Category: Book Reviews

Halloween Double Feature

Review by Travis Starnes Halloween Double Feature is exactly as the name implies. You get two short stories of the spooky variety. The first is about a man named Sonny and a vicious creature while the other focuses on a man in a dead end job. I will start by saying that I am generally not a fan of either short stories or novellas. They almost always leave me unfulfilled and wanting more. That being said in this book it totally worked for me. The spooky Halloween tale is almost tailor made for this format. It is the literary version of sitting around the camp fire telling tales. These two stories aren’t particularly scary but that doesn’t detract from the book. In fact these stories were almost certainly not intended to be scary. It seems instead the goal was for cleverness and a bit wit, which is fine by me… Read more »

Stone of Tears

Review by Travis Starnes The adventure continues with Richard, Khalan and company. Richard’s life is turned upside down, again, when he learns what it means to be the True Seeker. This is the second book in the series and it holds up well compared to the first book. For me it actually scores marginally higher than its predecessor since it maintains what I enjoyed from Wizard’s First Rule, namely the characters, and fixes some of the problems I had with that book, such as the writing. The story and themes this book touches on are generally pretty interesting. Goodkind holds with the love story from the first book, delving into the importance of love and its dangers. While I had a lot of trouble with the love story in the previous book, here it works well and is one of the better themes. This is a bit strange when you… Read more »

1633

Another year has gone by and the residents of Grantville and the new United States are making their way in 17th century Europe. In 1633 this new country will be reaching further into their world and continuing their conflicts with the Catholic countries that oppose them. 1633 is not only a quality sequel to its predecessors but one of the rare occasions that a sequel beats the original in some ways, although not all. I would credit a lot of the advances this book makes to the addition of Weber partnering with Flint. I can feel a lot of his structure and character work behind the Flint façade. As with 1632 the majority of characters are still pretty cliché. However many of the major character, including previously minor characters who have been moved up to the big leagues, are getting fleshed out a bit more. Raising the profile of already… Read more »

Storm Front

Review by Reynold Starnes Storm Front is the seventh, and newest, entry in John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers series. Sandford, the pseudonym for John Camp, who won a Pulitzer as a journalist, has penned three series: Kidd, Prey and Flowers. The characters inhabit the same fictional universe and are interrelated; Flowers works for Lucas Davenport, the protagonist of the Prey books. I like them all, but Flowers is a current favorite. Sandford writes terrific thrillers, which are often very dark. Virgil Flowers is not a dark character, but he has confronted massive child abuse cases, organized attacked squads and vicious criminals. Storm Front is different. It is lighter and more humorous; and a good read. There are bad guys and good guys in the book, as well as bad good guys and good bad guys. In this story, Flowers is trying to track down a stolen engraved stone from an archaeological site… Read more »

Practice to Deceive

Review by Travis Starnes Practice to deceive follows a murder investigation on a small island in the Puget Sound. A lot of unusually suspicious parties surround the Christmas day murder of Russell Douglass, unfortunately evidence is a lot more sparse. The detectives spend eight years talking to anyone connected to the man and his murder in an effort to solve one of the toughest mysteries they will come across. Ann Rule has been doing true crime for more than 30 years and she is a real master at her craft. While this book is far from perfect it hits all the notes you would want in a true crime novel and is pretty solid read. This book has everything going for it; greed, sex and scandal. The one big thing that stands out for me in this book is the narrative voice Mrs. Rule uses. Unlike many of the true… Read more »

Wizard’s First Rule

Review by Travis Starnes Wizards First Rule follows the exploits of Richard, the soon to be seeker, and Kahlen, the confessor, as they embark on an epic journey to save their world from an evil wizard who set on taking over the world. This is the first book in a series of contemporary fantasy novels in the vein of JR Tolkien. I want to start off by saying I did actually enjoy reading this book, although the following review might make you think otherwise. Yes, this book does have some things going against it but in spite all of those I enjoyed my time reading it and that is all that really matters. I rated this book a 4 out of 5 purely on my emotional connection to it, and I do recognize the large number of fantasy readers who feel the structural and technical problems with the book can’t… Read more »

Ender’s Game

Review by Andy Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is science fiction with a realistic twist. It may not be the absolute best book I have read but nothing in it is terrible and it has few things are great. The big thing I found amazing was the plot. There are lots of surprises and peeks at the “omniscient” point of view that doesn’t make sense until later. I also found some of the characters pretty enjoyable although others may need some work. That being said it’s a pretty good book. The supporting characters are mostly fine, but the antagonists needs some work. I found Bonzo, one of Ender’s battle school enemies and ex-commander, interesting with his “Spanish honor” but Stilson and Peter are just strange. Peter even more so because of how he changes through the book and how he acts when he believes nobody is listening. Ender also… Read more »

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

Review by Travis Starnes Homicide is one of the better true crime style books I have read, although that might be because it is more crime reporting then true crime. Simon spent a year with the Baltimore police following members of the Homicide division and focuses primarily on 3 of its members. Many will recognize the names and some of the situation in this book as it was made into the well acclaimed TV series Homicide: Life on the Streets several years after the book came out. Even without all the hype around this book following the success of the affiliated TV show, Simon was definitely at the top of his game. His writing is very engaging and he has the non-fiction narrative down to a science. The book has more of a novel feel then a biography of the people involved yet never feels like fiction. More importantly this… Read more »

Murder in Mississippi

Review by Travis Starnes A real life tale of a murder and a capital trial set in the Deep South. A self-proclaimed white supremacist who may or may not have been involved romantically with a black man, an Australian “gotcha” style journalist akin to Michael Moore, and a rogues gallery of slightly strange investigators, neighbors, lawyers, and on lookers. The premise of the book caught my eye and I had to check it out. In the book the author compares his work to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and it is an accurate comparison. Or rather I can see that the author struck out to get the same kind of story when he stumbled upon a murder with a similarly interesting set of characters. The problem comes from people he has contact with. While they are almost always interesting these people feel like they were edited to… Read more »

Vengeance is Mine!

Review by Travis Starnes I enjoy a good thriller and a good mystery and this book mixes the two genres up fairly well. The story follows Mark Kidder and the Alpha Team of “The Dept” as they track down a suspected terrorist and killer, and flashes back to related events set during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. There are some really good things going for this book. The plot overall is well detailed and complex which works for this type of story. With multiple factions to follow including the Dept, the schemers in MI5, a serial killing terrorist, and a Bosnian Colonel out for blood there are a lot of threads to keep up with. For such a spread out plot and so many parties Smith does a good job of pulling all the pieces together at the end, not always a sure thing when the story gets this… Read more »