Chadzilla ROARS!!! (The Official Blog of Chadwick H. Saxelid, Writer)

Concordian Review: Mind Over Murder - by Allison Kingsley

This review originally appeared in the November 2011 issue of the Digital Concordian.

Allison Kingsley’s Mind Over Murder is a quick and easy read.  How quick?  I finished the book in a couple of hours.  How easy?  I was able to figure out who the killer was well before the book’s fifty-page mark.  I have watched episodes of Murder, She Wrote that were more mentally taxing.

The first in a series, Mind Over Murder introduces us to cousins Clara Quinn and Stephanie Quinn Dowd.  Clara has just returned to the small town of Finn’s Harbor, Maine, after a ten-year misadventure in New York City.  Stephanie owns and operates Finn’s Harbor’s new retail hot spot, the Raven’s Nest Bookstore, and she helps cousin Clara out by giving her a job.

Because Mind Over Murder is a paranormal tinged cozy, it contains an element of supernatural fantasy.  Clara has some kind of vague clairvoyant power, referred to as the Quinn Sense.  She is supposed to be able read minds and, every now and then, foresee the future.  But the only thing Claire’s “Quinn Sense” does in this book is state the blatantly obvious.

It was difficult for me to warm up to either Clara or Stephanie.  Clara comes across as weak and directionless, while Stephanie is bossy and overbearing to the point of almost being unsympathetic.

Not as unsympathetic as the murder victim, though.  She is an unlikeable harridan and poisonous town gossip.  So there are plenty of reasons for plenty of people in Finn’s Harbor to want to kill her.

When the woman is found dead inside of the Raven’s Nest’s stockroom, the store’s only other employee becomes the prime suspect.  Stephanie “convinces” Clara to become an amateur sleuth in order find out who really committed the crime.

Aiding Clara and Stephanie in their investigation is the Raven’s Nest itself.  It seems that a great many of Finn’s Harbor residents are voracious readers.  So much so that they come into the Raven’s Nest every day, just to buy a book.  There has to be some kind of credible reason for the various suspects to keep showing up, just so amateur sleuths Clara and Stephanie can then ask them some nosy questions.

Being a bookworm that loves to browse the shelves of a well-stocked bookstore, I had high hopes for my very first visit to the Raven’s Nest.  I doubt that I will be making many return visits.

Concordian Review: Love Bites (Vampyres of Hollywood II) - by Adrienne Barbeau

This review originally appeared in the October 2011 issue of the Digital Concordian.

Actress turned author Adrienne Barbeau brings back her bestselling Vampyres of Hollywood for another snarky and entertaining adventure in Love Bites.

In case you don’t know, vampyres (and not the vampires of falsified legend) react favorably to Hollywood film stock and lighting, so many of the Industry’s brightest, biggest, and greatest Hollywood stars and legends are, in fact, vampyres.  The ruler of the Vampyres of Hollywood is Scream Queen and studio chief Ovsanna Moore, a vampyre whose cultural background and professional history has a lot in common with Barbeau’s.

Love Bites pretty much starts right where Vampyres of Hollywood left off.  Two weeks have past since Moore waged a vicious battle to the death with the ancient evil that coveted her position of power in Hollywood, and she is still considered a “person of interest” (i.e. a suspect) in the “Cinema Slayer” case.  Something that is complicating her burgeoning romance with Peter King, the Beverly Hills Detective assigned to the “Cinema Slayer” case.

But all that turns out to be the least of Moore’s worries, as Love Bites opens with Moore getting attacked by a vicious and foul smelling creature she calls a “were”.  “Weres” aren’t just werewolves, though.  They are a creature or person capable of shape shifting into another creature, but only just that one kind of creature.  Most vampyres, however, seem to be able to change into whatever they want to.  “Most vampyres” because it depends on which clan the vampyre was either born or converted into.

As you can tell, Barbeau did not skimp in creating rich alternative mythologies and histories for her otherworldly creatures.

If an attack by a foul smelling “were” weren’t enough, Moore also has to deal with the melodramatic temper tantrums of Maral, her girl Friday and personal blood bank.  Maral hates that Moore has struck up a romance with Detective King, and the jealous woman isn’t above using some Black Magic to try and get rid of her vampyre’s new man, for good.

Although the start is a bit uneven, since Barbeau doesn’t seem to know what to do with her characters, and the romance between Moore and King feels more than a bit forced, once Love Bites gets moving, it becomes an entertaining and amusing enough monster romp for readers with a nostalgic love of 80s horror movies (especially the 80s horror movies that starred Adrienne Barbeau.)

Concordian Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - by Jamie Ford

This review was first published in the September 2011 issue of the Digital Concordian.

While I love my country and what it stands for, there are times where I simply cannot take pride in it or its actions.

How is that for a review opener?  Intrigued?  I certainly hope so.

Jamie Ford’s aptly titled love story, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, is a wonderful example of one of those times where it is well nigh impossible to take pride in the actions (no matter how “well intentioned” it may have seemed at the time) of the United States.  At least for those of us that were raised to believe that the term “all men are created equal” means exactly what it says, that ALL men are created equal.  (That being said, let us set the semantic arguments regarding gender and such for another, more relevant book review, okay?)

For most of Bitter and Sweet the year is 1942, the place is Seattle, Washington.  Young Henry Lee, the only child of a fierce Chinese nationalist immigrant, is made to wear an “I Am Chinese” button, both for protection and as a statement of cultural pride.  Unlike the other Chinese children in the neighborhood, Henry has been enrolled in an all white elementary school.  Because of this Henry is taunted and bullied mercilessly by his supposed peers.

Things get better, though, when another Asian child is enrolled in the school.  A lovely and patriotic young American girl named Keiko Okabe.  Keiko, unlike Henry, has been raised to be the natural born American citizen she is.  This is different from Henry’s more isolated upbringing, as he was raised less as a naturalized citizen and more as an expatriate Chinese national that just happens to also be a natural born American citizen.

Despite the cultural differences that would seem to separate them, Keiko and Henry become more than just good friends.  But the simmering hatred for the Japanese, both in the city and in Henry’s own home, challenges their friendship.  The hardest test comes when all the American citizens of Japanese ancestry are forced to “evacuate” to internment camps.  Henry then must make a painful decision as to who he is and what he stands for and believes in.

Although a sweet (if a tad too idealized) story of first love, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet also shows that the bitterness of hatred and injustice can not only be survived, but it can also be overcome. 

 

Concordian Review: Room - by Emma Donoghue

This review originally appeared in the August 2011 of the Digital Concordian.

Emma Donoghue’s harrowing and heartbreaking novel Room begins with Jack, who narrates the entire story, celebrating his fifth birthday.

Jack has lived his entire life with Ma, inside of the eleven-foot by eleven-foot world of Room.  Jack, however, does not know or understand that he is trapped inside of Room, because Ma has raised Jack to believe that Room is the entire world.  That nothing exists outside of Room’s four walls except for Old Nick, a mysterious and scary man that comes into Room at night to spend time with Ma.  While Old Nick visits Ma, Jack hides inside Room’s Wardrobe and counts the “squeaks”.

As seen through Jack’s naïve and stunted worldview, the activities and the soul numbing sameness of each and every day are comforting.  Jack is happy with the world that is Room.  What Jack does not understand, nor does he truly appreciate, are the lengths that Ma has gone to keep him happy and entertained and to keep herself from going insane.

But then something happens and Ma comes to the painful realization that she can no longer protect Jack from Old Nick, and that they must try to escape Room. 

There was a point, around page 125 or so, where I thought that I would not be able to finish reading Room.  That is because author Emma Donoghue had done such a wonderful job at making Jack read as a living, breathing boy with some truly claustrophobic mental and emotional boundaries.  The battle of wills that developed between the psychologically scarred Ma and the psychologically stunted Jack, not to mention the horrifying question as to whether or not Jack will even agree to help his Ma try and escape Room, had become so unsettlingly that I had to put the book down and not read it for a day or two.

Yet I forced myself to pick the book back up and to continue reading it.  I am glad that I did.  After a mere ten or fifteen pages, I found it impossible for me to close the book and put it down, because I just had to find out what was going to happen next.

If you can make it past the first 125 or so nightmarish pages, Room becomes a touching examination of the bonds that form between a mother and her child, and the lengths that she has gone to protect that child from being harmed.

Concordian Review: The Postmistress - by Sarah Blake

This review originally appeared in the July 2011 edition of the Digital Concordian:

A few months back I read a lengthy and very good biography of FDR by H.W. Brands, titled Traitor To His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  That book gave me some insight into both the internal and external conflicts that ensnared the United States in World War 2.  For some (Roosevelt included) becoming a part of the war in Europe was an unfortunate inevitability.  For others, however, the war in Europe was something that had nothing whatsoever to do with the United States.  They felt that the country should remain rigidly neutral and do every thing in its considerable power to avoid being drawn into an unnecessary foreign entanglement.

Sarah Blake’s historical melodrama The Postmistress is a wonderful dramatization of those two conflicting mindsets.  Beginning in fall of 1940 and ending in late summer of 1941, The Postmistress tells two interlinked stories.  The primary one, despite the misdirection of the novel’s title, follows CBS radio journalist Frankie Bard.  Bard has come to London to report on the Blitz alongside Edward R. Murrow, but is compelled to investigate the mass exodus of Jews from both Germany and the Nazi occupied countries around it.  The other story is that of Postmaster (do not call her Postmistress) Iris James.  A newcomer to the small coastal town of Franklin, Massachusetts, James is given the unpleasant task of having to deliver a particular letter to the wife of the local doctor, should he happen to die while helping those suffering the horrors of the Blitz.

Bard wants everyone back home to pay attention to what is happening in Europe, while James (and the Doctor’s emotionally distraught wife) does not want to hear anything more about the conflict in Europe.  Complicating matters slightly for James is her love affair with a local mechanic named Harry Vale.  The man is not only obsessed with finding the German U-boats he believes are lurking in the local coastal waters, but he also hounds the Postmaster to have the post office’s flagpole lowered.  Vale is certain that the flagpole is high enough to be used as a landmark for the inevitable Nazi invasion of America.

The stories and characters all come together for an emotionally powerful conclusion that not only cuts through the veil of willful ignorance several of the characters have regarding the coming conflict, but that also examines the painful choices that have to be made on how to best deliver news that simply does not want to be heard.

The Postmistress is a touching and tender novel that is well worth reading.

Concordian Review: End of the World

Last year I started writing a book review column for the Digital Concordian, the on-line version of a local paper.  What follows is a reprint of my very first column, which was published in June 2011.  The column was my clumsy attempt at a humorous reaction to the faulty May 21, 2011 Judgment Day hoopla brought upon by Family Radio's Harold Camping.  

This column is also the only column where I reviewed multiple books:

The End has always been on the verge of nigh for any number of reasons.  Which is why the popular End of the World genre offers readers so many great (and so many not so great) ways to enjoy the End of the World.  It is just a fun game of "What if...?"

My pick for the best of them is Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer.  A comet slams into the Earth and causes earthquakes, tidal waves, torrential storms of saltwater rain, and massive flooding.  The novel also spares none of the more unpleasant details of what the End of the World would really be like.  It's a smart and scary book.

S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire, however, rushes past most of the unpleasantness brought on by its intriguing End of the World scenario (an as yet unexplained "Change" in the fabric of space and time renders all of modern day technology inoperable) and instead the story focuses on how the survivors turn their post-apocalyptic world into one big Renaissance Fair.  It's for Fantasy fans only, obviously.

The unexplained "Change" in Dies the Fire reminded me of Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason's novel Ill Wind, which has an oil-eating microbe getting loose and turning everything plastic into useless glop.  Ill Wind does an entertaining job of covering the disaster ground that Dies the Fire skipped over.

Two horror genre apocalypse stories of note are Max Brooks' World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and Philip Nutman's Wet Work.  Both books find a fresh and inventive way to tell the now far too familiar story of what happens after the dead get up and start to eat the living.

Whether you are a Global Warming denier or believer, there is no way that you will not start giggling while reading Art Bell and Whitley Strieber's atrocious The Coming Global Superstorm, which warns that a mysterious "superstorm" is going to flash freeze our planet into a new Ice Age.  Insert summer reading joke here.

Being an almost life long fan of The Omen trilogy, I had to read some of Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye's best-selling Left Behind series.  I really wish I hadn't, though.  The books are filled with the laziest writing and plotting that it has ever been my displeasure to read and, after suffering through a few of them, I wanted the world to come to an end sooner, rather than later.

You have been warned.