the Black Dahlia: Review

"Cherchez La Femme, Bucky. Remember that." The Black Dahlia, by James Ellroy was written in 1987, forty years after the gruesome crime known by the same name. I'll do my best to review the book without spoilers, but since it's based on an actual event, I won't worry too much about that end of it for the intrepid reader.

If you're not familiar with the story, I'll try to briefly run down the plot: the Black Dahlia follows detectives and ex-boxers Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert (our protagonist and narrator) and his partner Lee Blanchard. Together, they are caught up in the mystery of the Black Dahlia, the most notorious and gruesome murder in Californian history, revolving around the horrifying murder of Elizabeth Short, who's corpse was found on January 15, 1947, nude and severed in two with her internal organs removed. She had obviously been tortured, and with this mystery the lives f Bleichert and Blanchard are forever changed. 

James Ellroy is a legend in the field of crime fiction, a giant among boys. His prose is exceptional, and his plot building wonderful. Recently I had read (and reviewed here) Raymond Chandler's the Long Goodbye, what is typically known as his seminal work. Before that, and before I had begun writing reviews here, I read Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, which I personally preferred. Both of these books were written by the masters of the genre, but in my personal opinion they pale in comparison to the work that Ellroy has accomplished in the Black Dahlia.

The plot isn't action packed, but unlike much of Hammett and Chandler's works, it is still maintains a brisk pace despite the long time frame that it takes place over. Things happen, one after another. Some are obviously connected to the overarching plot, while others seem like side adventures. Ellroy does a masterful job of interweaving these disparate events and plots, seeding both "vital and incidental" (as Holmes would put it) points of data along the way. Unlike the Long Goodbye, you're given all of the information that is required of solving the crime at the same time that our Detective is given it, and as such are able to actually solve the mystery at hand at the same pace that he does.

As I said before, the prose is exceptional, and always left me wanting to read on. That said, this book is absolutely not for everyone. It is graphic in the extreme, both detailing the mutilations that Short had been dealt, and the many sexual acts depicted throughout the narrative. Ellroy explores the very worst of human nature as Bleichert explores the dark corners of Los Angeles in the late 40s in search of the murderer, and for his own purpose. Needless to say, this is not a book for children or the squeamish. Though, perhaps somewhat strangely I found this to be less depressing and a much more fun read than Mockingjay.

Despite this, I found it to be an exciting and fascinating read that took one of the greatest crimes of the century and, while fictionalizing it quite a bit, did so in a way that kept me from really caring that none of this happened. I believed in the ending, and plausibility, in the end, is really one of the most important things to have in a mystery novel. Ellroy, in my mind, has absolutely established himself as one of the preeminent authors of crime and noir fiction, and I am really looking forward to reading the rest of his "L.A. Quartet."

Rating: 8/10

Thirteen: Review

Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan Audible Edition Narrated by Simon Vance

Cover of Thirteen

One hundred years from now, the world has changed. The United States is no more, Mars has been colonized, and China is the preeminent super power. Genetic enhancement is the cutting edge tech of the day, and the Variant Thirteen is the ultimate in enhanced soldier. But they're nothing new, no, they're the complete opposite. They're men with genes that have been reverse engineered to be more like humans were twenty-thousand years ago. Back when they ruled by sheer, individual power. They're the men who refused to settle and become farmers; they're the men who roamed the world and slew and savaged their way to glory and gold.

But then the rest of humanity decided there was more profit in an agrarian lifestyle, that cities and civilization were more important. So these men of power were bred out of the population. Then Genetic Variant Thirteen is created, bred and raised to be the best soldier there could be, the last cry of patriarchal society before it is ground to dust by the wave of "feminization" that is sweeping the world.

The story follows Carl Marsalis, by and large, a British black Thirteen(as the UK edition is named) who somehow made it back from Mars and became a bounty hunter, making money off of hunting his fellow thirteens, who have been exiled to prison camps after being deemed too dangerous to live freely in human society.

If you've never read Richard K. Morgan, then you may not be prepared for some of the savagery that is on display in Thirteen. His style is a hardboiled neo-noir, through and through, and he does not shy away from the rough stuff. Explicit sex scenes, gruesome gun battles, men who don't give a damn about the moral implications of an action and women who can't give it away fast enough are all par for the course for Morgan. Generally, it's pretty entertaining.

I really like noir, and I really, really like science fiction. So when the two overlap, I'm more than eager to read it. Thirteen wasn't the first book of Morgan's that I've read. Before that was the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, beginning with Altered Carbon (which is fantastic). So when I started this, I knew that it would be slow going at first, and I was absolutely right on that count. The first dozen chapters (give or take) are a bit of a slog to get through, but once you're done and the mystery actually gets going you're in for a treat.

Morgan is absolutely not for everyone, and Thirteen isn't his best work, though that is a matter of opinion (as one longtime friend vehemently disagrees with me on). It's absolutely worth reading if you like the style, or if you were a fan of his Kovacs books, which it could be argued this is a precursor to. If you're at all squeamish, by violence, rough language, or sexual depictions (which are the most graphic, I think), then Morgan and Thirteen are not for you.

Rating: 7/10

Audio Edition Rating: 5/10

Note on Edition: I listened to this after purchasing it on Audible.com, as I'm a pretty avid listener to audio books. This was a huge mistake, as this book is a little more complex than I generally like my audio books, and the narrator (Simon Vance), while excellent at his role, was too similar to other audio books of the same genre that kept making them blend together in my head as I listened. If you hadn't listened to other Simon Vance narrations, then this might be better for you. Personally, this seems like a book that is better read than listened to.

2012: January in Review the Final Chapter

And we arrive at the end, wherein I dig into what amounted to a rather eclectic portion of the month. We've got instructional, post-apocalypse sci-fi, pulp noir, post-apocalyptic young adult, and Star Wars. Let's get to it, shall we?

Writing a Novel with Scrivener by David Hewson

Writing a Novel with Scrivener was a Kindle exclusive that was offered in the Lending Library, which is a program Amazon offers to Prime customers that essentially lets them read a book for free a month. I am a pretty die hard Scrivener user, and have been for about four or five years now. I'd go into that further, but that seems to be the kind of thing I should save for later.

This little book is essentially one author's user case for the software. He details how he uses it in his own fiction writing, and what he thinks are the best ways to get the most out of it when writing a novel. And that really is all there is to it. It's well written, informative, and is pretty helpful with a lot of things that even after using the software for so long I didn't really know. Scrivener is like that, there's always something useful if you dig just a little bit deeper.

Hewson did a good job of writing something informative, but keeping it brief and interesting.

Rating: 7/10

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

I really like Star Wars. That's no secret, ask anyone. But I'm not really a huge reader of the Expanded Universe books. Back before the prequels, when old man Lucas refused to acknowledge them one way or another, it was mostly just the "Doomsday weapon of the week" kind of deal, where Luke and the gang had to run around the galaxy destroying one planet destroying gun or bomb or starfighter after another. Then the Prequels happened, and it was all about the Jedi, and how awesome they are with the help of their clone soldiers. Super fun!

I hate most of that. So you may be able to see why I enjoyed the Republic Commandobooks so much. Written by Karen Traviss, a former war reporter who readily admits to not being a Star Wars fan in the first place. In fact, after being offered the job to write some tie-in novels she said she did a lot of research and found the Jedi to be a lot of jerks for the most part.

I'm taking a long time to explain why I love this series, but bear with me. Her task was to write a series of novels following a group of the Clone Commandos that are created in Episode II, Attack of the Clones. So she takes that concept and runs with it. The Clones are trained/raised by a badass Mandalorian (think Boba Fett, or, sigh, his father Jango) who treats them like his own sons and makes them realize that they're a literal slave army, created for the sole purpose of fighting and dying for the Republic with no choice in the matter.

When the war breaks out in the movie/books, the Jedi are all made officers (and Generals for the most part), not because they're trained to be such, but because they can do magic! And not only are they cool with these slave soldiers, most don't even acknowledge there being a problem. So the Jedi are dicks, essentially.

And I've gone on a long time without even talking about this book. Okay, back on track. This is the fifth book in the series (or the first in a second series if you want to get technical), and features the same characters that we have followed for the previous four. It takes place at the dawn of the Empire, with several of the main characters having been forced to join the Imperial 501st regiment, or the Vader's Fist, tasked with hunting down and killing the remaining Jedi.

Unfortunately, the book is better conceptually than in actual practice. There is little in a whole story arc, rather it feels like the first part in a much larger arc. It almost feels like she had a whole large story plotted out, then as she wrote it her editor told her to stop at a certain page, and to save the rest for the next book. Which would be fine, except for Old Man Lucas has decided that the books are now non-canonical, effectively ending the series.

I could go on, trust me, on how much Lucas has screwed up Star Wars over the years, but I'll quit after going on at length already. Traviss is the best of the EU writers, and it's too bad that the last of her books in this pretty great series is going to be the worst of them all.

Rating: 7/10

2012: January in Review Part II (or the one that ends up just being about the Dresden Files)

This collection of reviews just happens to be the Dresden Files, and nothing but. I'd decided to split the posts in half for the rest of the month, and it just happened to work out this way. So yeah, I really like the Dresden Files, and got a pretty big kick out of these. 

Changes by Jim Butcher

And we return to the Dresden Files. If there was ever a book whose title completely and totally describes the book within, this qualifies. Changes is where Butcher takes everything that has happened to Harry Dresden over the past eleven books and throws it in a blender.

It's extremely hard to talk about this book without spoiling anything for either this volume, or for earlier books in the series, so I'll keep this brief and (hopefully) spoiler free. All the characterization that has been building for so long reaches a head in this book, and completely alters the dynamics and world around Harry and his friends in a way that there's no looking back. Butcher takes every single one of the many constants that Harry has always had (think about anything that is in just about every single Dresden File book to this point) and either blows it up or changes it so that it was different than it was before.

This book is fantastic, and easily my favorite of the Dresden Files books. Butcher's literary abilities have approved by leaps and bounds over the course of the series, and this is where he really shines.

Rating: 9/10

Ghost Story Jim Butcher

Then we arrive at the last published book of the Dresden Files, lucky number 13. This is the first of the series that

I literally "read" (as opposed to listened to), due to the fact that the narration changed to someone besides James Marsters. I'd have no problem with that if he hadn't done the previous 12 books, but that is neither here nor there.

It was actually pretty nice reading it in print (or eprint, whatever), as far as studying Butcher's writing style. This book is completely different from anything else in the series, which is obvious due to the furball that Harry had gotten himself into in the last book. Again, this book is almost

impossible to talk about without massive spoilers, so I'll refrain. With that in mind, this book features Harry, Chicago, and the rest of the gang in positions and situations that none of them have found themselves in before. It's all different, and it's all completely crazy.

The book ends on a cliffhanger almost as big as the one at the end of Changes, and I seriously cannot wait for the next one. One of the biggest strengths of this series, and of Butcher's writing, is the way that the characters constantly are growing and evolving. Nothing is static, everyone is learning from their mistakes and that is especially true in Ghost Stories. I really, really want to see where Harry goes next.

Rating: 8/10

Side Jobs Jim Butcher

I originally had decided to not bother reading Side Jobs, because a short story collection that didn't really add

to the overall story arcs of the characters didn't sound interesting to me. Then I finished Ghost Stories and saw that book number 14 hadn't been announced yet, so out of desperation I picked this one up on Audible.

So yeah, it's a collection of short stories spanning the entirety of the series, from the first time that Harry and Murphy meet (back when he's an apprentice PI), all the way up to about six hours after the cliffhanger ending of Changes. It's a good collection, and fills in some gaps that were alluded to in the main novels, but never really explained (example: the wedding of Billy and Georgia and the hijinx that entailed).

It's fun, but aside from a few stories (Murphy's especially), nothing important happens and most are just good clean fun. It's a decent diversion while we wait for Cold Days to come out, but doesn't really meet my expectations for the series at large.

Rating: 7/10

2012: January in Review Part I

January was a productive month for reading. Thanks to the new Kindle my lovely wife bought for me for Christmas, I was able to blaze through a good eleven books through the course of the month, almost half as many as I read in 2011.

Some books were hits, some were... well, not terrible or anything, but not fantastic. In the following post I'm going to go ahead and run through them as quickly as possible, detailing what I liked about them, didn't like, whatever weird gut feeling I might've had, and probably go on for at least four paragraphs longer than I had intended.

Just like this introduction.

Turn Coat by Jim Butcher

Turn Coat is book 11 of the surprisingly great Dresden Files series. I'd heard about the series before from a friend who had read them all and

had pushed me to take the plunge; as usual, I was hesitant to say the least. In the end, it was nearing the end of 2011 and I only had about 20 books read out of the 50 I had set myself to read by the end of the year. I was desperate, and looking for something to either read or "read" in audiobook format. Dresden Files seemed like it was worth a try. After a brief search on Audible I discovered that it was read by James Marsters (the one and only Spike of Buffy fame), and it was downloaded and streaming from my iPhone.

Turn Coat is around the point where the series starts to get really good. It's very entertaining before this, Butcher does a wonderful job of writing characters that actually grow and evolve from one book to the next. Harry's powers grow, his tactics change in a logical progression from one book to the next which is (sadly) incredibly refreshing. It's a damn entertaining read, offering some pretty excellent story progression and great character work. I highly recommend the series, and this book is a perfect example of all the things that are right with it.

Rating: 8/10

 Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

This was a pretty incredibly pleasant surprise. I'd heard good things about the book on io9 and Goodreads, I loved the cover, and I was pretty in the mood for a relatively near future Space Opera that this seemed to be.

Set in the next hundred years or so (I think, I just realized I have no idea when it's actually set), humanity has colonized the solar system. Earth and Mars are fair weather allies, each building up their own navies (Earth having numbers, while Mars has the better ships) for an eventual conflict, and the Belt has been colonized by fortune seekers and the dregs of society looking to make a living on their own. Corporations have taken over the Belt, the distance too great for Earth or Mars to truly care about the rim of the system.

It's a tense atmosphere already when XO Jim Holden and his crewmates stumble upon a mysterious Mary Celeste type ship, and are attacked by even more mysterious military vessels. The story switches between the POVs of Jim Holden (the upright, do the right thing no matter the consequences kind of guy) and Detective Miller (tough as nails detective with a devil may care attitude and nothing left to lose). Honestly, this is one of the best things about the book. As we switch between the two characters, we are treated to two almost completely different styles of writing. Holden is a typical space opera character, Luke Skywalker or Flash Gordon, a man who sees things in black and white while the rest of the world exists in a million shades of grey. Miller is the opposite. His chapters are very noir, he's a bitter man that's seen the worst that humanity has to offer and realizes he's just another guy that's no better than the rest of the scum.

I really, really enjoyed this book. The story is a little cheesy, as all space operas tend to be, but you're not reading this for absolute scientific accuracy or a 100% realistic portrayal of a possible future. It has vomit zombies, so if that's too hokey for you then stay away. Otherwise, if you're looking for a damned fun read with enjoyable characters (and a noir space detective!) then by all means, this'll do the job. I'm really looking forward to the next book in the trilogy.

Rating: 8/10

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Ready Player One is Cline's first book, and man does it show. The idea is fun enough: in the future, the world sucks. The world economy is in

shambles, our ecosphere is blown, and we're tottering on full-blown apocalypse. Outside of cities, it's gone totally Mad Max. But doesn't matter, because everybody has access to the OASIS, a VR online game that does everything from normal PvP and MMO level grinding to allowing for a complete education, simulating a completely normal school that apparently works out better than real school.

The concept is neat, I'll admit that. The story is that the inventor of the OASIS has died, and in his will has said that anybody who solves his riddle will inherit his fortune, and the corporation that runs the OASIS (yeah, pretty much Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). The thing is, the guy grew up in the 1980s, and apparently had a somewhat obsessive personality. He was a geek (nothing wrong with that), and just wanted everyone else to

love all of the things that he loved (which turns out to be everything in the 80s). So the contest is that the only way to solve his puzzles is to be as obsessed as he was with the 80s, which causes the world of the future to become obsessed with the 80s. Woo. Our protagonist, Wade Watts, is apparently the best in this. He's poor, and can't even afford to take his character in OASIS off of the starting planet (it requires money, real or virtual, to travel from planet to planet), so he's a pathetic low level grunt until he figures out the first part of the puzzle.

The story is incredibly formulaic, the only interesting things being the sheer amount of pop-culture that Cline crams into each page. That would be fun, normally. I love 80s pop culture. I love seeing little references to things like AD&D or Robotech or Transformers, but unfortunately for every reference he slides in he follows it up with a complete explanation as to what he's referencing. Like an encyclopedia. And it's every. Single. Time. Which makes the storytelling tedious, at best. Also, the character building is almost masturbatory, with Watts becoming the super-best ever just a few pages after figuring out the first puzzle, and flies around in a Firefly class starship (yeah, from Firefly) or his X-Wing, even better, a Delorian with the Ghostbusters logo on the side, the KITT flashing light on the hood (and the computer to boot), and with the license plate ECTO1. Again, this all could be neat if any of it was actually used, but it isn't. The Delorian is mentioned once, and the other ships are just conveyances.

And then there's the writing itself. Unfortunately, that's the worst part. Reading the dialogue is actually painful. Nobody talks like that. Nobody. It's like the dialogue was actually developed by watching Saved by the Bell reruns, and throwing even more "ooh! Burn!" and highfives. Maybe I'm a little hard on the book, because despite all this I didn't hate it. I'm not even sure if I completely disliked it. It was fun. Cheap, corny, stupid, popcorn fun. It's not much better than a fanfic, to be honest, and I have no idea how it garnered the attention that it has. I'm as geeky as the best of them, and I honestly thought some of that was almost insulting. This book was a lot like the Big Bang Theory, in that if you have a passing knowledge of the subjects it might be hilarious. Or it might be bordering on offensive. Depends on the subject. For me, it was a little bit of both.

Rating: 5/10

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

And we arrive at a peculiarity of mine. I love Lovecraft. The Cthulhu mythos are amazing, the world that he has created is something I am continuously fascinated with. Unfortunately, I don't love to read his writing.

I know, it's weird and shameful and I hate myself for it, but it's true. I eat this stuff up in theory, but when it actually comes to reading his works, it takes me forever and a day to get through it. I hesitate to mention it here for fear of reprisal, but I have a similar problem with Robert E. Howard's works. Conan the Barbarian is one of those things I love, but I've read an embarrassingly small amount of the stories.

But I should get back to this review. One of Lovecraft's seminal works, At the Mountains of Madness is one of the longest stories in the Cthulhu Mythos, and as far as I've read, one that explains the most. This might actually be my biggest problem with it. What I've always loved about the Mythos, and most of Lovecraft's stories is the mystery of it, the sheer otherwordly terror that is inspired by the fact that we have no damned clue what is out there. The Colors Out of Space, Call of Cthulhu, et cetera present these horrors that are glimpsed and forever seared into the unlucky soul's mind for all eternity. Nothing is explained. Nothing is understood. Terror is all that is left.

Mountains changes this, and offers a history of the Old Ones and the Shuggoths and other races that inhabited the primordial Earth, long, long before man. It's all pretty fascinating, and I like what he came up for it, but I think I was happier not knowing.

The format for the story is the biggest hangup, though. Conversely, it may be its biggest plus as well. It's written as a letter documenting an expedition that went horribly awry, as a plea to keep others from attempting to mount a similar expedition. Because of its fictional audience, it is written with a scientific understanding in mind, detailing things like geological peculiarities that the team had been researching. This does a great deal to create a reality to the story that would probably be lacking otherwise, but it also makes it dry as hell for the majority of the story.

According to my Goodreads profile, I started the story on March 9, 2011, then finished it on January 10th, 2012. I got about 80% through before I just had to put it down, then only picked it up again out of a sense of duty/completion. It's Lovecraft. If you love his writing and his pacing, you'll love this. If you don't, then it may be a rough time getting through it. All in all...

Rating: 6/10