I'm Thor, show me where it hurts...

 I know Neil Gaiman took some flack when Norse Mythology was first released mainly because he wasn't so much making new mythology for the Aesir and Vanir as much as he was retelling his favorite tales from the Eddas, but honestly it's kind of nice to have an introductory text to the myths, since there really aren't that many accessible texts introducing readers to the stories. And given this one is written in a PG tone, it would probably help children reading/watching Marvel's Thor get a better grip on the source material.

That being said, I'm not a huge fan of Norse mythology, so it's taken me some time to delve into Gaiman's book.

The first thing to note is that this isn't a complete retelling of the cycle. He glazes over Odin hanging on the world tree and Odin's eye in the Well of Mimir. Many of the Gods who get brief mention in the more complete sources aren't even mentioned in here.Which is fine, since Norse mythology doesn't lend itself well to Greek style retellings, where you can isolate a particular God for one story or two that illustrates who they are and how they function in the pantheon. 

Was there information in here I wasn't overly familiar with? Yes, more than a few of the stories were one I had not heard, or had not heard quite as much of as what's in here. (Freya's marriage to the ice giant, for one; Thor drinking 2/3s of the ocean another. Was also nice to get a fuller story on how Tyr's hand wound up in Fenrir's stomach.)

Ultimately, I ended up enjoying it. As much as I loathe the Norse, Gaiman does a good job of making an engaging narrative out of the stories he decided to retell. And it would be a fabulous resource for folks looking for something that doesn't cure insomnia like the Eddas.

A gay old time!

 Before we dig deep into reviewing Mabel Maney's Nancy Clue and the Hardley Boys in A Ghost in the Closet, I should preface this with some background. I first read this in 1995, having bought a copy at a now defunct bookstore across from Wright State University. I don't quite know what I was expecting (at 19, likely angsty erotica with the Boys realizing their long buried love of other boys... You know, Brokeback Mountain, with its 90 minutes of angst and 1 minute of pleasure, although that came out LONG after this one), but at any rate, I wasn't particularly thrilled with it at the time. Here, in 2023, I found myself laughing hysterically and appreciating it in its full 90's irony. 

So, evidently two books precede this one, although I have never seen them, let alone read them, that set up the messy love triangle between Jackie, a San Francisco detective; Nancy Clue, a plucky girl detective of societal import in River Depths; and Nurse Cherry Aimless, who can't decide which girl she loves more. 

Nancy and her friends and rivals start the book off at a dog show, where men in trench coats try to purloin purebred poodles! Nancy, concerned about losing Cherry's love, winds up dragging her chums Frank and Joe Hardly in to solve the mystery and win Cherry back from Jackie. With a lot of help from Uncles Willy and Nellie, the plot careens deep into 1959 High Society as everyone gets wrapped up in a mystery involving the kidnapping of not only dogs, but Frank and Joe's parents, Mr. and Mrs Fennel P. Hardy, with an emphasis on the Atomic Age!

That's the basic plot, and anyone who ever read the series being parodied here can probably guess some of the twists and turns contained within. Although, with the addition of Velma and her girlfriend Midge, we also get a few Scooby Doo traps late in the book. 

Maney does an excellent job of capturing the revisions made in 1959 to both series, when the hardcovers were heavily edited and repackaged for the new age. (Evidently, the original versions from the 30s and 40s were really racist and overly wordy.) It's all here, from Nancy's glove box being a bag of endless holding and being able to disguise herself with a mere change of clothes to Frank and Joe's patented Detective kits and the random ability to have learned whatever skill was needed for the narrative by a sentence insertion describing how they got the merit badge in boy scouts. 

Double entendres and innuendo fly like scared geese throughout, although some of the best funny bits point out to modern readers exactly how much language has shifted since the era this is set in, although there are some rather serious bits hidden in the humor, like the Sanitorium where troubled women wind up. Honestly, in many ways, it reminds me of The Brady Bunch Movie released the same year, except in the case, the characters aren't anachronisms in the setting. 

While I can't say it's on my list of favorite reads, I will say it's a hell of a lot better than I judged it in 1995.

Catch a falling star

 I'll be honest and say the first time I read Neil Gaiman's Stardust, I wasn't particularly impressed. However, this most recent rereading was a much more fun experience, and I can't help but wonder if the edition I have no isn't expanded from the original novel, or if I somehow just missed things the first time. 

Anyway, the novel is set in the Victorian era, in the town of Wall, where the wall has a gap in it that leads to Fairie. Once every nine years, a great fair happens on the other side of the gap, which is also the only time the people of Wall let people pass through the gap. Young Duncan Thorn, in love with a barmaid, winds up enchanted by a slave girl held by an enchanted chain, and winds up...er...conceiving Tristran under her influence. As Tristran grows up, he's not allowed to go to the fair. However, one night a star falls in Fairie, and he promises the woman he longs for that he will go retrieve it for her in exchange for his fondest desire. 

Said star, Yvaine, is not happy about falling after getting hit with a Topaz necklace thrown by the 81st lord of the Stormhold. (Neither are the 3 surving princes of Stormhold, who have to find the topaz to claim Lordship. The Lilim, are quite happy she fell, since they can use her heart to regain their youth.) 

Anyway, Tristran does find the star, and the other 2 major plotlines resolve themselves with very little interference from Tristran. And in the end, everyone gets what they deserve.

The movie, while really well done, did change around a few plot elements, and greatly expands the role DeNiro did so well. (In the book, he has maybe 2-3 lines.)  

While not my favorite book by Gaiman, it's still an exciting read that has improved with age.

Welcome to Manderley. I'm sure you'll be very happy here.

 So, the novelist known as Riley Sager has released a new thriller/mystery in The Only One Left. Like previous volumes from Sager, it doesn't quite stick the landing, but the rest of the performance is strong enough to make up for that. 

Now, as I mentioned on FB as I was reading, the book starts off strongly in Gothic tradition, and veers sharply into Hagsploitation (AKA Grand Dame Guignol) before synthesizing into a curious mix of both. We'll return to this in a sec.

We spend the book following Kittridge McDeere as she becomes a caregiver in 1987 for the local Lizzie Borden, along with typewritten pages from her patient, as her patient narrates past events. 

So, Kit gets assigned (after a 6 month suspension) to caregive for Lenora Hope out at the Hope's End mansion on the Maine coast. Lenora, in 1929, was accused of slicing her father's throat in the Billiards room, stabbing her mother in the hall, and hanging her sister Virginia from the chandelier. However, there was no evidence to prove the accusations, so Lenora was never punished. However, Lenora did get polio and lose use of her legs, and a stroke took her speech and use of her right arm. 

Kit, as it turns out, was suspected was suspected of killing her last patient, either through neglect or actual malice, as a bottle of opioids was left by the bed, and the patient somehow swallowed all of them before dying. 

In the meantime, Hope's End is built on the side of a cliff that's slowly trying to become part of the Atlantic. The only servants in the house are Mrs. Baker, former governess to Lenora and Virginia; Archie, the chef who's been with the family since the late 20s; Jessica, the young maid; and Carter, the young and handsome groundskeeper. We find out Lenora's most recent nurse, Mary, packed up and left in the middle of the night. Or so everyone assumed until Kit finds her body in the sand at the base of the cliff. In the meantime, we find out through Lenora's slowly typed memoirs the horrors of growing up in the house, and becoming pregnant out of wedlock with a servant's baby. 

The plot thickens quite a bit, as every secret about what happened the night of the murders and the aftermath get revealed. Most of it, yeah, makes sense and has support in the prose. However, the final twist really doesn't, and is a bit like having aliens show up in a western. (Well, that an a throwaway line of the last page, which feels a bit like a chef throwing an extra seasoning into the broth just to make sure nothing is wasted.) 

While the Sager books are hit or miss for me, this is one of the better efforts, and I found myself quite enjoying the crumbling mansion on the cliff and its secrets.

Blast from the past

 Lightning was the first Dean R. Koontz book I ever read, and for that reason alone, it has a place on my shelf. it lead me to bonding with my 8th Grade reading teacher, who I adored, and lead down the path to other authors in similar genres. I could have sworn I had reviewed it on here, but NaBrO. 

Anyway, the book opens with a OB/GYN being held at gunpoint by a blond man with a gun. Said man keeps a doctor from delivering a baby. Said baby is Laura Shane, whom the Blond visits occasionally throughout her childhood, never aging. We also see a man pursuing the blond, named Kokoshka, who wants to kill Laura once he figures out why Stefan, the blond, is meddling with her life. We see Laura grow up and become orphaned at 11, move in to an orphanage, only to be nearly molested by a custodian. We meet her friends, the twins Ruthie and Thelma, and the occasional roommate Tammy, who tries to commit suicide a few times.  

Ruthie ends up dying trying to save Tammy when Tammy lights herself and the orphanage on fire. 

Laura goes to college, meets her husband Danny, becomes a successful novelist, has a kid named Christopher. 

Then comes a fateful day when her Guardian appears again, this time saving her from a truck crash. Which is all great, until Kokoshka shows up and tries to kill everyone. Danny winds up dead, Stefan vanishes with his beacon. Laura gets a year to prepare, during which she becomes a marksman with a rather large arsenal of weaponry. (In the late 80's, Koontz was always obsessed with weapons and technology, and half the time speaking either for or against both.) Anyway, Stefan comes back after being shit, along with several pursuers. Which leads to Laura, Stefan, and Chris going on the lam. We finally find out where (or more precisely WHEN) Stefan is from, and the rest of the book concerns destroying The Institute in the era it exists in. 

While it is a bit dated, and really silly in a few places, not to mention the slobbery kiss to Reaganomics at the very end, it's still a good yarn a few decades on,

Gryphons of Love

 In what I was hoping was the next Volume of her Founding of Valdemar series, Mercedes Lackey instead started a new "Modern" Valdemar series in Gryphon in Light, centering on k'Valdemar Vale gryphon Kelvren and longtime character Firesong. There are other new characters floating around in here, like First officer Hallock, who gets mortally wounded early on in combat during an uprising in the northwest of Veldemar; his wife Ginny, a healer's hand; Jefti, a poor boy who is enamored with Kelvren; Three Ghost Cat warriors; a wing of Iftel gryphons; an unpaired companion; and a Firecat, as well as a few tervardi, dhyeli, and hertasi. Much like the group in Mage Storms, this ensemble (with cameos and callbacks to previous series) are being called by the gods of the world to do something. 

Mind you, it takes half the book for the expedition to get started, let alone off the ground. The first part focuses on Hallock, who gets a gut wound, is dying until Kelvren heals him. This inspires Kelvren to use up what magic he has to heal Hallock, which in turn leads to Kelvren nearly dying. This gets Treyvon involved, and he uses an old rite to recharge Kelvren. Given it hadn't been used since the original mage wars, no one was quite dure how it worked, or how it worked. It more or less supercharges Kelvren, who manages to set off a Diplomatic incident, get treated as a danger at k'Valdemar Vale, and eventually get diagnosed by Firesong as being in danger of spontaneously combusting. 

Eventually, a portable Heartstone gets strapped to Kelvren, and Firesong proposes an expedition to Lake Evendim to see how the Mage Storms affected Ma'ar's old kingdom. Which is great, until just about everyone and their brother sends people to go. Including supernatural creatures with direct pipelines to the Gods of the world.Seems something is happening at the Lake, and those in the mortal realm need to go investigate. 

By the end of the volume, we aren't there yet, but we do see a lot of the Pelegirs, and meet a new as of yet unnamed creature that appears as smoke and may or may not be attempting to possess people. 

As a start, it takes some time to get going, but once it gets going, it gets more engaging, making us wonder what exactly awaits our heroes at the lake.