to my somewhat limited Trek knowledge, appeared in any "canonical" Trek adventure (i.e. in an actual episode or film) Zak Kebron is fast becoming one of my all time favorite Star Trek characters.  The dude is awesome.

Then there is the emotional journey that Dr. Selar and Soleta undertake.  For all of their supposed unemotional aloofness, Vulcans always seem to be struggling with some serious repressed emotional issues.  Still waters running deep, I guess.  Deep and murky.

It all "ends" with yet another series of life and death cliffhangers for Calhoun and his crew.  Come now, you didn't think that any plot threads would be tied up just yet, did you?  There is still one more book to go.

I should be cracking it open in a week, perhaps two.

Dirty Harry #12: The Dealer of Death - by Dane Hartman

After James William Gallant escapes from prison he has only one goal in mind, to torture and kill the man who put him there.  That man is Inspector Harry Callahan.

Who else would it be?  Lieutenant Bressler?  (If you don't know who Lieutenant Bressler is, then stick a disc of the original Dirty Harry or The Enforcer, the second sequel, into your DVD player and give it a spin.)  Come to think of it, that might make for an interesting story.

As I slogged through The Dealer of Death I kept asking myself a question: Is this book supposed to be funny?  Depending on where the reader is at any given moment, that answer could just as easily be yes as it could be no.  There were plenty of moments sprinkled throughout the book where the author (Dane Hartman was a house name) captured the wry humor found in most of the Dirty Harry films.  But then there were far too many parts where the writing was simply sloppy or struck the wrong tone.  Dirty Harry is not the type of guy that would say, "Your quarrel's with me."

I was also amused by things that, as an almost lifelong resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I should not have been amused by.  Like the faked suicide at the beginning of the book.  Gallant leads the SFPD on a merry chase through downtown San Francisco and Golden Gate Park before running his stolen car off of a cliff.  I guess I wasn't around for the massive earthquake that lifted the Richmond and Sunset Districts a hundred or so feet above sea level and then sank both the Great Highway and Ocean Beach into the briny deep.  That must have been one hell of a ride, though.

Of the Dirty Harry novels that I have recently read, The Dealer of Death comes the closest to reading like an actual Dirty Harry movie.  Harry stays local throughout the story, busting heads and blasting bad guys, which gets him into the usual troubles with both the press and his superiors.

Although the novel hits the proper Dirty Harry story beats, the book's rhythm is way off.  Harry winds up investigating two separate crimes that, thanks to the brevity of the Category Series format, turn out to share a common link with Gallant.  He also romances the widow of the man Gallant murdered, which is the crime Gallant was serving time in prison for.  But this "romance" is ignored to the point that calling it underdeveloped would be implying that the author spends anytime whatsoever exploring Harry's love life.  Doesn't happen.  Then there are the Idiot Plot moments.  You know, when the characters have to act like idiots in order for the plot to work?  That happens a lot.  I know this book takes place twenty-five or more years ago, but there was enough ballistics and forensic investigation going on that Gallant's "Master Plan" would have been uncovered in a matter of days, and this book evidently takes place over several weeks.  Worst of all is that Harry doesn't act like Harry.  He's way too laid back about someone breaking into his girlfriend's apartment and stealing his firearm.  Then there's the bit where he is racing to save the day and stops for a cheeseburger and a cup of coffee.  That is not Dirty Harry Callahan.  That is Sissy Larry Loserman.

The Dealer of Death was the last in Warner's "Men of Action Books" Dirty Harry spin-off series, but it is far from one of its best.  It's a good thing that there are several more Dirty Harry books that I have yet to read, because I would have hated to finish the series off with this book souring my Dirty Harry memories.

Star Trek New Frontier Book Two: Into the Void - by Peter David

Captain Calhoun and the crew of the U.S.S. Excalibur embark upon their humanitarian mission of mercy into the void left by the collapse of the Thallonian Empire.

If I tried to write anymore detailed of a plot synopsis than the above sentence it would probably take me more time to do so than it took me to actually read the book.  House of Cards, the first novel in the New Frontier spin-off series, was all introduction and set-up, climaxing with a rather frustrating cliffhanger.  Because the story seemed to have finally gotten started when the book "ended."

Into the Void introduces several more characters and set-ups plenty of dramatic conflict, but this time all the exposition unfolds in a fast moving storyline that ends on yet another cliffhanger.  The difference  between the two is that the first one felt like a chapter break cliffhanger, while this one is a stronger section break cliffhanger.  The kind that usually caps the ending of a Book One or Book Two section, not just a chapter break in a far larger and complex story.  Void's "How the hell will they survive long enough to get themselves out of this mess?" closing curtain had me charging over to my bookcase to place Book Three of the series (The Two Front War) at the top of my Next On Deck short stack.

I really can't give the book a higher compliment than that.

ALIENS: DNA War - by Diane Carey

Rory Malvaux is a cop that needs to not only get out of town, he needs to get off the planet itself.  His brutal dispatching of a man that had killed a fellow officer and his family has landed Malvaux in serious trouble, so he takes the job of legal officer on a forty-odd months round trip space mission.  The mission?  Collect a scientific team stationed on Rosamund 6, a habitable planet that has become infested with the dreaded alien Xenomorphs.  Extracting the team proves to be more than a bit of a problem...

Diane Carey's Aliens: DNA War was everything that I had hoped it would be and almost nothing that I dreaded it could be.  It's a short and simple siege story that, despite a chaotic and shaky start, delivers plenty of thrills, chills, and brutal, bloody action.  It does James Cameron's seminal sequel proud.  Well, it does if your only criteria for a good ALIENS book is one that doesn't skimp on the chest-bursting, acid splattering action; and that is precisely where my quality line is drawn.

Character and plot wise, the book offers up the usual collection of space opera/B-movie character types (rogue cop with an attitude, colonial marines, nutball scientist with delusions that she is God incarnate, etc) and runs them through a plot wherein they all have to behave just so in order for the story to work.  There were several times where I could sense a contrivance to get the story from plot point B to plot point C.  But Carey had done such a solid job of constructing her plot that my sense never blossomed into certainty.

Michael Jan Friedman's Aliens: Original Sin, the first book in DH Press's relaunch of their ALIENS series, left me cold.  But Diane Carey's Aliens: DNA War, the imprint's second title offering, had me begging for more.  It was an excellent trip to the literary equivalent of the Drive-In.  I can only hope that my next visit will be every bit as much fun as this one.

Star Trek New Frontier Book One: House of Cards - by Peter David

The Thallonian Empire has collapsed and the worlds it once ruled with an iron fist are in chaos.  Refugees from the former Empire flood the Federation outpost Deep Space Five and the U.S.S. Enterprise, under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, has been ordered into the region to both assist in the care of the refugees and to help facilitate the bare beginnings of peace neogiations.

With the situation rapidly deteriorating in the former Empire - tribal hatreds causing civil wars on some planets, confused leaders arguing to the point of deadlock on others, and numerous would be tyrants brutally attempting to seize control on the rest - the Federation representatives reluctantly agree that a starship, but only a single starship, should be sent into the wreckage of the former Empire to investigate, report, offer humanitarian aid where needed, and, if requested, assist in the rebuilding process via peaceful means.

The only question remaining is who will command this starship?  Captain Picard believes he knows the perfect man for the job..

The first book in Peter David's long running New Frontier series is all set-up and no payoff.  The book does not end, it just stops, tacking a somewhat irritating To Be Continued tag at the bottom of the closing cliffhanger.  It's also a book best suited for those with solid knowledge of the Star Trek universe; something I do not, so I felt lost for short stretches of time.  But none of those complaints can keep me from looking forward to cracking open the next book in the series.  Peter David is not only a gifted storyteller, but he also has the enviable gift of being able to bring characters that are not his own to three dimensional life.  I just wish that Pocket books had released the first few books in the series as one novel, rather than as a smash and grab serial.  It would have made for more satisfying reading, I think.

Star Trek The Lost Era: 2360: Catalyst of Sorrows - By Margaret Wander Bonanno

Catalyst of Sorrows is set in the year 2360, sixty-seven years after the presumed death of Captain James T. Kirk aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-B in Star Trek - Generations, and four years before the launch of the Enterprise-D in Encounter at Farpoint.

Admiral Nyota Uhura, former senior communications officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise-B and now head of Starfleet Intelligence, receives a cryptic message from beyond the Neutral Zone.  An unidentified virus with a 100% mortality rate is killing Romulans and Federationists alike along the Neutral Zone.  Racing against time and an unknown and lethal enemy, Uhura dispatches a covert away team consisting of Lieutenant Benjamin Sisko, Lieutenant Tuvok, Dr. Selar and Zetha, the Romulan street urchin that first alerted Admiral Uhura to the viral killer that will come to be called Catalyst.

The gang is certainly all here in this final entry in the bestselling Lost Era series that bridges the seventy plus year gap between the 23rd century set original series and the 24th century placed Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager spin-offs.  Uhura and Dr. Leonard McCoy (TOS), Dr. Beverly Crusher and her son Wesley (Next Gen), Benjamin Sisko (DS9), Tuvok and Selar (Voyager) and a handful of cameos from various episodes and films that contain elements or plot lines that are relevant to Margaret Wander Bonanno's futurist spy story.  Those looking for epic space battles and lots of fisticuff action should look elsewhere, Catalyst of Sorrows is a mystery rooted in the Cold War era storytelling style of John Le Carre.  Bonanno not only states such in the Acknowledgments section, she also makes a direct reference to Le Carre's Cold War classic The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and starts off the book with a quote taken from A Perfect Spy.  It makes for a refreshing change of pace.

While the story is a good one, I don't know if it's a good fit for Star Trek.  I had a hard time seeing the young Benjamin Sisko in the novel growing into the Captain of Deep Space Nine.  I also had a hard time buying Uhura has the head of Starfleet Intelligence.  But far stranger things have happened in the Trekverse.  The only series characters that felt right to me were McCoy, Crusher and Tuvok.  Then again I am not what you could call the most avid of Trek fans.  A couple of episodes every few months or so and the occasional media novel to pass the time are adequate for my needs.  Catalyst of Sorrows met them quite nicely.

The Kolchak Papers: Grave Secrets - by Mark Dawidziak

Reporter Carl Kolchak, having lost his job at I.N.S. for trying to expose the rather unique safety hazards lurking deep within the Merrymount Underground Storage Facility, located beneath the city of Chicago, now works for the tabloid Los Angeles Dispatch (a.k.a. the Disgrace).  While the times (it is now 1992) and Kolchak's stomping grounds may have changed, Kolchak's ability to uncover ghosts, goblins, and all manner of unpleasant and nightmarish beasties has not.  Neither has the reporter's tendency to step on all the wrong toes, which he promptly does at the press conference regarding the murder of land baron Glen Gilmore. 

Kolchak smells a cover-up, but his aforementioned toe stepping gets him banished to Goodland, Ohio, where he is to do some simple background research on Gilmore's recent housing development project.  What Kolchak uncovers, however, is the stuff of nightmares.

Mark Dawidziak's The Kolchak Papers: Grave Secrets, originally published in 1994 (and now out of print), was intended to be the premiere novel in an all new series of original Kolchak novels.  Things did not go as planned and the second novel, The Kolchak Papers: Grand Inquisitor by Doug Murray, failed to appear.  I do not think that it was for lack of trying.  Dawidziak's novel is a fun read, it's just doesn't contain the characterization of Kolchak that I cut my budding fan boy teeth on.  This might have to do with Dawidziak's being a far bigger fan of Jeff Rice's original novel, and the two TV movies it spawned, than the fun-yet-flawed TV series I remember so fondly.  Janos Skorzeny and Dr. Richard Malcolm, the villains from The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler, respectively, are mentioned more than once.  However, with the exception of a passing reference to Kolchak: The Night Stalker's final episode (the aforementioned Merrymount matter), the television series might as well have never existed. 

But that obvious bias doesn't stop Dawidziak from bringing back some of the series beloved characters.  Ron "Uptight" Updyke, Ms. Emily, and even Gordy "The Ghoul" Spangler have all managed to follow Kolchak from Chicago to Los Angeles.  Ditto the memorable Janie Carlson and Kirsten Helms, characters from Kolchak's sophomore adventure, The Night Strangler.  Oh, and some guy named Vincenzo shows up a time or two, as well.  The Kolchak Papers: Grave Secrets is just one, big happy reunion.  For the Kolchak fan, that is.  Carl might disagree, although he does love having Ms. Emily around.

Story wise, Dawidziak's novel doesn't rise too far above the level of the show he loves to dismiss.  (Just read his excellent book The Night Stalker Companion: A 25th Anniversary Tribute and you will see what I mean.)  I could see where potential commercial breaks could be placed in the story.  Since Secrets is a trim 200 hundred pages, the mystery Dawidziak concocts to fill those pages doesn't really give Kolchak all that many red herrings to chase, and the story seems to want to set up its climax within pages of Kolchak's arrival in Ohio.  The Kolchak Papers: Grave Secrets reads as a three act play that somehow misplaced its middle section.  While the book is a blast for the Kolchak fan, it will, more or less, leave those unfamiliar and/or curious about the character scratching their head and wondering why this odd and out of date character is so damn popular.

Jason X: The Experiment - by Pat Cadigan

My entry in the Final Girl Friday the 13th Blog-A-Thon:

Jason Voorhees has crashed onto Earth II and sunk to the bottom of Veronica Lake.  (Yes, I know.)  But his miraculous healing capabilities, combined with the remaining nano mechanisms in what is left of his charred body, quickly begin to rebuild the bigger, stronger and deadlier Uber-Jason.

When restored to full health, the Uber-Jason strides out of Veronica Lake (sigh) and immediately goes on another killing spree that wipes out a brand new nuclear power plant.  However the radiation from the plant's core causes an overload in the nano mechanisms filling Uber-Jason's body and renders him immobile.  The military, seeing the defensive potential in this strange mutant, ships Uber-Jason off to a secret research facility so that his healing capabilities might be harnessed and used to create unstoppable, unkillable soldiers.  But all the military has really done is lock future victims in with an unstoppable, unkillable killing machine that is about to wake up...

The old saying "The more things change, the more they stay the same" is proven true once again as novelist Pat Cadigan wastes no time restoring the tired-and-true Friday the 13th status quo to the supposedly futuristic world of Jason X.  Although it is some 450 years in the future, and humanity has had contact with alien life forms, the way of life, and technology and slang, of Earth II is no different from that of 21st century Earth I.  Talk about arrested development.  Considering all the new directions that could, and should, have been taken, this book is just a big, lumbering step backward that utterly wastes the pulpy fun potential that was laid out in the source film and Cadigan's own novelization of it.

The Experiment also falls victim to the same problem that befell Church of the Divine Psychopath (an entry in the publisher's Friday the 13th spin-off series), in that it is just too freaking long.  The narrative strolls when it should be sprinting, and its sub-plots - due in large part to the overall nature of the source material - meander needlessly before terminating in an anti-climatic dead end.  Even worse, the overly padded story reads like two stories (the first being the events at the nuclear power plant, the second the experiment of the title and its inevitable aftermath) that were stapled together to fill up the utterly unnecessary 90,000 word count.  What these books need more than anything is for an editor to go Jason Voorhees on the word count and get them down to the quick n' dirty fun style read they're meant to be.

Batman: The Ultimate Evil - by Andrew Vachss

When Gotham's Dark Knight vows to take down an organization that provides child molesters with victims, he discovers a painful link to his own past.

Although it might be a Batman novel on the surface, beneath all the pulp novel adventure The Ultimate Evil is 100% Andrew Vachss.  Those familiar with Vachss's Burke novels already know what that means.  If you have yet to read one of Vachss's books, then let me just say that The Ultimate Evil lives up to its title.  The story follows Batman down a very dark path, one that takes the reader into the darkest regions of the human heart with Vachss fearlessly shining a light on the sleazy predators that prey on children.  But the grotesque events are far from being mere fiction.  An appendix educates the reader on just how real the evil the fictional Batman has fought is.  As sickening as they are, none of the descriptions of child abuse and the methods/behavior of child predators that appear in any of Vachss's novels are fictional.  It's all real.

As far as the overall tone of the book, it is considerably lighter than the blacker than pitch Burke novels and, for the Vachss curious, the novel makes for an excellent starting point for those that have yet to read "pure" Vachss and "pure" Vachss, as dark and nasty as it can be at times, is essential reading.  Vachss's books are bursting with enraged energy, a strong sense of both purpose and, most important of all, justice.  The Ultimate Evil is no different.

Diagnosis Murder #8: The Last Word - by Lee Goldberg

The sociopath serial bomber Carter Sweeney, the man responsible for destroying Community General Hospital, calls for a meeting with Dr. Mark Sloan.  Against his better judgment, and unable to ignore his powerful need to question and investigate, Sloan agrees to the visit.  Sweeney proceeds to taunt Sloan, painting their relationship as one of like minds rather than polar opposites, and offers to take Mark to lunch after he gets out of prison.  Sloan dismisses the invitation as an empty threat and leaves.

But shortly after that meeting Sloan's career, both as a doctor and as an amateur sleuth, is not only ruined, but so are the lives and careers of those closest to him.  Carter Sweeney's offer of lunch was no empty threat.

With Diagnosis Murder #8: The Last Word author Lee Goldberg takes to the status quo of the series the way Godzilla takes to Tokyo.  He leaves no recognizable landmark standing, completely obliterating the status quo.  By the story's end everything and everyone in the life of Dr. Sloan has been destroyed; the only question that remains unanswered is whether or not they will pick up the pieces of their lives and try and rebuild, or will they simply move on to other pastures.  While this makes for a rather powerful ending, it doesn't make for an entertaining piece of a escapist fiction.  This is dark stuff indeed and a major change of pace for the series.  Instead of enjoying the spectacle of Dr. Sloan and friends solving yet another mystery, the reader gets a long and lingering look at the utter destruction of these beloved characters and, because of issues in my personal life, I found it to be a painful and unpleasant reading experience.  I don't think that it's a bad novel, far from it, it's just so different from what has come before that it caught me off guard. 

This time around Lee Goldberg takes the gloves off and does more than put Mark Sloan in a coma, he beats him bloody and senseless.  Watching Sloan rebound and regroup in an atypical manner completes the deconstruction of both the character and the series.  The Last Word truly is.

Battlestar Galactica: Sagittarius Is Bleeding - by Peter David

FTL jumps have become death traps for the rag tag fleet, because the Cylons have managed to get the exact location of each jump before it is made.  How are they doing it?  President Laura Roslin is troubled by violent dreams and hallucinations featuring the pregnant Cylon, Sharon Valerii, and the cryptic statement, Sagittarius Is Bleeding.  A young boy, one who is considered a friend by most of Galactica's Viper pilots, sneaks in to see Sharon and is discovered talking with her, leading to accusations of him being a Cylon.  If all that weren't enough, an End Times theological cult from Sagittaron has begun to plead its case to become recognized as the Fourteenth Colony.

It's just another week on the Battlestar Galactica.

Peter David has done it again.  He has taken characters and situations that are not his own and used them to construct a suspenseful and entertaining novel that not only captures the dramatic rhythm of the show his book is spinning off from, but that can also easily stand on its own merits as an original novel.  Even if you're not a fan/viewer of the new Battlestar Galactica (and you really should be, the show is excellent) chances are very good that you will still enjoy Sagittarius Is Bleeding.

Like the show upon which it is based, Sagittarius Is Bleeding contains several story lines that, as they unfold, not only become tightly intertwined, but also function on different levels.  Author Peter David also doesn't shy away from the show's pointed political commentary.  The illegal wiretapping of the Galactica is an integral part of the story and, just as it happens on the show itself, both sides of the moral/ethical argument are presented.  What results from that action, of course, is completely different from the goal Adama and Tigh had originally set for themselves.  Nothing in the new Battlestar Galactica is ever as simple as good and evil, black and white.  It's a morally muddled world, which is fertile ground for interesting stories.  Right now, I can only hope that Sagittarius Is Bleeding is but one of many more to come.

Spider-Man: Secret of the Sinister Six - by Adam-Troy Castro

Spider-Man and New York City have had barely enough time to recover from the Sinister Six's Day of Terror (the events of which unfold in the novel Revenge of the Sinister Six) when the Six unleash a deadly attack against a local conglomerate's research facility.  This assault is the final task in the Gentleman's terrifying plan to utterly destroy the city that never sleeps, as well as the web-slinger that tries so gallantly to protect it from harm.

Secret of the Sinister Six is an entertaining and action filled conclusion to the story that began with The Gathering of the Sinister Six (which I have yet to read) and continued through the aforementioned Revenge of the Sinister Six (which I have read).  As was the case with Revenge, Secret is just one long action sequence between Spidey and the various members of the Six (Dr. Octopus, The Vulture, The Chameleon, Mysterio, Electro, and Pity) in and above the continually trashed streets of New York City.  But the stakes are far higher this time around than they were during the mere distraction that was the Day of Terror.  The Gentleman has managed to get his hands on two items that, when used together, will effectively erase all of western civilization from New York City.  If that were not enough, Spidey is tormented by the mystery of the obviously troubled Pity.  Does she share a connection beyond that of the Gentleman's contemptible need to inflict painful revenge not only on those that have crossed (or merely annoyed) him, but their children as well?  Could Pity actually be Peter Parker's sister?  More importantly, can she be saved from the Gentleman's monstrous mind control?  Spidey's day long battle (in a fierce blizzard no less) has a bit more emotional punch to it than his usual super hero shenanigans.

Secret, like Revenge (and, I assume, The Gathering), is filled with references to other non-comic book related media. The novel's nods to Marathon Man, The Silence of the Lambs, and Scooby-Doo were the ones that stuck out for me, but I am sure that there were more than a few others.  This time around it didn't bother me quite as much, perhaps it was just my knowing what to expect from Castro's narrative when I cracked the book open.  As before the action packed story won me over and I think that Spider-Man's many fans will enjoy this finale to the Sinister Six trilogy.

Murder, She Wrote: A Little Yuletide Murder - by Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain

It's Christmastime in Cabot Cove and Jessica Fletcher is looking forward to spending the holiday at home.  She's also making plans to participate in the town's famous Christmas Festival.  But then someone goes and puts a bullet in the head of Cabot Cove's resident Santa Claus.  Who is the Grinch that killed Santa?

A Little Yuletide Murder is an okay little mystery, but Jessica Fletcher's reluctance in pursuing an investigation robs the book of much needed suspense.  If a story's narrator isn't all that eager to find out out who killed Cabot Cove's beloved Santa Claus, then why should the reader?  The book does have a nice comfort level, however.  There are numerous scenes of Jessica sharing a pleasant meal and conversation with her friends, with meal preparation sometimes playing an important part.  There are also plenty of scenes that involve Christmas shopping, card writing, and party planning.  All of which gives the book a real lived in quality that brings both the town of Cabot Cove and the people who live there to vibrant life.  Yet that vibrancy doesn't distract from the fact that Jessica Fletcher doesn't do a whole lot of detecting this time around.  Her investigative technique seems to consist of her simply being a gossip, which is not the best way to generate a suspenseful narrative.  A Little Yuletide Murder may leave some Murder, She Wrote fans feeling like they received a lump of coal for Christmas.

Dirty Harry #10: The Blood of Strangers - by Dane Hartman

A bomb explodes in the San Francisco International Airport, killing and wounding dozens.  Two police officers are shot dead, murdered by the fleeing terrorists.  Now the SFPD, the FBI, and the CIA are teaming up to bring those responsible for the attack to justice, and "Dirty" Harry Callahan is just the man they need to investigate this dangerous case.  Too bad that attractive KCVO anchorwoman Ellie Winston is determined to ride shotgun with Harry until the bitter, bloody end.

"Dirty" Harry Callahan as international man of mystery and action?  Excuse me while I scratch and shake my head in confusion at these strange and almost laughable turn of events.  The Blood of Strangers gets off to a promising start, with a reasonably tense sequence involving the setting of the bomb in the airport and the killing of the two police officers.  Ellie Winston's introduction is also nicely done, as is a botched hotel robbery that Harry shuts down as only "Dirty" Harry can.  But then the plot starts to slip off the logic track when the FBI and the CIA send Harry down to Los Angeles to act as bodyguard for a Libyan dignitary they suspect is also a terrorist financier.  Harry saves the man's life during an assassination attempt and earns a seat by the man's side as he returns to Beirut.  That is where the story derails and tumbles down into stupidville, never to recover.

I can suspend my disbelief and accept "Dirty" Harry blasting away assorted criminal scum on the gritty streets of San Francisco, or Boston, or any other metropolitan city he might be visiting in the United States of America.  But engaging in a gunfight at the Paris airport?  Charging a tank in Beirut?  Going Commando in San Salvador?  That I cannot swallow.  "Dirty" Harry is a shoot first and ask questions later cop, not a globe trotting Secret Agent Man.  To paraphrase Harry himself, "a story's got to know its limitations."

Diagnosis Murder #7: The Double Life - by Lee Goldberg

Disclaimer:  I am acquainted with Lee Goldberg, and in this book he kills a character that has my name.  (With my permission, of course.)  I do not think that this will keep me from being objective about the book.  In fact, it sets my standards a tad higher.  Think about it, who would want their name appearing in a crappy book?

Before Dr. Mark Sloan has the chance to put all the pieces together and solve yet another mystery that has been vexing him, he is nearly killed in a hit and run incident just outside of Community General Hospital.  After spending three days in a coma, Dr. Sloan awakens to find himself facing another, more personal mystery.

Who is this woman that is claiming to be his wife?

For the seventh book in his series of Diagnosis Murder tie-ins, author Lee Goldberg has concocted a mystery concept so unnerving, it would even give veteran medical thriller writer Robin Cook the willies.  Somebody is murdering people that have survived recent brushes with death.  Sloan knows that the killer is out there, but the concrete evidence of wrong doing is concealed beneath a mountain of statistical data that just as easily disproves that a killer is at work.  What Doc Sloan needs to do is separate the facts from the theory, but he can't figure out where, or even how, to begin doing so.  Couple that with the troubles stemming from his loss of two years of memory and the sudden appearance at his bedside of Dr. Emily Noble, the woman that claims to be his wife, and Doc Sloan has a lot to handle.

But those events are only half of the mystery.  Mark's son Steve, a detective in the LAPD, takes center stage for a time, when he discovers a pattern to the killings that his brilliant father did not.  This causes some interesting dramatic conflict between the two, as Steve sees this investigation as a way to finally work his way out from underneath his father's sizable shadow.  That the trail of clues in Steve's investigation don't match up to the ones that Mark has found brings out some pretty, not to mention petty, negative feelings.

Lee Goldberg has done it again, mixing an emotionally nuanced character study (of Steve Sloan, this time around) with an intricate puzzle of a mystery, where finding out howdunit is just as essential, and entertaining, as finding out whodunit.  Like the best of series fiction, The Double Life both satisfies and leaves the reader hungry for more.

Murder, She Wrote: Trick or Treachery - by Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain

The annual Halloween bash held by one of Cabot Cove's wealthiest citizens is ruined when an unpopular woman gets her head bashed in during the party.

I'm sure that I have said it before, but I just don't watch all that much TV, I just read a lot of books based on TV series (not to mention movies and video games).  But one of the shows I did like to watch, when able, was the old fashioned murder mystery series, Murder, She Wrote.  The mysteries didn't strain the brain, but they did entertain.  Trick or Treachery does the same.  (Hey, I'm a poet and didn't even know it!)

Writer Donald Bain (there is no Jessica Fletcher, of course) does an admirable job of capturing the series's quaint and cozy feel.  He also concocts an appropriate witches brew of a mystery for the Halloween season, garnishing the tale with the legend of a gruesome ghost and other assorted psychic phenomenon that may or may not have a tangible connection to the murder.  Taking into consideration just how well this rather cozy series of tie-ins is doing, I do not think that Murder, She Wrote fans will need any encouraging to pick Trick or Treachery up for some Halloween mystery fun.  But if they haven't yet, now is the perfect time to do so.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Imzadi - by Peter David

Admiral William Riker has never recovered from the sudden, unexpected death of Deanna Troi.  When Riker, now in his seventies and in self-imposed exile, returns to Deanna's home planet of Betazed, to take care of Lwaxana Troi's estate, his visit stirs up the bittersweet memory of how he first met, then bonded with, his cherished Imzadi.

But that story is only the beginning.  Commodore Data shares with Riker a stunning development he had witnessed at Forever World, the home planet of the Guardian of Forever.  It seems that Deanna Troi's death has created two separate time lines.  Riker is convinced that Deanna Troi was never meant to die, that she had been murdered by someone wishing to create a far different future.  Riker becomes determined to go back in time and save his Imzadi...

Peter David's Imzadi is the fourth Star Trek the Next Generation novel that I have read.  I think that this creates a rather unique milestone, for I believe that I have now read more Star Trek the Next Generation novels than I have seen actual episodes of the show itself.  That will change, in time, of course.

Imzadi seems to be a rather highly regarded Star Trek the Next Generation novel by both fans of its writer, Peter David, and of the show itself.  All I can say about that is that the book certainly lived up to its hype.  Imzadi works both as a potent love story and as a Trek adventure that crackles with action packed excitement.  Every moment in the doomed relationship, from when Riker first sees Deanna Troi, up to the sad ending of their romantic relationship, rings true emotionally.  The race between Riker and Data to either save Deanna Troi, or to ensure that the established time line is not tampered with, gave the book a nail biter of a conclusion.  I could not tell if Riker would be successful in his queat, or if he would fail.  The other thing that impressed me was how David was able to present the pre-existing characters as real people, with real emotions.  Even though I have read a lot of tie-ins and novelizations for various franchises, I have seldom come across one that is as emotionally powerful as Imzadi.

Star Wars: Outbound Flight - by Timothy Zahn

The Outbound Flight Project is the cherished brain child of the arrogant, domineering, and driven Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth.  He will do anything to convince the reluctant Senate and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to fund his ambitious plan of sending six Jedi Masters, twelve Jedi Knights, and fifty thousand man, women, and children, all aboard a single, gargantuan vessel, out into the unexplored regions of space, to both explore and colonize an unknown galaxy.  The Sith Lord Darth Sidious sees it as a convenient way of getting rid of six Jedi Masters and twelve Jedi Knights.

When C'baoth thwarts an act of terrorism during tense negotiations, he is bestowed with the Outbound Flight Project by a thankful Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and Republic Senate.  What C'baoth, who quickly begins to abuse his power when Outbound Flight gets underway, does not know is that Darth Sidious has a battle fleet waiting to destroy them, just outside of charted Republic space.

However things are not going well out there.  It seems that a wayward group of smugglers, as well as Sidious's attack force, have brushed against the border of the Chiss Ascendancy.  Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo, of the Chiss Ascendancy's Expansionary Defense Fleet, is quick to investigate and, in one brilliant chess move after another, exploit each to his own gain.  Soon enough, those that have taken sides with Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo will call him by his given name, Thrawn.

Well, it was bound to happen.  After reading twenty or so Star Wars Expanded Universe novels, I finally read one where, for almost half of it, I had the feeling that I had walked into a conversation already well underway and with no clue whatsoever as to what the hell everybody was talking about.  Not having read Survivor's Quest, the book that Outbound Flight is a prequel to, or any of the original Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command), the three books that actually launched the Expanded Universe series, certainly did not help matters any.  But now that I have finished Outbound Flight, those four books have moved to the top of my Star Wars Expanded Universe reading list.  Outbound Flight should be at the top of yours.

I was quite pleased with how author Timothy Zahn managed to take what seemed to be a confusing jumble of characters, events, and skulduggery, and knit them together into one tense and violent confrontation after another; until all the pieces in Thrawn's intricate manipulation fell into place for the final, bloody confrontation between Outbound Flight, the Expansionary Defense Fleet, and the violent nomads known as the Vagaari.  That battle, and it's suspenseful and tragic aftermath, is an exciting and rewarding payoff to the complex and fascinating story.  Outbound Flight left me eager to learn even more about both the Star Wars Expanded Universe and the fascinating characters that inhabit it.  (Thrawn, for starters.)  But there is one unanswered question.  Why were Obi-Wan and Anakin on Outbound Flight, albeit only briefly?  They really didn't need to be there and, because of that, were more of a distraction than anything else.

Diagnosis Murder #6: The Dead Letter - by Lee Goldberg

Disclosure: I have both corresponded with and personally met author Lee Goldberg.  I also regularly visit his blog.  Mr. Goldberg has also, with my permission, used my name for a victim in one of his forthcoming Diagnosis Murder novels.  (It's the seventh and yes, I will review it here.)  I don't think any of this clouds my objectivity about whether or not I enjoy one of his books, I just believe in being honest.  (I also like to brag.)

It begins with a murder, but one that Dr. Mark Sloan won't be investigating.  He is too busy trying to save the life of the victim, a man whose affair with his own stepdaughter had been revealed to his wife that very morning.  What intrigues Dr. Sloan most about the tragic event is that the affair had ended the year before.  Why reveal it to the wife now?

The reason for that delayed revelation sits inside a box that the good doctor receives in that day's mail.  Private Investigator Nick Stryker, a disreputable sleazeball that, through circumstance, had aided Sloan in capturing a killer, has gone missing.  Since Stryker had been supplementing his income by blackmailing those he had been hired to investigate, he had left instructions that any and all material regarding those that would most want him dead for doing so be given to Mark Sloan.  As the fallout of Stryker's payback revelations spread through Los Angeles, Dr. Sloan follows the detective's last visible trail.  But what exactly is Sloan searching for?  A missing person, or a murder victim?

The Dead Letter is another winning entry in Lee Goldberg's entertaining line of Diagnosis Murder spin-off novels.  In The Past Tense, the mystery that preceded this one, Goldberg put poor Dr. Sloan through the emotional wringer.  So it is no surprise that The Dead Letter avoids the personal trauma and, instead, places its emphasis on Sloan obsessively sifting through all the red herrings of Stryker's many blackmail schemes, retracing the detective's final investigation, and then trying to...

But why should I spoil the book for you?  The fun of any mystery novel (or romance, or adventure, or suspense for that matter) is in its journey, not its destination.

The Dead Letter makes every effort to make the journey one that is both fun and comfortable.  Goldberg tosses in numerous personal and pop culture in-jokes and/or homages.  He also brings back several key characters from The Shooting Script and The Death Merchant.  While reading those two books isn't essential to enjoying The Dead Letter on its own, it does help create a more textured literary world for Sloan to inhabit.  One that I hope to revisit again and again.

Star Wars: Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader - by James Luceno

Anakin Skywalker is believed to be dead, a victim of the Jedi's failed attempt to assassinate Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.  But the Emperor and his fearsome new emissary, Darth Vader, know the truth.  What little remains of Anakin Skywalker's scarred body is made complete and kept alive by Vader's distinctive and intimidating cybernetic armor.  Anakin's soul is a different matter entirely.  There is nothing to sustain that, and more of it dies as Vader sinks deeper into the seductive abyss of the Dark Side.

While Darth Vader learns to embrace the Dark Side, Jedi Master Roan Shryne and Padawan Olee Starstone, survivors of Order Sixty-Six, struggle with a painful decision.  Go into hiding, as the Jedi Temple beacon demands, or search out other Jedi that have managed to survive.  Then regroup, confront and battle, dethrone, and reveal to the former Republic that the Emperor's enforcer is in fact a Sith Lord.  Although Shryne and Starstone choose very different paths, Shryne goes into hiding, while Starstone goes hunting for Jedi, both wind up in deadly confrontations with Darth Vader.

James Luceno's Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader over laps with the closing events of Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, telling the story that George Lucas failed to: Of how a Jedi was lured to the Dark Side and became the most fearsome figure in Palpatine's Empire.  Unfortunately, most of the novel does not focus on Vader himself, but on other characters reactions to the Sith Lord.  It seems odd that the title character's own story would be treated as if it were a sub-plot, but it is.

This makes the book very uneven, with numerous scenes coming across as nothing more than fan service filling (Look, it's C-3PO!  And R2-D2!  They're being funny!), or gratuitous actions scenes to liven up an expository dead spot.  Another problem is that very few of the prequel characters actually play any substantive role in the original trilogy, so the eventual fates of both Shryne and Starstone are easy to guess.  Luceno does manage to tie together an impressive amount of movie and Expanded Universe characters and plot threads, not only bridging the prequel events with those of the original trilogy, but with the numerous spin-off novels, as well.  I especially liked how the concluding moments of the battle on Kashyyyk were made to echo/foreshadow those in Return of the Jedi.  If only the rest of the novel had that kind of energy, but it doesn't.

Friday the 13th #1: Church of the Divine Psychopath - by Scott Phillips

Father Long has brought his Ministry of the Heavenly Vessel and its fanatical followers to Camp Crystal Lake to start a communal life of religious purity.  He also hopes to resurrect the "Hand of God" that is Jason Voorhees, so that all deserving sinners are punished.  For some strange reason Long erroneously believes that Jason Voorhees only kills sinners.  Walter Hobb is a disgraced Tactical Squad Leader for the "Agency."  After a bungled assault on a meth lab, Hobb is demoted and sent out on a peculiar mission with a team that seems to be made up of the Agency's worst of the worst.  The mission?  Find and destroy Jason Voorhees.  The resurrected Voorhees is determined to kill them all, and let God sort them out.

Church of the Divine Psychopath is the first in Black Flame's "New Line Cinema's House of Horror" line of Friday the 13th spin-off novels.  (Other lines include novels based on Jason X, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the Final Destination series.)  While it could have been worse, it could also have been a whole lot better.  Author Scott Phillips, who cut his teeth writing the low-budget schlockers Horrorvision and Cryptz, as well as writing and directing The Stink of Flesh, tries hard to marry the nearly plotless Friday the 13th narrative formula to a format that requires not only plot, but some degree of characterization.  For the most part he is successful, but the novel is hampered by its unnecessary length of 403 pages.  This book could have been cut by 50 to 100 pages and no reader would have been the wiser, and it would have made the book a faster, more entertaining read.  The main characters, and several supporting ones, (namely Lauren, Walter Hobb's wife, who all but vanishes from the story after Walter goes off on his suicide mission) are all over developed, while others never get past the one dimensional stereotype that long time Friday fans, and detractors, are overly familiar with.  This also makes it pretty easy to see who will survive to the final pages, though it also gives some of the deaths a bit of an emotional sting (if sympathetic) or a cathartic release (if not).  The cumbersome amount of padding also requires that Jason, in his "unstoppable force" persona from Jason Lives, be kept out of the action for long stretches of time, so the book shuffles when it should gallop.

When this line of books was announced last year, I was pretty excited (being a Friday the 13th fanboy) and more than just a little bit curious.  Could the Friday the 13th series really be translated to the media novel format?  (In all honesty, both the Elm Street and Final Destination movies are far better suited to the media novel format than Friday the 13th.) Church of the Divine Psychopath says: Yes and No.  So my inner jury is pretty well hung for the moment, until I crack open Friday The 13th #2: Hell Lake, that is.

Dirty Harry #5: Family Skeletons - by Dane Hartman

When "Dirty" Harry Callahan, San Francisco Police Inspector #71, is forced to take his annual vacation, the trip is anything but restful.  Harry's cousin Linda has contacted him, asking Callahan to come to Boston and help with a family emergency.  A young lady who attended the same church as Linda's estranged daughter has been brutally raped and murdered.  Harry has to figure out if either a serial killer or some kind of bizarre Unitarian cult practicing human sacrifice is threatening the girl.  It's time to bust some heads in Beantown!

Talk about a blast from the past.  Way back in 1982 (when I was just a freshman in High School) Warner Books briefly published a collection of Men's Adventure novels under the imprint title Men of Action Books.  One of the four titles being an official spin-off of Warner Brothers' lucrative Dirty Harry film franchise.  (I don't remember the other series titles, but I am fairly certain one involved either ninjas or mercenaries...or perhaps they were ninja mercenaries.)  Men's Adventure novels were kind of like Harlequin Romance novels, but for guys.  A new and sequentially numbered book came out each month and, instead of all that smoldering sexual tension and mooshy stuff in those girlie-girl Harlequin books, it was a marathon of two-fisted action spiced with enough gunfights, car chases, and explosions to fill three or four Charles Bronson and/or Clint Eastwood movies.  The two most famous Men's Adventure series are The Destroyer and The Executioner.

Dirty Harry seems like a pretty good fit for this kind of thing.  Harry Callahan fought crime by shooting first and reading the suspect's rights second.  If Harry didn't have his gun, then he just punched the suspect until the guy told Callahan whatever it was he wanted to know.  His stock question, always asked while sticking his .44 Magnum in some slimeball's face, was "Do you feel lucky?"  (These books were published prior to Sudden Impact, when Eastwood had supposedly sworn off making anymore Dirty Harry films.  When he changed his mind, he had the line canceled.)   

The twelve Dirty Harry novels of "Dane Hartman" (it was an imprint pseudonym) captured that essence perfectly.  Harry strides stoically through the mystery, uncovering clues through entertaining examples of police brutality and psychological intimidation.  He tracts down suspect after suspect, trying to ask some simple questions.  The suspect always winds up giving Harry some lip and tries to flee.  Harry gives chase, catches the guy after shooting at him once or twice, and then beats some sense into his thick skull.  More often than not, the chase leads to a dead end.  Whenever the footwork threatens to become too pedestrian, some stupid, and thoroughly unrelated to the plot, slimeballs decide to rob a nearby store, bank, or restaurant to give Harry a target to unleash his pent up frustration upon.  This leads to one of those spectacular shootouts that only happens in Dirty Harry movies.  The kind where lots of real estate is demolished, cars crash through fruit carts and flip over, things go boom, and Callahan easily kills or incapacitates every slimeball but the last.  To that cornered rat, Harry points his gun and asks, "Do you feel lucky, asshole?"  Works every time. 

Family Skeletons mystery was a fairly well structured one, though any savvy reader with more than one mystery novel under his or her belt will easily figure out who the real killer is.  The clues were well placed and, best of all, there were no narrative "cheats."  (The equivalent to having Mrs. Voorhees show up in the second to last chapter to explain to the hero the whys and what-fors of all that has happened.  Wait a minute, that does happen.)  At a slim one hundred and seventy-five pages, the story is incapable of straining a reader's brain (if one doesn't stop to think how a vacationing police inspector can run around Boston, randomly shooting at any person he suspects of committing a crime) and the book can be read in a single afternoon.  In some strange and goofy way, this literary guilty pleasure made my day.

Kolchak: The Night Stalker Chronicles - Edited by Joe Gentile, Garrett Anderson, and Lori Gentile

Moonstone Books presents twenty-six tales of the surreal, bizarre, and macabre featuring intrepid journalist Carl Kolchak battling various ghoulies, ghosties, long-legged beasties, and all manner of nasty things that go bump in the night.

While it has taken well over thirty-years, Carl Kolchak is finally getting a much deserved second chance at life after cancellation.  (The first was Mark Dawidziak's attempt at launching a new string of original Kolchak novels in 1994 with The Kolchak Papers: Grave Secrets.)  Moonstone Books' original anthology (as well as its wonderful comic book and graphic novel series) starts up where Dawidziak's novel left off.  With Carl Kolchak, Tony Vincenzo, and all the I.N.S. staff regulars (Ron Updyke, Miss Emily, and Monique Marmelstein) working for the disreputable Left Coast tabloid, the Hollywood Dispatch.  The location may have changed, but Carl is quick to find that the City of Angels is really the City of Monsters.

It is easy to think of Kolchak: The Night Stalker Chronicles as the second season that could (and should) have been.  The stories range from radical re-inventions of Kolchak's character, (The Last Temptation of Kolchak by Steven Grant, The Pretty Dead Girl by Brent Matthews) to faithful recreations of the show's Monster of the Week story format, (The Ungrateful Dead by James Bates, Shadows from the Screen by Richard Valley, Barrens by Chuck Dixon, to name but a very few) and playful examinations and/or ruminations about Kolchak's impact on the world and what the monsters (or the forces that govern them) think of it.  (The Way of the Matter by P.N. Elrod, Interview with a Vampire? by Mark Dawidziak, What Monster Do by Peter David). 

Most of the stories in Kolchak: The Night Stalker Chronicles are fairly solid tie-ins to both the television show and its comic book series "sequels."  Characters and events from the movies, the series, and the comics are all mentioned  and, in some of the stronger stories, come back for an actual appearance, rather than a simple mentioned-in-passing cameo.  Being a somewhat conservative fan, (i.e. one that is resistant to major changes in the "canonical" and/or established Kolchak: The Night Stalker characterizations and/or story structure) the stories I enjoyed most were the ones that followed the established format of the show almost to the letter.  (Shadows from the Screen gets my vote as the anthology's best story.)  I was less than impressed with the ones that played around with the concept too much.  Those stories just didn't have the "feel" of either the show or of Kolchak's character, but I am sure that they will find some appreciative readers.  I also had slight problems with the Kolchak as private investigator stories.  In his own words Carl is just a "Dumb reporter doing his job," and the stories worked best when the writers remembered that.

While the reinvented Kolchak series didn't make it past six episodes, the comics and this collection show that there is more than a little life left in the continuing adventures of the original Carl Kolchak.  Keep reporting Carl, and I'll keep reading.

Aliens: Original Sin - by Michael Jan Friedman

Clone Ripley and the other survivors of the ill-fated Auriga wage a continuing battle with Weyland-Yutani and Earthgov to prevent yet another outbreak of the dreaded alien menace.  But another alien, one only glimpsed in fossil form back on Acheron, is determined to see that the monstrous creatures return.

Michael Jan Friedman's Aliens: Original Sin is a bumpy start for the Dark Horse Press relaunch of its Aliens tie-in novel series.  Not surprisingly, the story picks up moments after Alien Resurrection, the fourth and, to date, final Alien movie, ends, with the survivors landing on Earth.  The story then jumps ahead in time to a point where Clone Ripley, the android Call, brutish Johner, and the wheelchair bound Vriess (and one or two others) are engaged in some kind of clandestine chicanery that has to do with buried information concerning the "erased histories."  (Anything that has to do with the events that unfolded in Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3.)

Friedman makes a game effort at filling in some of the minor-to-major plot holes in the Alien franchise, but the revelations are hampered by what could be called the "Yeah-but-then" Factor.  Case in point, Friedman asks the reader to believe that a select number of humans (I'm assuming representatives of Weyland-Yutani, the soulless Company that is obsessed with capturing, studying, and somehow profiting off of the acid-blooded creatures) have been in clandestine contact (and business with) the "pilot's people" (Mala'kak) for over three hundred years with no one ever becoming the wiser.  I found that impossible to believe.  It also negates the need to have cloned Ellen Ripley in the first place, because the Company would have, supposedly, limitless access to the alien eggs.  Each revelation seemed to make less sense.

Not helping is that the story is a continuation of my least favorite Alien movie, with the android-with-a-soul Call being the only truly sympathetic character of the bunch.  There is also very little alien action in the book, which is strange.  One would think that an Aliens novel would have move aliens in it.  But the attacks are pretty much confined to the last fifty or sixty pages of the book and read as being rather rushed.

Dark Horse Press unleashes another Aliens book later this year, Aliens: DNA War by Diane Carey.  I am hoping it will be a better one, I can't see how it could be worse.

Spider-Man: Revenge of the Sinister Six - by Adam-Troy Castro

A mysterious figure known only as The Gentleman gathers together Doc Ock, The Vulture, Electro, Mysterio and The Chameleon to form a new Sinister Six collective with which to torment Spider-Man and the city he defends.  The sixth member is Pity, The Gentleman's murderous henchperson.  A woman that, in early childhood, had been ruthlessly programmed to follow every instruction given by The Gentleman, no matter how vile or how much her inner spirit wishes to rebel.

Spider-Man is in for the fight of his life, but that fight is just a ruse...

I did not know when I started it that Adam-Troy Castro's novel Spider-Man: Revenge of the Sinister Six was the middle part of a trilogy, proceeded by The Gathering of the Sinister Six and followed by Secret of the Sinister Six.  Despite that misunderstanding, the book was a fun and easy to follow read.

Most of my knowledge of Spider-Man comes from watching both the cartoon and live action TV series as a child in the seventies.  I think I read a total of one Spider-Man comic when I was a kid.  It featured the villain the Lizard, who remains my favorite Spidey villain to this day.  Sam Raimi's hit movie version and its even better sequel got my geekboy sense tingling and, on a whim, I snagged Revenge of the Sinister Six at the local used bookstore.  I had planned on reviewing Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1 to launch a Spider-Man thread on the blog, but its being tied in with an additional two books I had little interest in getting roped into reading, I decided to pass until Spider-Man: The Other is collected as a trade.  So Revenge of the Sinister Six is my first review of all things Spidey.

I thought it could have been a lot better than it was.

While Revenge of the Sinister Six is not bad, it is far too long.  Does a novel based on a comic book really need to be four hundred and thirty-five pages?  There was definitely some excess narrative fat in need of a healthy trimming in many the novel's overly detailed sequences.  That criticism aside, when the Sinister Six's dastardly Day of Terror (an honoring of sorts of Spider-Man's fatality inducing failures) begins, it becomes an exhausting two hundred page marathon of no holds barred brawling, with each villain getting his (or her) moment to attempt to defeat and shame the webslinger.  It is to Castro's credit as a writer that I was seriously beginning to doubt whether Spidey would be able to survive the day.  He also makes Spidey credible as a human being, no small feat for an iconic comic book character that has been around longer than I have.

Less credible is the world the characters inhabit, which is overflowing with Marvel heroes and villains (almost comically so) as well as an over indulgence in unnecessary pop culture in-jokes.  When Mr. Glass (from M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable) popped up, I thought, "Okay, a nice nod to that movie, and it fits nicely."  But then Randolph and Mortimer, two characters played by Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy in the Eddie Murphy movies Trading Places and Coming to America (which was more of an inspired cameo gag), showed up a page or two later, my brow furrowed.  (The Randolph and Mortimer gag gets so involved it has to imaginatively dance around the copyright infringement issue.)  But the book didn't stop there, because Detective frakkin' Sipowicz of You-Know-What is at one crime scene!  It's just so ridiculous and fanboyish that it hampers taking the story seriously as piece of immersive fiction.  (You know, the kind you can get lost inside while it unfolds.)  What was worse were the astounding amount of errors in the BP Book paperback edition I was reading.  Somebody in the printing process did not bother to proofread the book.

Final thoughts?  Fans will like the action and the way the characters are handled within the story, but the Spidey curious (such as myself) might come away thinking twice about plunking down cash for another Spider-Man novel.

Diagnosis Murder #5: The Past Tense - by Lee Goldberg

While taking a morning stroll on the beach outside of his Malibu home Dr. Mark Sloan discovers the body of a murdered young woman.  Dr. Amanda Bentley's autopsy uncovers a personal message left by the killer that only Doc Sloan could understand.  The killer not only knows Sloan, but also knows about the very first homicide investigation that the amateur detective ever conducted, back in 1962.

The Past Tense spends most of its time in the past, with Sloan himself narrating how he got started on his obsessive hobby (I guess that is what you could call it) of solving murders.  The story also gives the reader a good understanding of the pyschological needs that drive Sloan to do so.  Its 1962 portion is a simply wonderful murder mystery, filled with the to be expected, and delighted in, twists and turns that keep the reader second guessing the author.  However, the contemporary half of the story is less so.  I guessed the identity of the killer the moment the character was introduced into the narrative, but that didn't make the final confrontation between the killer and Sloan any less harrowing.  It's the best in the series to date.  Goldberg also stages a final reveal that, because it is subtly hidden inside a taunting statement that the killer makes to Sloan, is utterly bloodcurdling in its emotional intensity when Sloan later realizes what the killer admitted to doing.  I really don't know how Goldberg could top the emotional power of this entry.

It is nice that Dr. Sloan finally gets his origin story, and I think that readers will no doubt set the book down feeling that they know more about Dr. Mark Sloan as an actual person than before.  I think murder mysteries come in two different styles.  One is puzzle focused, where the solving of an intricate and confusing crime takes center stage.  The other is more character focused, where the reader delights in watching a particular individual solve the crime.  I think that these Diagnosis Murder spin-offs clearly fall in the second category. 

TV-writer/producer-turned-novelist Lee Goldberg was an excellent choice for writing these books, probably due to his actually writing and producing several seasons of the popular television series.  He not only knows exactly how the characters should interact with each other as they piece together the clues to solve the crimes, but he also understands just what it is about them that makes them so appealing as three dimensional characters.  That understanding, coupled with the fun of reading about Doc Sloan doing what he does best, solving crimes and helping the sick and injured in Community General Hospital's ER, will keep me happily reading his Diagnosis Murder mysteries for as long as he is asked to write them.