Time to set sail!

If I have a chance later today or early tomorrow, I'm going to post a few photos we took during our last cruise of the towel animals we found each night in our cabin. Folks familiar with cruising will be familiar with this tradition of the cabin stewards creating some wonderful items our of towels and bits of paper. Every night we would find one of them sitting on our bed or otherwise visible, along with our nightly chocolate/mint on the pillow.

If I don't have time I at least wanted to remind you that I'll be off for the next nine to ten days. Eight of those on the cruise and a day or two to rest up after. Enjoy your Memorial Day holiday!

PATRIOT TRAP:by Raymond Duncan, a review

I think I come off more negative here than I meant to, since I didn't really dislike the book. It was more that it held no surprises and seemed very much 'by the numbers', if you know what I mean. I've been doing these reviews for a couple of years and I'm getting pretty used to the trappings of the thriller/suspense genre. In this case, I was pretty much able to stay way ahead of the plot.
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Patriot Trap by Raymond Duncan
Published by Leisure Books/Dorchester Publishing
ISBN: 0-8439-5631-3

Neal McGrath is one of those heroes who seem to exist only in the imagination of a Tom Clancy, or Robert Ludlum and their numerous imitators. Usually he is a university professor, with some military background and a stint with some intelligence agency. They are usually in their mid to late thirties and have some personal tragedy (dead wife, fiancé, child, etc.) from which they have never fully recovered. For some reason or other a former friend or superior, still working with the agency, will suddenly pop and ask the hero to take on some small mission. Almost always they will be assured that there is no danger, of course,

Raymond Duncan doesn’t bring his hero to life as much as simply put him through his paces. We know that there is more to the request by his former CIA superior than to simply ‘look up’ a former student of the professor’s, Elena Rodriguez who just happens to be working for the Cuban equivalent of our own intelligence agency. From the opening sequence, straight out of CSI: Miami, with speed boats picking up bales of drugs dropped from planes, we see that Duncan is not going to let up on the action. McGrath and his friend, Don Samuels quickly find themselves on the wrong side of political tensions in Havana. They also discover from Elena that she has information which could link the head of her department, General Ramiro, to the drug running that is becoming widespread in the island. Unknown to Elena, on the other hand, is the fact that the General is also part of a group planning a coup against Fidel Castro. Toss in a Mexican assassin, bent on killing the President of his country, while he is on tour in the United States and you get a pretty complicated plot.

McGrath and Elena sometimes appear to be getting along more on luck than skill, something even one of the books characters comments upon. Of course, many writers in this genre going back to Alistair Maclean and Ian Fleming did a lot of the same type of thing, so you can’t really blame Duncan for doing so. From escaping a hit & run in the streets of Havana to surviving in a small boat a violent hurricane, the duo seem to go from one dangerous situation into another. In the case of General Ramiro, Duncan truly seems influenced by Fleming’s villains for his James Bond novels, as Ramiro has his henchman feed his enemies to poisonous sea snakes and piranha.

On the whole it’s not a bad book, but just nothing special. The nicest sections were those dealing with contemporary life in Havana, which I found realistic. If you enjoy this type of thing and don’t really expect any surprises Duncan may be the perfect author for your beach reading.

Two and a half stars.

LOST & INVASION

Both ABC shows were on last night and gearing up for the Season Finales. LOST wasn't quite as intense as last time, with the shootings of Ana Lucia & Libby, but things did happen. It was nice to see another flashback featuring Mr. Echo and his brother. The strange flashback/dream sequences always through you since it's sometimes unclear if what you are seeing is real or not. I'm sorry to see Libby go, as she was one of the nicest characters outside of the original castaways. It will be interesting to see if Locke tells Jack of his new discovery regarding the computer sequence.

INVASION gets more intense each week, and it is odd that the viewer is beginning to actually like Tom, as he was set up in the original episodes as the obvious villain. The hybrids appear to be about to sacrifice the uninfected townsfolk, but I think something it going to happen to prevent a wholesale success. Also, I can't wait to see if the pregnancies are allowed to take place this time and what we will see.

Sorry that I had to miss the final episode of TOP CHEF, but I'm sure that Bravo will be running the shows again. I knew that Stephen wouldn't make it to the final three.

End of the Season Viewing

The networks are wrapping up their major shows for the summer hiatus, which means that we will be overwhelmed by try-outs and 'reality shows.' We're going to miss WILL AND GRACE, and WEST WING now that they are ending their runs. Also, looks like both CSI and CSI: MIAMI are going to end with characters being shot. LOST will be wrapping up in a week or two as well and I have a feeling that several more characters are not going to be coming back.

Fortunately, the summer also means that USA Network will be bringing us new episodes of MONK and THE 4400. We'll probably be watching a lot more Animal Planet, Food Network and other stuff that we've skipped since the Fall season began.

Did I ever mention that I got hooked on Bravo's TOP CHEF, while Donna's guilty pleasure is that same network's "The Real Housewives of Orange County"? Sad, but true, plus we watch them both together, so what does that say for our marriage?

No Free Comics Day for me!

Sadly, for the first time since the national Free Comics Day program was started I won't be able to take part. I'm working tomorrow (5/6) and there aren't any shops in the area. By the time I get out most shops will be closed and generally I just like to go straight home after work anyway.

Hope that the rest of you will take part in the event, which is held at the better comic shops around the country. You'll find a link to the official web site over on the side and it will inform you about some of the publishers taking part, as well as some of the special product being produced just for FCD.

Happy reading!

Sounds like...KONG!

I haven’t yet seen the Peter Jackson version of KING KONG, but I hope to get a chance on DVD one of these days. I’ve always loved the original and even saw the 1976 version Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. As a kid, even watching it on a small b&w 15 inch screen in my bedroom, the original film kept me captivated. I always felt such sympathy for Kong, which I think was the intent of the filmmakers.

The new Jackson film has inspired a number of books to be written (officially and otherwise) about the various films and for Blackstone Audiobooks to come out with a special unabridged reading of the 1932 novelization of the film. Written by Delos W. Lovelace and based on the script by Edgar Wallace & Merian C. Cooper the book expands a bit on the film actually giving us a bit of background on some the major characters, especially Ann (played famously by Faye Wray in the original).

Read by award winning narrator Stefan Rudnicki, the audiobook brings the book to life and you can visualize the scenes in your mind as you listen. Rudnicki, who I’ve heard on other audio adaptations, captures the ‘voices’ of the dozens of characters convincingly enough so that you’ll instantly recognize them throughout. If you're a fan of Jack Black, you might not like how his character, Carl Denham, comes across in the novel. A tad more P.T. Barnum, mixed with uncaring business man (perhaps not a inaccurate mix at that) than likeable showman. Also, the Kong in the book is closer to the savageand brutal beast we remember from the early film.

An added bonus is that following the adaptation you’ll hear interviews with such folks as Ray Harryhausen, Larry Niven, Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison each of them speaking about the influence (positive & negative) the film has had on them and the American public since its release. Highly recommended for Kong fans or lovers of good audio.

Cleaning my collection!

Even though I didn't get the OCPL job, Donna and I still intend to move eventually. With this in mind it's time to start ridding myself of thousands of comics that I've collected over the years (or the last two decades to be precise).

Most of this stuff is from the 1980s & '90s and at least in VG or better condition. I don't have the money or interest in sending anything out for slabbing and most aren't even bagged. I have most of it cataloged so I'm going to begin putting information out here for anyone interested. As I go through them you'll find that the majority are DC and independents (as we used to call smaller publishers), with very few Marvels.

I have a number of TMNT comics from the B&W days, including stuff like SHELL SHOCK, the First Comics TPB collections and Mirage's own THE COLLECTED Eastman & Laird's TALES OF THE TMNT TPB from '89. Also have a few of the Archie series around somewhere.

Got gaps in your CEREBUS collection? I have an almost complete run beginning from #50 thru #300 and the CEREBUS Bi-Weekly #1-26. Even got a slighly yellowed and chipped SWORDS OF CEREBUS #1 signed by Dave Sim from his 1992 New York Tour, with a small CEREBUS head he drew.

Drop me an e-mail or post a reply here if interested. I'm not expecting to make a fortune, but would like some of this stuff to go to another fan.

Cutting down on links

If you check over to the Right you'll note that I've removed a number of links. I don't have anything negative to say about any of them, but it was just getting ridiculous. More than half of them I haven't gone to since I placed them there to begin with. Several have not been updated for months and a few were to sites no longer active. I may be adding or dropping others as time goes by, as I'd like to keep things interesting for myself and anybody reading this blog.

I want to apologize for not posting more often here, since my mind has been on other things. As I have been reporting over on Parting Shots I have been actively looking for library jobs in southern California and my online time has mostly been directed towards resumes and want ads.

FURY by Robert K. Tanenbaum: a review

Here's the latest Joe Bob Briggs review. I finished the book prior to my California trip, but only just now had a chance to put my review notes together.
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FURY by Robert K. Tanenbaum
Published by Atria Books; ISBN: 9780743452908

I don’t recall reading any of Robert Tanenbaum’s previous novels, but I suppose it’s possible I may have listened to one on audio book as I only started keeping track of that for the past year or so. I also wasn’t sure how much I was going to enjoy the book after the first chapter or so. Perhaps, if I had read an earlier “Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi” novel I wouldn’t have been so quick to judge.

This is the seventeenth book in the series, so I was unfamiliar with the characters and their history. Fortunately, Tanenbaum fills in the new reader once the story begins to unfold. On the other hand, as Joe Bob has said in some of his movie reviews “there’s a whole lot of plot getting in the way of the story.”

It begins with a flashback to a brutal rape in Coney Island, reminiscent of the well known Central Park incident, with a gang of ‘wilding’ black youths beating and nearly killing a jogger. Convicted of the crime four members of the group are later freed when another who took part confesses that he was the only one involved. Now the “Coney Island Four”, with the aid of an attorney (part Al Sharpton, part Johnnie Cochran, and totally corrupt), is bringing a law suit against the city, the NYPD and the District Attorneys who worked the case. Throw in a crooked judge, another lawyer looking toward her own political career, police union officials, and some other dishonest types all tied together, things look bad. Apparently not satisfied with all this, Tanenbaum tosses in some Islamic terrorists, Russian gangsters (with ties to Karp and his family), and some underground dwellers who may be led by a serial killer thought dead. Besides the central case, we also have Marlene looking to defend a university professor wrongly accused of rape and a dirty bomb being constructed to go off in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. There’s enough going on here for several novels and a movie or two.

The mere fact that Tanenbaum is able to keep all these balls in the air is a feat in itself. Helped by a few coincidences and good luck along the way Karp & Co. are able to come out ahead for the most part, even apparently tying up some loose ends from previous books and setting things up for the next. Kind of a cheat in my book, but it’s easy to see why the author is so popular. If some of his characters come out less than three-dimensional I think I can forgive him since he more than succeeds in telling a pretty good tale.

Three stars (but kick it up another half for the closing chapters).

Viewing at Thirty Four Thousand Feet!

The past few years Donna and I have flown almost exclusively on either Jet Blue or Song, so I've gotten used to having those individual TV screens and dozens of channels to watch during flights. This time out to the OC I went on American Airlines so it was plugging into the feature film choice and other stuff.

On the westbound flight we saw THE THING ABOUT MY PARENTS with Paul Reiser & Peter Falk, as father and son taking a road trip when Falk's wife of forty plus years (played by Olympia Dukakis) writes and tell him she's leaving. Mostly light comedy with some slapstick moments and tender bits thrown in. Nothing special, but enjoyable enough with an overall 'made-for-TV' feel about it. Prior to the feature American has a couple of hours of CBS network material, behind the scenes stuff and bits from 60 Minutes, The Early Show and an episode of one of their sitcoms. After the film they had episodes of TAXI, and FRAISER, which was an odd switch to NBC product.

Eastbound they showed FUN WITH DICK & JANE, a remake of the '77 George Segal/Jane Fonda comedy, with Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni where husband & wife turn to robbery to pay the bills. Made in 2005 the film takes place in 2000, with Carrey losing his job after the CEO of his firm (played nicely by Alec Baldwin) bankrupts the company. The film ends with a more timely joke and the credits aim a dedication at some well-known firms, many of which are no longer with us. A cute bit and a safe political jab at the same time. Since the flight was shorter (had to switch planes in Chicago, as opposed to the direct flight I had going out) we had the feature first with only part of the CBS segment getting in before we landed. I barely recall the Segal/Fonda comedy, but found the remake enjoyable enough. Again, a safe non-offensive film for a trapped general audience.

Hotel San Diego

If you click on the headline above you'll find an item Mark Evanier posted a couple of days ago (I'm trying to catch up on my blog reading before going cold turkey while I'm in California) on the up-coming implosion of the Hotel San Diego.

When I was in the Navy in the mid-1970s & stationed in the area, the Hotel SD already had a shakey reputation, at least among the sailor's I knew (the joke being that it should be called the Hotel STD). It was notorious for the hookers working the area, and it was also known that late night you could get the guy at the desk downstairs to send one to your room. I stayed there a couple of nights when I had a weekend off, but after a couple of run ins with the 'ladies' in elevators and the lobby, I began spending those weekends out of town.

Elayne Riggs will back me up when I say that our stay at the hotel during a Comicon in the early 90s wasn't the most enjoyable evenings we shared in southern California.

Play ball!

Only three games into the season, but the Red Sox have a nice 2-1 record, taking a couple from the Texas Rangers. The Damned Yankees on the other hand are 1-2, falling to Oakland which always gladdens my heart.

If I end up getting the job in California, do I have to start following the Dodgers or the Angels? To be honest, when I was stationed in San Diego in the 1970s I had a nice time watching the Padre's play in their home stadium. Yumm! Padre Dogs & beer!!

That trick never works!

Perhaps forgetting that female anchors for the network news hasn't worked in the past, CBS has announced that Katie Couric will be taking over the spot once held by Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. Not really known for hard-hitting interviews (except when talking to the likes of Howard Stern or Michael Moore), Couric seems to me an odd choice.

On the other hand, CNN seems to be doing well with Paula Zahn and Robin Meade so maybe the American public is ready for this.

Blog spam

I've just deleted it after discovering that somebody had put in a Comment to yesterday's posting, which was acually a link to a Sport Betting site. That's a first over here and I hope the last.

Then again, it shows that somebody must have read the post since it did have to do with basketball and March Madness!

March (yawn!!) Madness

I suppose one of my ex-therapists could have made something of my disinterest (if not out & out dislike) of basketball. My late father loved the sport, having played back in his highschool days. Weekend afternoons would find him glued to the set watching the college and pro games. The hoop he put out in the backyard rarely got any use and was eventually taken down when it became obvious that I had no interest.

In highschool and later in college I could never bring myself to care the least bit about how the various school teams were playing. Then again the whole school spirit thing never really rang true to me either.

On other hand, my father also was a pitcher on his highschool team and continued taking part in soft-ball games until he was in his forties. While never good enough or with enough ambition to play little league, I did play my share of backlot ball with the other guys in my neighborhood.

All this simply to say that I'll be happy when CBS gets back to regular programming and the regular season baseball games start being played. It is the IMHO still America's pastime.

Youuuuuurrrrrrrr Out!!!

Not exactly the career ending game that Roger "The Rocket" Clemens was looking for, but I guess you can't blame the U.S. loss totally on the pitching. On the other hand, the Mexican starter, Oliver Perez and his relievers kept the American players down to only three hits. The final score was 2-1 with Mexico beating the U.S. team, eliminating them from the World Baseball Championship.

I haven't had a chance to see any of the WBC games on TV, but have been trying to keep up with things online. If I'm lucky I'll catch a game or two this weekend. I really do hope that this becomes a tradition and not a promotion gimic that only lasts a year or two. The idea of some of the best professional baseball players in the world competing against each other is great in my humble opinion.

Speaking of baseball, the Queens Library has again sent every employee two tickets to a Mets game for Library Appreciation Week. Fingers crossed the weather on Friday, April 7th isn't too bad at Shea.

Korean Team Kicks U.S. Butt

This is from the article in a Korean paper, via World Press.com:

The Korean national team dealt an ego-bruising 7-3 defeat to the home of baseball on Monday during the second game of quarter-finals play at the World Baseball Classic in the Angels Stadium at Anaheim, California. The win all but assures the as-yet undefeated team a place in the semifinals. An auspicious 101 years after U.S. missionary Phillip Gillette introduced baseball to Korea, the country has overtaken its teacher to secure the ultimate bragging rights by sending an American all-star team packing.

You can't help but love it, right?

Identity Crisis: a review

If you've been reading this blog for a while you know that I'm probably the last guy on the 'net to get around to doing comic reviews. It's been a while since I had that $100 a month habit and almost a year since I even went into a comic shop. Still I'm an old time fan and still like to read something on occasion. In this case the series (collected here in hardcover) that really brought about some changes in the DC Universe, many of which are being revisited in the current INFINITE CRISIS maxi-crossover event.

Should you be among the few who haven't read this book or have not read the hundreds of other reviews (good & bad) already out there I want to send out a huge SPOILER WARNING.

Writer Brad Meltzer creates a story which reveals that things happened years ago among the Justice League of America that may tarnish their reputation. We learn why the original Doctor Light, went from second-string competent to comic relief in later appearances. When they discover that he raped Sue Dibny, the wife of Ralph "Elastic Man" Dibny, members of the JLA decide to not only erase his memory of the event (and his knowledge of some of their identities) but also to do a bit of tampering with his brain. Using the magical abilities of Zatanna, they give the villain a mystical lobotomy. Not only this but when discovered by Batman, they do a bit of tampering with the Dark Knight. Now years later, Dr. Light recovers his memories and apparently begin seeking revenge for what happened.

End of SPOILER WARNINGS!

Meltzer does a solid job with all the heroes, even those who appear only briefly. The art by Rags Morales is magnificent and is aided by the inks of Michael Bair, who allows Morales' pencils to shine through. Hats off also to colorist Alex Sinclair and letterer Ken Lopez, who do the job by not drawing attention to themselves yet add to the overall package. In addition the hardcover gives us additional treats with background on the story & art by Meltzer and Morales; as well as a cover gallery of the original series covers by Michael Turner and other goodies.

Some of the best moments are with Wally "FLASH" West, who learns that the heroes he grew up with and admired may not have been as free of sin as he may have thought; in addition much of the story is seen through the eyes of Oliver "GREEN ARROW" Queen who knew of what happened and has kept the secret for years. In the end the story is ultimately about friendship and family, not just a bunch of people flying around in tight outfits punching each other.

Although I knew from reading the comments on the Tony Isabella messageboard and in CBG what to expect, as an Old Fart of Fandom I finally wanted to read the book myself and judge it. I don't exactly like what happened, especially as Ralph & Sue Dibny were two of the nicest and most enjoyable characters I remember from the Silver Age. From Ralph's early stories he was a favorite. On the other hand, Meltzer allow us to see the couple as truly in love and lets that, in the end, be Ralph's salvation.

How I'll feel about INFINITE CRISIS when I eventually get around to reading more than the earliest 'countdown' issue, remains to be seen. It will certainly be interesting to this aged reader what the 'new' DCU will be like.

WOKEN FURIES by Richard K. Morgan: a review

Another Joe Bob Briggs review completed. A change of pace from the usual thriller/suspense books they send and I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It took me a couple of chapters to shake the feeling I was reading a bad BLADE RUNNER ripoff.

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Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan
Published by Ballantine Books: ISBN: 0345479718

I’m probably the wrong guy to review this novel, expecting as I was to be reading another suspense/thriller. Imagine my surprise and admitted disappointment to find a science fiction novel among the review copies. I have to be honest in saying that I haven’t read more than a dozen SF novels in the past thirty years and several of those were part of Douglas Adams’ Hitch-hiker’s series. Still I’m willing to give it a try since back in high school I was reading little but SF.

Richard K. Morgan won a Philip K. Dick Award for his first novel, Altered Carbon (2003). This book is the third in a series featuring Takeshi Kovacs, a former government operative (called Envoys, although they were more assassins and enforcers) in a distant future where people generally don’t die as we know it. When their life span ends or if they are killed in some fashion their consciousness can be placed in another “sleeve” to continue. These new bodies are either artificially created or clones of the deceased. This depends on money, of course, as well as into which societal class the individual belongs. Kovacs himself has been around for close to three hundred years, inhabiting a number of sleeves depending on his current mission.

Not having read any of the previous books in the series I sometimes found myself a tad confused, as dozens of characters (many of whom have some type of history with Kovacs) keep popping up. Writer Morgan fills in a lot of the background, but it still feels like coming in during the second reel of the film. Discovering that he is being tracked by a younger version of himself while on the run from several other factions, Kovacs finds temporary sanctuary with a band looking to salvage alien technology in abandoned ruins. The brief respite comes to an end when on of the team apparently becomes infected with the consciousness of a long-dead rebel leader, Quellcrist Falconer. The planetary government and possibly his former Envoy team mates are not happy about this situation.

I’d probably have enjoyed the book more if Morgan didn’t stop the plot for several pages of graphic sex every couple of chapters, or to have several of his characters spend another few pages arguing futuristic socialism (or Quellism, as it’s called in the book). Also, I’m always amazed to discover that thousands of years in the future in galaxies far away the underclass loves to drop the “F” bomb (as Jim Rome would put it).

Morgan does a good job bringing solid characterization to a very large and diverse cast. Playing the hard-boiled card can be difficult, especially mixing it up with SF, but Morgan does make it work.

Three stars (Add an additional half star if you’re an SF or Morgan fan already)

Navy Blues

Believe it or not, this is me back 1969. I was either on the USS BOXER or the USS CAMBRIA, since this was taken in Norfolk, VA and before I had my mustache.

Could I really have been that innocent at 18 yrs of age?

I was working as the supply clerk for the Electronic Technician Dept. on either ship. Since I'm in Dress Blues it was either early Spring or Fall of that year.