Book Review - JD Robb's Delusion in Death

Delusion in Death by J.D. Robb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I like to research what works and what doesn't in publishing so when I saw this on the B&N bargain table I grabbed it. I'd seen the name JD Robb but had no clue she was actually Nora Roberts. I don't think I would ever read Roberts even for research since she writes for a market I have no interest in. However her writing as Robb is interesting to me. She has created a believable near-future world and populated it with interesting characters coping with interesting problems. Not hard SF in any way, her stories are more character driven than tech and that's fine by me. That's the way I tend to write.

I knew when I started reading that I was jumping into the middle of a series but that didn't bother me; most authors will drop enough hints and tidbits of back story to let you catch up. I assumed the same for Robb but was disappointed - while she did refer to previous events she did so assuming everyone would know the story. I didn't so I was lost. Big problem.

I also found her attributions confusing at times. I read along assuming I knew who was talking only to discover several sentences later I was wrong. I had to go back then and re-read the dialog so it would make sense. Not something you want or need when immersed in a story.

The story itself was well told, the plot believable, the characters engaging. Perhaps someday I will go back and read the previous books and pick up what I missed.

If you like soft SF thrillers I recommend Delusion in Death.


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Movie Review - Flight to Mars 1951

A bunch of scientists and a newspaper reporter (yes, newspaper reporter) make the first manned flight to the red planet to discover Martians that look exactly like us.

Filmed in 11 days using sets, sound effects, and space suits from the more successful Destination Moon, this little film is, in my opinion at least, highly underrated. Sure the story is predictable, sure the acting is far from brilliant, sure the special effects are sad - but check out Marguerite Chapman! She alone is worth the price of admission.

Classic 50s Sci-fi Movie Babe Marguerite Chapman

Virginia Huston, girl scientist, and Cameron Mitchel,
intrepid reporter

Cameron Mitchell stars as the jaded war reporter chosen from thousands of applicants to accompany the first Mars expedition. Along for the ride is Carol Stafford, girl scientist (her words, not mine), played by Virginia Huston. Carol has a majorly huge crush on her boss, the leader of the expedition and who, inevitably, falls for the beautiful Alita (Chapman), daughter of the leader of the pro-Earth party. This of course leaves things wide open for the intrepid reporter to swoop in and pick up the shattered pieces of the girl scientist's heart.



Workman-like and plodding as it sounds this mess is the true plot of the movie. Oh, and the fact that the anti-Earth faction of Mars' leaders want to seize the Earth ship, reverse engineer it and use the technology to build a fleet of ships to invade Earth. But this at times seems more of a sub-plot, really.

Despite its many short comings I love this movie. Science fiction movies from the early fifties seem so innocent looking back on them from our 21st century vantage point. America's fear of the insidious commie and the constant threat of global annihilation at any moment seem silly to us. But people living through that era did not have the luxury of knowing every was going to work out in the end and the Soviet Union would die an ignoble death without a single nuke hitting Moscow. Those were scary times and little bits of fluff like Flight to Mars offered an overwhelmed public a few minutes of gee whiz escapism. No harm in that, eh?

Spaceship cockpit, 1950s style

Color space suits borrowed from Destination Moon

The Martian surface, including mysterious
Martian megaliths

If you love classic 50s sci-fi you'll love this Flight to Mars. Recommended.

Sweet Free Books October 10, 2014

Walking the Edge is a featured book in today's SweetFreeBooks!

Review - The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2013

The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2013 Edition by Paula Guran
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The stories in this collection run the gamut from Neal Gaiman's The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury to Jim Butcher's hilarious Big Foot on Campus, touching on points in between. I won't even attempt to review every story here so I'll focus on what I consider to be the true gems in this collection.

The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury is a horror tale for our times. The narrator opens his tale with the line I am forgetting things, which scares me. With this simple sentence Gaiman takes us by the hand and leads us through the thoughts and fears of someone going through Alzheimer's or dementia, or maybe something else -- we are never really told -- but that's far from the point. Having your past wiped from your brain, memory by memory, is perhaps the scariest thing a person can face. Our past defines us, our memories make us who we are. If we lose those things where does that leave us? This story is no fantasy - what it describes is all too real, all too common, and that is what scares the crap out of me.

Big Foot On Campus - I don't want to give anything away here, so just let me say Harry Dresden is back and in fine form as his usual smart-alecky self.

Perhaps one of the creepiest tales in this collection is Robert Shearman's Bedtime Stories for Yasmin. There is nothing more innocuous than a story told to a child as she's being tucked into bed for the night, right? Not in this story. Enough said. You'll have to read it for yourself.

The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2013 lives up to it's title. Recommended.




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Walking the Edge on eBook Discovery

Walking the Edge
Eleven short horror and dark fantasy stories

Walking the Edge has been selected to appear in eBook Discovery's Action-Packed email this Friday, September 26th at 3:00 PM. Please feel free to subscribe here so you can see your favorite ebook shine!

Book Review - The Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses and Historians. by Cynthia C. Kelly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Told through letters, reports, documents, and oral histories, this book takes us from the first sustained nuclear reaction under a squash court in Chicago all the way to the destruction of two cities and thousands of human beings. The story of the Manhattan Project is simultaneously exciting, riveting and heart wrenching. The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the only victims of the bomb; thousands of lives were consumed by this project, many were shattered, including perhaps the biggest hero of the story, J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Whatever your feelings about the bomb or nuclear energy The Manhattan Project is a fascinating read.

Recommended.


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Review: Eniac: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer

Eniac: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer by Scott McCartney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The story of Eniac, the world's first truly programmable electronic computer, is both inspiring and heart breaking. J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly were true visionaries, ahead of their time in many ways, yet exactly in the right place at the right time in more ways. Their story is one of technological innovation and political in-fighting. Unfortunately for them victory, fame, and most of the money went to those who could play the game, leaving the creators of this world-changing machine under appreciated and, in Mauchly's case, broke.

Scott McCartney has written an engaging and well researched tale of creativity, invention, and betrayal.

Highly recommended.


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