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I found out about this book from Lydia Schoch’s review, and anything Lydia likes is something I’ll give a try. And I’m glad I did. This is a shorty story–5,501 words to be exact–but it’s effective, and it uses all those words to good effect.

The only problem with a story so short is that it’s hard to go into much detail about spoiling the story, so I’ll deliberately keep the plot synopsis vague. It’s about a fishing trip that goes wrong. More generally, it’s in the grand tradition of the ghost story, where people get warned not to do something, do it anyway, and suffer the consequences.

This is the kind of tale you tell around a campfire on a dark night, maybe changing the details here and there to make it better suited to your present location. You don’t need thousands of pages to tell a good scary story; you just need to evoke the feeling of being in a fog and then, when then tension is at its highest, spring something out of it.

The Killer Catfish of Cape Cod is an effective horror short story.

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Anymore, when I review authors like Bertocci, I am reminded of the cut song from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe about De Belville. I’m sure you all have it memorized already, but just in case, here’s an abridged version of the first verse:

De Belville was regarded as the Crichton of his age:
His tragedies were reckoned much too thoughtful for the stage;
His poems held a noble rank, although it’s very true
That, being very proper, they were read by very few.
[…]
And everybody said
“How can he be repaid—
This very great—this very good—this very gifted man?”
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!

Of course, being a W.S. Gilbert production, the story ultimately ends with a happy accident, by which De Belville gets a seat in the House of Lords.

Well, I would of course be all in favor of granting Mr. Bertocci a prominent seat in government. But until that day comes, I guess I’ll just keep trying to reward him as best I know how: namely, by writing rambling reviews of his books.

His latest short story is about a young woman named Kayla, a theater major starring in an ’80s pop-rock themed adaptation of Cinderella. The show isn’t going well, but the one saving grace is that it spares Kayla having to think about her future.

You know, normally I hate literary fiction about angst. Yet, that’s exactly what Bertocci writes, and damme, I enjoy it. I think mostly it’s because he doesn’t lose his sense of humor, even while writing about themes like the anxiety and uncertainty that all young people starting out in life face. He handles these motifs seriously, but always with wit.

In the comments on last week’s post, Anonymole pointed me to an article in The Guardian about a recent study on AI. The punchline: “Ideas generated by ChatGPT can help writers who lack inherent flair but may mean there are fewer unique ideas.”

Well, I can confidently say that Bertocci does not lack for flair, and he has plenty of unique ideas. That’s why I love his fiction. In a world increasingly awash in regurgitated AI media, his Bildungsromane stand out for their witty prose and relatable characters.

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It was a near thing, this. I almost didn’t have a book to review this week. I wanted an America-themed book since we just had Independence Day here in the USA. But until this past Monday, I couldn’t find anything short enough that I would have any hope of reviewing in time.

To the rescue rode Zachary Shatzer, on a horse that was white, but also red and blue. Or something like that. But you all know by now that I always love to read a Shatzer book, and when I saw his latest was a parody of political thrillers, a genre near and dear to me, you can well imagine my delight.

Puppet Dance features all the tropes we expect of thrillers: conspiracies, assassins, double-crosses and backstabbing. Except instead of being done seriously, it’s played for laughs. The president is a simpleton elected solely for his good looks. The vice-president has to juggle his Machiavellian plans for world domination with mending his relationship with his goth teenage daughter. And the assassin, who prides himself as a ruthless and efficient killing machine, is actually a bit of a bumbling buffoon; for example, when he drops his rifle and ammunition on the way to prepare for a job, and his forced to eat one of the bullets to conceal it from bystanders.

The plot is basically a power struggle between aforementioned vice-president and the director of the CIA, both of whom are vying to be the true power behind the throne of the empty-headed president. The only person capable of saving America–indeed, seemingly the only person capable of doing anything well–is Agent Dennings of the Secret Service, who saves the VP’s life at a hopscotch convention.

From there, it’s off into a madcap labyrinth of whimsy and silliness as only Shatzer can deliver. I could try to summarize it all, but really, the whole point of the thing is the humorous way the story is told.

Which is not to say there isn’t a deeper reading that can be made. What are literary critics for, if not to systematically suck the joy out of any work of fiction by imagining things in it that the author never intended? This, dear readers, is my speciality.

You can read a fairly scathing critique of 21st-century culture in the works of Shatzer. For example, the way Vice President Beanstar slowly builds a coalition of supporters by pandering to fans of various activities, celebrities, franchises and the like, could be read as a comment on consumerism; as people who fanatically (and remember always the word “fan” is short for “fanatic”) build their entire identity around some piece of pop ephemera are easily manipulated to advance the goals of a malevolent politician.

Or again, when Agent Dennings goes undercover as a television star, but the effort fails because people have so thoroughly conflated the actress with the character she portrays that they are unwilling to even speak to her. Much of Shatzer’s humor is derived from characters who have completely dedicated themselves to raising trivial issues to the level of zealous idolatry. Something that will be familiar to anyone who has ever been on the internet.

These are interesting themes, and no doubt a healthy corpus of literary criticism could be derived from them. However, that would just miss out on the real fun of Shatzer, which is basically that in his world, even the villains are basically good, if rather eccentric, and everything can always be resolved in a pleasingly amusing fashion.

Shatzer, like Wodehouse, is fundamentally optimistic, and this shows through in all his works. Even when he is making fun of something, you can always sense the affection at the heart of it. So, in these troubled times, when one can be forgiven for checking a little anxiously, and a little more frequently than usual, whether that star-spangled banner does indeed yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave, I think I’ll give the last word to Shatzer. Or rather, to Agent Dennings, the embodiment of humble competence in a world run by madmen, narcissists, and criminals:

It was a strange thing, she mused, that America could manage to be such a wonderful place when led by people like this. And it was wonderful, she had no doubts about that. The ideas on which it was based: freedom, equality, and opportunity, though never fully and perfectly realized, had also never been crushed by the ceaseless parade of corruption, morons, and corrupt morons at the highest levels of power. An incredible feat, when you thought about it. 

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I like it when a book ties two eras together. What’s better than a mystery? A mystery that spans generations, that’s what! And that is what the latest Brad and Karen thriller from Geoffrey Cooper delivers.

The story begins with a plan to plant a Nazi spy in the U.S. in the waning days of World War II. His mission is to act as a sleeper agent; establishing himself as seemingly an ordinary citizen and then, using his knowledge of chemistry and biology, gaining access to American laboratories and beginning work on a Nazi genetic warfare program.

It’s an ambitious plan, the kind that takes patience and commitment to unfold. It also reminded me a little of the sort of Nazi plots that Wonder Woman would have to foil week in and week out on the classic TV show.

Well, Brad and Karen are the next best thing when it comes to unraveling such plots! The book flashes forward to the present day, where the medical researcher and the veteran investigator are notified of a lead from a retired FBI agent who has picked up the trail of the scheme hatched in the 1940s.

Not that there’s much to go on. The Nazi sleeper cell hasn’t left many clues, but from the bits and pieces available, they begin to put things together. Combined with the flashbacks that fill in the details for the reader, we start to learn the full extent of the conspiracy. Not to spoil too much, but let’s just say that even though Nazi Germany is long gone, the operation hasn’t stopped.

Fans of Brad and Karen’s past adventures will enjoy the familiar dynamic between the two. Fans of historical fiction will enjoy the decades-spanning plot that sees the Nazi plan evolve across the eras. There’s plenty here for long-time readers of the series and newcomers alike. I know that in the past I’ve sometimes alluded to having “World War II fatigue” after having read so many books and seen so many films set in that period. But I made an exception to that for this book, and I’m glad I did. Cooper delivers another enjoyable yarn, with some interesting scientific info artfully woven into it as usual.

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I picked up this book a long time ago because I was writing something that involved a casino, and I thought it would be a good idea to read a book set in one. I wasn’t even sure what genre it would be.

As it turns out, it’s mostly romance, but with elements of crime/thriller involved as well. It tells the story of a woman named Caroline Popov, who has just been promoted to be manager of the Night Hawk casino. Working in a casino is, as it turns out, no walk in the park. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s line about Mos Eisley comes to mind. And Caroline’s job is, day after day, dealing with the lowlifes and criminals who come there–some of whom are even employed there.

That said, there are some good people in the business, too. Like her staunchest friend, the tribal leader John Tovar, who helps her through the tough times. And, as we gradually learn over the course of the book, Caroline has had her share of those. She thought she was living the American dream, only to have it snatched away from her suddenly.

She manages to remake herself and carve out a successful career, though not without echoes of her past still haunting her. More immediately, she’s also haunted by assorted enemies she makes in the course of her work at the casino.

I won’t spoil what happens, but let’s just say that while it’s not exactly breaking new ground or providing totally unexpected twists, it is an entertaining story. If you enjoy romance or thrillers, this should be a fun way to spend a few hours.

Now, I like romance and thrillers just fine, but as I said, the reason I picked this book up was for the casino setting. So how does it fare on that front?

Quite well. The author mentions in the afterword that she worked in casinos, and that experience translates well here. Casino terms, policies and procedures are all described in fairly close detail, including the methods they use to catch those trying to cheat the casino. Remember: the casino is there to cheat the players, not the other way around!

I admit to being fascinated by casinos; and not in a good way. I think it started when I visited Niagara Falls. (“Slowly I turned, step by step…“) I went to a restaurant there that was located in a casino on the Canadian side, and I still remember being amazed at the vacant-eyed people pulling levers on gaudy slot machines when one of the most beautiful natural wonders on Earth was literally just outside. It was almost disturbing, frankly. But clearly, something about this process was mesmerizing to these folks. I think that experience gave me a visceral dislike for casinos, and yet, as with the proverbial train wreck, it’s hard to look away.

It doesn’t help that everything is being slowly turned into a casino these days, thanks to “gamification,” which looks like a word Raymond Chandler would use for a leggy femme fatale, but actually refers to a managerial concept that has gradually transformed everyday life into a web of Skinner boxes which present the user with simulacra of choice, interactivity, and rewards. By the way, be sure and like this post! And share it with all your friends!

Anyway, I can’t deny that part of me was quite interested to read about all the shady behind-the-scenes stuff that goes down in the gambling industry, and this book certainly provided a wealth of insight. It might even help to cure gambling addiction… but I wouldn’t, ah, bet on it.

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This is a Weird Western. No, I’m sorry; let me start over.

This is a WEIRD Western. It’s not just a case of a basic western with a few ghosts or werewolves shoehorned in. No, it’s seriously bizarre. It starts out normally enough with the hero, Marshal Elias Faust, being asked by a local drunk to retrieve something a couple of thugs stole from him. What it was, he won’t say, but Faust heads off to find the two lowlifes, known as the Gregdon boys.

What begins as a typical Wild West gunfight ends up taking Faust on a mind-bending and horrifying trip into the depths of cosmic nightmare. We’ve got a woman made of gold appearing from the stars, a hellish netherworld buried in the mines beneath a harsh frontier town, and, perhaps most notably, demonic sand-filled scarecrow spirits with rifles.

It’s a lot for the poor lawman to deal with. Fortunately, he has a few people backing him up, such as Grady Cicero, a Shakespearean actor who is a crack shot with a Henry rifle, and Lachrimé Garland, who has managed enough boxing matches that she’s usually able to give Faust some good pep talks after he gets into fights, which happens a lot.

This book is violent, befitting a western. Shootouts, chases, and knock-down, drag-out fistfights are the order of the day, and Faust never shies away from combat, even when he is dragged down to the unfathomable shores of some Boschian hellscape.

I was about to say this book does a good job of mixing western action with Lovecraftian horror. But I had to stop myself, because while it is easy to reflexively label any kind of cosmic horror as being in the manner of HPL, that would be misleading. Lovecraft’s protagonists are scholarly, bookish fellows, who summon occult horrors by reading some dusty old tome when they shouldn’t.

No, Elias Faust is in the mold of a Robert E. Howard hero: he’s tough, rough, and mean. He solves things with his fists and his guns. The setting, too, is reminiscent of Howard: a near-lawless wasteland, ruled by greed, violence, and the occasional eldritch abomination.

The writing is both witty and brutal, with Faust’s gallows humor often making the unrelenting fight scenes a little snappier. At times, the bloody battles can be so visceral as to be exhausting to read, but Faust’s narration always keeps them interesting, and it makes you want to stick with him to the end as he slowly uncovers the horrors at the heart of the web spun by a malevolent entity known as “the Magnate.”

It’s a harrowing, pulse-pounding, spine-chilling, and occasionally darkly funny ride into stygian abysses of madness and mayhem. If you like the Weird West genre, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll love this.

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I heard about this book thanks to Carrie Rubin, and it sounded like something I would enjoy. It has conspiracies, high-tech gadgetry, and exciting action sequences.

Journalist Ellie McLane is investigating genetically modified Olympic athletes. But when she learns that a mysterious group has cloned the President of the United States, she moves to get the scoop before anyone else.

What follows is a complex plot, as McLane and the FBI race to find out what connection there is between the president’s clone and bio-terrorists who are using genetically modified cancer cells to infect prominent politicians. Naturally, there are plenty of car chases and shootouts, not to mention corporate espionage, murder, and political conflicts.

I enjoyed the story very much. It reminded me of Geoffrey Cooper’s books, with maybe a bit more of a Tom Clancy-ish military element. My only complaint is that the ending felt a bit abrupt, but I see that it is the first book in a series, so perhaps many of the questions raised at the end will be addressed in the sequel.

The downside of reviewing thrillers is that spoilers are a real killer, so I can’t say too much more about what happens. This is pretty much the maximum amount I can reveal without spoiling it. So if this description strikes your fancy, give it a try.

Yet, I feel that you, my loyal reader, deserve some bonus content. So, for fun, I decided to run this post through WordPress’s AI assistant feature.

The AI assistant recommended I retitle the post: “Genetically Modified Bio-Terror: A Thrilling Race Against Time”. Eh, it’s okay, I guess, but I’ll stick with my standard format.

Next, I asked the AI assistant for feedback on the body of the review:

The content delved into the plot and the reviewer’s enjoyment of the book. The reviewer expressed a positive overall sentiment and mentioned a minor issue with the ending feeling abrupt. It was noted that spoilers couldn’t be shared, limiting the amount of detail that could be provided. Lastly, the reviewer mentioned adding bonus content for the readers and responded to a suggestion from a WordPress AI assistant.

Considering the feedback, actions to consider are:

1. Discuss the abrupt ending in more detail without revealing spoilers.

2. Add more specific details about what made the book enjoyable without giving away the plot.

3. Explore the bonus content in more depth to engage readers further.

When I was a kid, my friend had a toy called a “Bop It!” It was basically like a Simon Says game that commanded you to do various things. If you were unsuccessful, it would say, “Do it again, but, uh… better.” That’s kind of what this feels like.

The AI can also generate an image to go with the post based on the text. I tried this a couple times, and I have to say, the pictures are not bad. But I’m not posting them because I want the image associated with the post to be this book cover.

Well, that was certainly illuminating. Soon, we will achieve the ultimate dream of machines reviewing and creating art, freeing humans up to do manual labor or else just be directly converted into energy.

In the meantime, though, I hope you enjoy Fear Extinction!

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I love vigilante stories. I’m always down to read about a jaded person who, disgusted by the failure of social institutions to punish wrongdoers, takes the law into their own hands to seek retribution. You see this theme a lot in westerns and police stories, but one with a medical theme? Now, that’s something new!

Dr. Hope Sullivan is just one such jaded person, and her method of exacting justice is to kidnap the lowlifes she finds in the world, take them to a remote and secluded shed, and subject them to the same pains they have inflicted on others. “Her object all sublime, she will achieve in time…” Not that she kills them, to be clear. She just… teaches them a lesson, that’s all.

But one day, she gets a threatening message. Someone is stalking her, seeking revenge of their own against her for some perceived wrong. And this person has stumbled on to Hope’s extra-judicial activities. Oh, all right, I’ll just go ahead and call them what they are: torture sessions. Something which the medical board would probably not look kindly upon, and while Hope has suffered from suicidal thoughts ever since the recent deaths of her parents and fiancé, her reputation as a doctor is the one thing in the world that still keeps her going.

In other words, this book is rather dark, in case you couldn’t tell from the cover. It makes Fatal Rounds, Rubin’s most recent thriller, look like an after-school special. But it is similar to Fatal Rounds in the sense that the protagonists, while sympathetic, are also very well aware of what happens when you gaze long into the abyss. Actually, Hope and the abyss do more than just gaze into each other; they’re so well-acquainted they practically give each other high-fives every morning.

I’m writing this review shortly after editing a forthcoming Writers Supporting Writers chat where we discuss whether it’s necessary for characters to suffer. Well, of course, it depends on the type of story being told. But this is definitely the kind where there has to be a lot of suffering. I think it’s the most violent book I’ve read since Peter Martuneac’s His Name Was Zach series. And there is no doubt that every bit of it is key to Broken Hope‘s mood. It’s about capturing anger, depression, resentment and revenge; feelings which all of us must have at one time or another. Obviously, Hope’s reaction is rather extreme… but then, that’s what makes for compelling fiction, isn’t it?

Broken Hope goes to some dark places, but that darkness is also what makes it such a gripping story. Highly recommended for fans of psychological thrillers.

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This book has an ideal premise for a military sci-fi adventure: a hotheaded and impulsive cyber racer named Ryan Fall runs afoul of the law. But, his talent for high-speed maneuvering leads the government to offer him a choice: serve in an advanced combat mech program, to fight against an alien invasion force.

With little choice, and his own adrenaline addiction and competitive nature driving him, Ryan accepts, and is soon mustered into military training. Naturally, his “rebel without a clue” attitude leads him into plenty of clashes with the authorities. But then, that’s partially why they wanted him: as an outsider, he’s willing to think outside the box, and challenge their assumptions. And that is something desperately needed against the inscrutable alien enemy that is threatening to attack.

I imagine any MilSciFi fan will need no further convincing to pick this up. But, just in case…

There are plenty of exciting action sequences in this book, from the early racing scenes to the huge mech battle in the final sequence. On that basis alone, the book certainly earns its military sci-fi name. But what really makes the book are its characters, especially the supporting cast. I confess that Ryan himself was not my favorite; I tend not to like characters who are reflexively disobedient. But, Ryan has his reasons. More on that shortly.

The characters I really did like were Ryan’s immediate superior, the distant Captain Eleanor Ryder, whose icy demeanor masks a past trauma and a desire for revenge. I also loved General Matthews, the stern but fair officer who takes the burden of leadership seriously, but never loses a fundamental affection for those under his command. Both of these characters were great, and I enjoyed all of their scenes. Especially when Matthews is holding forth on the burden of responsibility and being accountable for one’s actions.

Which brings me back to Ryan’s devil-may-care behavior. There’s a reason he acts like he does, and it’s so he can learn and grow over the course of the story. Since military sci-fi adventures are likely to be read by the same demographic as Ryan is in–thrill-seeking young people–there is a message in this story that’s important for folks in that group to learn. Not that most of them will, any more than does Ryan, who, no matter how many times he is told something, doesn’t learn it until he has to experience it for himself. Still, it’s commendable of the author to try.

This is exactly the kind of thing I like in military science-fiction: well-crafted action scenes with deeper themes woven into the story. Highly recommended to fans of the genre.

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I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. Obviously, from the cover, I could see it was sci-fi, but what kind of sci-fi was it?

As it turns out, it’s a mystery story. Private investigator McCall Richter is hired to find a huge cache of stolen valuables. The valuables in this case being tons of maple syrup. I love the idea of maple syrup as a precious commodity.

Richter gets help solving the mystery from her android assistant, Scipio. Scipio has a logical mind and a taste for fine clothing. His general helpfulness coupled with an ever-so-slightly stuck-up personality reminded me a little of the droid in the old Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear books I used to read as a kid. I enjoyed the relationship between these two characters, and I really liked reading a mystery story that isn’t about solving a murder, but something more original.

Richter and Scipio’s investigation turns up another fun character: a wounded dog named “Junkyard” who is abandoned in a… well, you can probably guess. Junkyard’s canine desire to chew on things does not mesh well with Scipio’s love of fancy clothing. But they work it all out eventually.

Of course, there’s still a mystery to be solved, and after a few twists, it all gets sorted. I don’t want to say much more about the plot because, well, with novella-length mysteries, saying even a little can give too much away. But I certainly enjoyed the ride.

This book serves as an intro to a larger story featuring Richter, Scipio, and Junkyard, and it certainly did get me interested in reading more about the characters. The writing style is fun, fast-paced, and witty; making this perfect quick reading for fans of sci-fi and mysteries alike.