The Hero with 1000 Snarky Remarks

A friend of mine recently brought up Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes by Cory O'Brien while we were building Magic: the Gathering decks, and I found out the library had a copy.

So, where to start with this.

While the title suggests retelling of Greek mythology, O'Brien retells almost globally, including snarky retelling from several civilizations including a few modern ones. (One could quibble and say Paul Bunyon isn't really a myth, as much as advertising, and whether or not L. Ron Hubbard is meant to be taken at face value...)

Anyway.

Of the mythos he has stories in that I have familiarity with, he does a good job for the most part (I had quibbles with a few, in particular, his retelling of Gilgamesh and Enkidu is all about murder and manliness, and leaves out all the man on man action among the murder.)

Much of his retelling is really funny, although I noticed that the longer I read, the more the snark wore thin on my patience. If you read at home, read a few chapters and come back later. It would likely help alleviate this.

I enjoyed that he referenced Campbell quite a bit throughout, since many of Campbell's observations influence my thoughts on the materials, and I can't help but agree that the stories do benefit from being retold, since retellings from a new perspective help us all make sense of them and relate to them in new ways.

TLDR: Not great for serious study, but wonderful as an overview and laughs.

Birdman of Alcatraz

So, the library finally got a physical copy of Lois McMaster Bujold's The Prisoner of Limnos, which continues the story coming out of Penric's Mission, in which Penric is figuring out why he's staying in Orbas, instead of returning home. The answer, of course has to do with lovely Nykis, whom Penric loves, but who remains less than comfortable with the foreign Temple Sorcerer and physician.

However, when word comes to Nykis that her mother is being held prisoner in Cedona, on the Island of Limnos, a convent sacred to the Daughter of Spring. As such, Nykis suckers Penric and Desdemona into breaking her mother out of the place.

Which involves finding Nykis's soon to be Sister-in-Law, befriending her secretary/eunuch, taking said castrato with them to Limnos and breaking out Mom.

Which they do find success in, but it does leave Penric trapped on Limnos temporarily, and the method of escape employed is absolutely breathtaking in its rube Goldberg nature.

I'm very much in love with Penric and Desdemona. I just wish I was more into ebooks to read them quicker.

Haunted Honeymoon

I remain amused at how well Simon R. Green's Ishmael Jones series manages to channel his cheeky, over the top writing into fun little cozy mysteries without delving into the complete oddity of his other series.

Till Sudden Death Do Us Part is more proof of this, as again, even if the supernatural may make an appearance, much like Scooby Doo, the monsters are all human.

We open on Ishmael and Penny enjoying a weekend together, even as Ishmael is dealing with his fear of the alien within him. A morning walk through SoHo brings the Colonel to their attention, as someone from Ishmael's shrouded past has called in a favor through their old employer to get Ishmael through his new employer to come help up on the moors.

A train ride to the middle of nowhere later, Ishmael and Penny are with Robert, who has the good sense to note that Ishmael has not aged at all in the intervening years. Robert, who's daughter is getting married, has a slight problem as the death of the local vicar is being blamed on his family curse, something about husbands marrying into the family dying on the wedding night due to a curse from the 18th century. Although the curse says nothing about the minister being hung from the bull rope. Or the maid of honor being suffocated in the top tier of the wedding cake, or a local reporter drowning in the baptismal font.

There are numerous suspects besides an invisible demon, and everyone involved has known each other since childhood, mostly. Indeed, it was like reading a cozy set in my hometown.

Anyway, while I figured out whodunnit about halfway through, there is a supernatural moment after the reveal, and a bit of silliness to end on.


Honestly, a fun read. Nothing particularly mind bending, but good.

Part of your world

I'll start this with the irritation I had when seeing Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill's The Waters and the Wild is listed as being a new entry in Bedlam's Bard. It makes sense, given they wrote several volumes in the series, however, it would have been more honest to refer to it as a SERRAted Edge novel, given NONE of the Bedlam characters show up in this. (I mean, it's a shared world, but still... no flute or banjo playing bard?)

With that said, this is actually a fairly solid entry in fairie filled world, even if given the number of fae related books in the Urban Fantasy market means shifting around a few definitions and mythos related to the central concepts. (The few land courts we hear about make it know Oberon and the Queens are still around, among other things, although here Mab/Maeve is referred to as the Morrigan.)

We're centered rather firmly on Olivia, who just turned 18 in Sacramento, who's on summer vacation with her boyfriend, Blake. Blake is in the running to become an Olympic swimmer, and is generally not much liked by the folks at the Lake Endor resort in New York's Adirondacks. (His family is fairly well off, so the can't say much, but the father loves to try to get his way in everything.) Blake has 2 younger brothers, and a drunken mother. Oh, and he has a girlfriend at the Lake from Boston, Audrey. And Olivia spends much of the book playing mother to the family, since Blake's mother is either usually drunk or asleep.

And then we meet Dylan, itinerant watercraft repairman and lifeguard, who also turns into a seal and is the champion of one faction of the seafolk, who's bound to fight Tiamat in a Duel to the Death under the sea someplace. He's rightfully in hiding above hill, wearing an amber necklace that prevents most magic from working on him or by him. Most. Given he's a selkie, he can't prevent their bane, which Olivia sets off on accident after hearing Audrey and Blake discussing what to do with Olivia; she goes and cries into the lake, which makes Dylan fall in love with her. Which he can't really explain to Olivia, but he does court her as best he can.

Anyway, he makes his true self known about the time Audrey tips a canoe over in the middle of the lake while the two girls are supposed to be timing Blake's swim times. Mind you, after she does this, Audrey is revealed to also be a Lamia...

Much happens, as Olivia tries running away, gets caught, and even with Dylan's magical protection, can't help herself against physical threats of a non magical variety. Which is fine, since Dylan's removal of the necklace also reveals his location, so we get a visit from a rather irate sea monster in the middle of a finger lake.

There are a few undeveloped characters floating around in here, like Mandy and her gran, who run a diner in the closest town to the resort. One gets the impression Gran knows more than she lets on, but what she actually does know is never really discussed. We also find out later on Olivia's Mom knows more than what we were lead to believe, even if it is vaguely foreshadowed in the opening chapter.

There's also a shot fired at a certain movie, as Audrey talks about eating an insipid mermaid who surrounded herself with manmade treasures.

I will give Olivia and the authors credit though, since the do a fairly good job showing us Olivia's clinical depression, although the adventures she goes through do seem to lighten it up a little, which isn't particularly realistic.

All in all, it's a good, if quick read; I just wish they'd have given it a different series title.

Gorilla my dreams....

So, once again, reading through Keith Hartman's Gorilla series, which I've already reviewed.

https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/2016/01/january-re-read-ii-gorilla-returns.html

Still fun.

Oops, I ran out of books...

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I let my TBR pile dwindle down to nothing, and I couldn't find the books I had from various sales, Amazon's shipping takes time, particularly when preordering, and the library doesn't have copies of stuff at your preferred location....

Anyway, this lead to rereading Keith Hartman's The Gumshoe, The Witch, and the Virtual Corpse. Which I've already read several times and actually have a review posted of on here already.

As such, I'm not going to rereview the book, merely point out the original review, and then mention that the edition I have currently is not the original Meisha Merlin edition (which I loaned to someone and never got returned), but the more recent revised version, complete with artwork, moving the story 20 years after where it was originally, and a few changed references. Interestingly enough, my copy of the follow up is the Meisha Merlin edition without all the new bells and whistles, and it's up next just to finish the story. Eventually, I will replace my original edition and get the revised edition of the follow up, but not today.

Begin the beguine

So, until I bought the boxed set of John Christopher's Tripod Trilogy, I had no idea he'd written a prequel 20 years after the original trilogy was released.

Which brings us to When The Tripods Came. The plot is fairly straight forward, as we meet Laurie and Andy, off camping on the moors when the first Tripod appears in England. Three arrived at the same time, one in England, one in Russia, and one in Montana. While the American tripod self destructs, the other two are defeated by the military of the respective nations.

Much fun is made of our first extraterrestrial encounter, as they really didn't do much besides die. Indeed, a new show about the tripods hits the televisions a few months after, seemingly poking fun at the alien objects. And then people get really obsessed with the show. Laurie watches one episode, and notices how realistic some of it seems to be. His sister becomes a Trippie, one of the obsessed fans of the show. She gets hypnotized by a psychologist, who gets her out of it, but everyone wonders why a show would be hypnotizing people.

Long story short, despite Laurie's parents being decidedly British about things, stiff upper lip and all, they do wind up fleeing after a cousin drops by to put helmets on those who won't voluntarily Hail the Tripod. Well, that and Tripods setting down and making their way to population centers, with Trippies hanging off all the legs to prevent attack.

By the time the family flees to try to reach Switzerland with Andy in tow, most forms of mass transit have shut down. Indeed, they take a boat to Gloustershire, get shipped back to the mainland, then hijack the plane. Which leads to tense moments getting across Germany into Geneva. After quite a bit of effort, we see the family and a few additions setting up shop atop a mountain in a train tunnel. The book does end with some hope, even as seemingly all of humanity over 13 is capped by the Tripods.

By far the best part of this is the forward he wrote for this edition, discussing how the 80s BBC series (which evidently started deviating quite a bit about halfway through the first season) was panned by a Famous British Sci-Fi author, who sniffed about how the Tripods didn't even have infrared. As the author points out, Sci-Fi often misses things as the eras progress, pointing out that almost no science fiction predicted the rise of the internet. So, after the first attack, when England is laughing about the
Tripod's lack of infrared....

Also, unlike the original trilogy, there are more than a few female characters running around, and Laurie's sister even smacks him for suggesting that women don't belong in the resistance.

The one thing that did amuse me unrelated to anything else was that, in the original trilogy, every measure was Imperial. In this one, we gets meters and kilograms, which makes much more sense in the setting.

Honestly, I like that he wrote this, even if he did use it to correct things that became problematic as the originals aged. I enjoyed seeing the beginning, and remain amused that a kids show would brainwash the populace into accepting the peace of the herd instead of buying toys. On the whole, the series remains something I'd happily hand down to my nieces and nephews as they get older.

I'm going to read this... with my lawyers present.

When I first found out my mother's former minister was writing a book about why he left the ministry, all I could think of was how many of his former parishioners would pull a Diana Ross watching Dreamgirls and have a lawyer present while reading through the volume.

However, what I found reading Beau Brown's No More Churches was that it's not some tawdry tell all, but more of an examination of why someone hears the call and then finds it leads them away from Church leadership. Because, while the church may have been founded by G-d, more often than not his Adversary has more to do with the politics that go into running the church, to paraphrase Stephen King.

Mr. Brown starts us with his first Youth Ministry job driving kids to a large church and finding that while the church is in need of young blood, the aging congregation seems to expect the youth to behave like the older congregants do, and both the youth and the elders seem to expect the minister to be held responsible for the behaviours and attitudes in relation to both sides.

We skip ahead into his ministry, with Seminary in Louisville (Presbyterian Church USA), and his rejection from Doctoral studies. We meet his wife Amber, and we see him through his first few congregations as both main minister and youth pastor. We hear of having to follow in the footsteps of of someone who walked on water, and how sometimes the predecessor is still in the congregation in another role. (Whether or not they actually were perfect isn't the point. Given I grew up in Mr. Brown's final congregation and went through 4 ministers, I can say that in my experience, congregations tend to give retiring leaders the full Mark Anthony treatment from Julius Caesar, wherein any bad they did is quickly forgotten and suddenly they're saints.) However, I don't think it's all that normal for one of the youths in the program to tell the new guy how terrible he is as compared to his predecessor, which indeed happens here. On the other hand, this may be common, and just unreported, as most ministers writing books tend to not be focusing on the personal. Indeed, as Mr. Brown talks about some of his interactions, most of the ministers he interacts with tend to believe in something to the effect that a minister should be seen and not heard. Unless they're preaching, and even then, only if they're preaching something so non-offensive as to not upset parishioners.

We get a joyful and and also painful chapter discussing the adoption of their twins. The support of the congregation, and the lack of support trying to actually adopt. We hear of learning that someone he respects isn't as great a person as he believed. We hear of in home meetings with people and the stories that come from that.

We get a chapter where Mr. Brown tells of his struggles with anxiety and depression, his institutionalization for a week, and how being open about it wound up biting him in the ass later on. We hear of how a vague FaceBook post started a very bad situation during an interview cycle, tying again into the idea that people of the cloth should not be allowed to express feelings.

And we wind up in his last placement, which is where I first met the author. And it's here I felt a bit like I'd opened Pandora's Box, since, while names are not named, I had enough context to figure out a few things.

We hear first about PC (USA)'s usual General Assembly vs Individual Congregations compromises, this time in regards to marriage equality, where in the GA said it's ok if individual churches want to perform same sex weddings, but no congregation would be forced to perform one. Which, like most pronouncements like this, made absolutely no one happy. As such, Mr. Brown brought up the idea of doing small group and congregational meetings on the subject. While I heard severely edited tales of this from my Mom, Mr. Brown presents the stories I hadn't heard, including the loss of the President of the Trustees and the near loss of one of the worship assistants over the discussion. (This is sad to me, particularly since one of those people mentioned [again, not by name, but context does tell you who they are if you've been to the church] has always been really nice to me and my husband. It makes me sad to know they feel/felt this way.)

We hear also of February 2019, and a sermon series on racism, and how one congregant got very upset by the very concept and while not seeing themselves as racist, still made a few comments that really kind of were. (This does fall into the whole category of as we advance, what once was considered a progressive attitude has become a less than progressive attitude as time goes on.)

And we hear about Mr. Brown discussing his own mental and emotional issues and how it did bite him in the ass here, before he got his with his own version of hearing G-d's call in a form that was designed to particularly annoy him. (In this case, a postive message with a Joel Olsteen cadence.)

While I, like many, was sad to see Mr. Brown leave my home town, I have a better picture of what happened after reading this. And I can't say as I blame him, because sometimes the only way to win is not to play the game.  And honestly, I do think there's a problem in thinking people of the cloth are somehow immune to being human, or are only valid if they are willing to stay within a mold created by those who are part of the congregation.

My only real problems with the book are the length (It's 122 pages) and a few formatting errors. Don't let that stop you.

History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men

So, finished John Christopher's The Pool of Fire this afternoon, wrapping up the original Tripod Trilogy. (There is a prequel, written several years later, but it's going to be a few days before I get there.)

Anyway, we open with Will and Beanpole passing on what Will learned in the city of the Masters to the Council. He even gets chastised by Julian for his impulsive behaviour, rightfully pointing out that Will's actions meant that Fritz didn't get out. It also introduces council member Pierre, who shows up again in the finale as an antagonist to Julian. Interestingly enough, even though we're meant to dislike Pierre, he has a point, as does Julian, as they discuss freedom vs social compacts.

Anyway, with a time frame of less than four years before the Masters' ship is due to arrive and turn Earth's atmosphere into something breathable to the Masters, Will is set to be shipped out to recruit a resistance among the youth in the East. He's less than thrilled about this, until he finds his partner is Fritz, who seems to have survived the City after all.Cousin Henry winds up in the Americas, recruiting there. Beanpole goes to work in a lab.

After Fritz and Will return, they get shipped to Beanpole's lab, where they help capture a Tripod and the Master within. A fight between Will and his ship captain nemesis for the last book leads to the revelation that the masters can't detect alcohol, and indeed, it makes them immobile for several hours.

And this leads into the attacks on the cities, wherein Will and Fritz break into the European City, sort of in sync with break ins to the Asian and American cities. The goal is to slip alcohol into the water supply and destroy the cities from there. We also find the Pool of Fire, the source of power for the Cities. Turning it off makes the Caps fail, leading to the former slaves helping Fritz and Will to find a way to break the dome.

After escaping, with the masters dead and the Tripods outside the city dead as well, we learn the Asian city fell as well. Henry's attack on the American city (sitting astride the Panama Canal) didn't fare as well. As such, it becomes necessary to try an air raid, as less han a year remains before the Masters's ship arrives. The first one fails, and the second, done with Hot Air balloons nearly does as well, until Henry, after making a moving speech to Will prior to the raid about whether or not Man will return to its old ways of war and separation, lands on the dome and sets off the bomb with him holding it, destroying the last City.

And then... We find out the ship came and bombed the Cities to prevent Man from learning their secrets. (Bit late for that.) And we return to the White Mountains and the Council of Men, where the council is trying to basically form a United Nations, or a better world government. Which is where we meet Pierre again, and the fight comes out again between the nations, as the debate on whether or not Julian is a tyrant or not comes out.

Despite the advances in scientific knowledge (becoming an interstellar race within 50-100 years), the nations of men again separate into their tribes, leaving our 3 survivors to try to unite the world.

So, in the end, the magic I remember from my long ago reading remains, even if some of the issues have become clearer with time and a changing society. While Christopher's concerns about mankind's inability to get along have remained largely true, the books, written in the mid to late 1960s, also lack in any kind of female representation. (Which seems to be a trait of British Boys' Fiction. See Lord of the Flies.) While contemporary YA post apocalyptic more than makes up for this lack of representation, this is a relic of an earlier time, that folks might want to be aware of, less they expect Katniss to come in and save the day. However, the recurring discussions on the nature of man remain just as valid now as they did in 1968.