Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Codex by Douglas Preston by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Codex by Douglas Preston

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Last week I reviewed Douglas Preston's Wyman Ford Series. In the first book in that series, Tyrannosaur Canyon, published in 2005, the main character the series is named for doesn't come into the story until much later. Instead, the protagonist in the first book through most of the story is Tom Broadbent, a former code breaker. Broadbent was the main character in Preston's 2003 standalone thriller novel, The Codex, along with his sidekick Sally Colorado. In The Codex, both protagonists were drawn with deep, compelling characterization that I can't deny would have really made the Wyman Ford Series worth reading (in fact, I wish Wyman Ford had been taken out altogether so the series could include Broadbent and Colorado as main characters instead). 

In this story, Tom and his two brothers' father Maxwell is a notorious treasure hunter and tomb robber. In his lifetime, he accumulated more than half a billion dollars' worth of rare art, jewels, and artifacts. When Maxwell gathers his three grown, estranged sons to his New Mexico estate, they arrive to find that all his treasure is missing. Robbery is suspected until they find a cryptic message from Maxwell, telling them he's devised a final test for them to discover his tomb treasure trove. Winner takes all. Tom's two brothers can hardly wait and enlist private investigators and mercenaries. But they're far from the only ones searching for this rare, priceless hoard of items. 

Tom isn't interested in the treasure at all, at least not until a drop-dead gorgeous ethnopharmacologist (explanation for that mouthful: medicinal products used by isolated or primitive people are investigated using modern scientific methods) contacts him. Sally Colorado tells Tom that years ago his dad tried to present a Mayan Codex to a museum for translation. Without experts in the language at that time, the museum rejected it. But, now that ancient Mayan has been deciphered, Sally and her Yale professor fiancé believe ancient herbal remedies contained within that Codex could revolutionize modern medicine and lead to cures for diseases. Reluctantly, Tom agrees to help them track down his father's treasure trove in Central America, where the Codex is presumably hidden. 

In the course of multiple, thrilling twists and turns and near-death experiences, Tom, Sally, and his brothers discover they have another brother--the true eldest son of their father. Borabay is associated with the native Tara tribe who live below the White City--a mountain temple in Honduras. The chief of the tribe tells Tom and his brothers that their cancer-ridden father asked to be poisoned and buried with his treasure in the White City. However, the chief only gave him a drink that rendered him unconscious. So now the siblings must rescue their father along with reaching the treasure before the other hunters in hot pursuit get to it first. 

As I said of this author in previous reviews of his work, he excels at providing authentic settings and scenarios that seem utterly believable, in large part because Preston himself is an adventurer. Having studied mathematics, biology, physics, anthropology, and English literature, he's been a curator at a museum and a writer for National Geographic and Smithsonian, among other notable publications. With a friend, Preston once retraced on horseback a thousand miles of Coronado's route across Arizona and New Mexico--and nearly killed themselves in the process--in order to research a book. Preston's outstanding core elements are combined with The Codex's high-stakes plot and contain all the necessary complications and layers that provide unremitting suspense and action. 

While often Preston's characterization leaves much to be desired, that's not the case here. The protagonists in The Codex are beautifully drawn and fleshed out. Tom and Sally are such genuine, appealing characters from start to finish. I was rooting for them to succeed in their quest and fall in love. They really should have a series of their own. It's too bad Wyman Ford, such a cardboard character, took center stage in the Wyman Ford Series because I really believe Tom and Sally would have brought that sequence to life instead of simply starring in it intermittently (but powerfully) in the first book of it. If you're a fan of Lara Croft Tomb Raider type adventure stories that take you to ancient civilizations and feature brave, compelling, worthy heroes and heroines, this one has everything you could want and more. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Wyman Ford Series by Douglas Preston by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Wyman Ford Series by Douglas Preston

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are mainly known for the books they write together (I've previously reviewed several of them on the Alien Romances Blog including Relic and Reliquary and The Ice Limit and Beyond the Ice Limit, among others), but they're also solo authors. Douglas Preston's Wyman Ford Series (published between 2005 and 2014) is classified as a series of "archaeological thrillers" featuring Wyman Ford who retired from the CIA after his wife was killed (predictably, he was the intended victim), and he went on to become a monk. In this series, he soon retires from that sedate, boring profession in order to help out the government with globally catastrophic events that he's apparently the only person with the skills to handle. 

When the series opens in the first book, Tyrannosaur Canyon, Ford doesn't come into the story until much later. Instead, the protagonist in the first book through most of the story is Tom Broadbent, a former code breaker who's the main character in Preston's standalone novel, The Codex. I actually thought Broadbent and his kickass wife Sally were the real stars of this show. The mystery and mayhem that ensue in this first story in the series involves a Tyrannosaur fossil worth millions of dollars on the black market. While this plot involves a lot of predictable elements, the setting is authentic enough that you can practically feel the scorching sun beating down on you in the hot desert. Ironically, the thing that I liked least in this story was the character of Ford. The retired spy as a monk felt like little more than the means to make the character unique when he was, in fact, anything but. I didn't particularly think Ford added anything to the four stories currently available in this series. He's too much of a cardboard character with no real personality or feelings to make him interesting. Furthermore, his skill set seemed like convenient things tacked on to involve him in the events taking place in the individual series stories. 

The second book in the series, Blasphemy, features a supercollider that the U.S. government has built deep under an Arizona mountain that may turn the Earth into a black hole if something isn't done to shut it down. Religious and cultural clichés absolutely abound in this story--painfully so! I'm not exaggerating when I say I didn't enjoy the subplots involving by-the-book, overzealous, and ridiculously stupid religious figures and paint-by-numbers Native Americans. The plot really wasn't capable of saving this story, especially when Ford is recruited by the government (again), then forced to deal with the woman he attended college with, engaged in a brief, passionate fling at that time, and they parted ways badly long years ago. Nothing about the relationship felt authentic or moving. 

In the third series title, Impact, there's a tremendously large cast, none of whom I found adequately fleshed out; along with wide variety of well-depicted settings; and almost too much plot for one story to hold. Preston does excel at providing believable scenarios that are backed with strong, valid science and then turning them into "science fiction". For the most part, the reader can suspend belief about the things taking place in these stories; that they could actually happen in real life isn't out of the realm of possibility. This one involves otherworldly gemstones, an anomaly on Mars, and a meteor, along with end-of the-world consequences if Ford doesn't intervene. I can't say I thought he had much to do with the salvation of the world though. To me, things seemed to just fall together for him, eventually, after a lot of scares. 

 

The last book released in the series, The Kraken Project, took away the major point in Preston's favor--the believable scenario. In this story, a programmer has developed an AI she's named Dorothy who's supposed to control a probe in search of alien life on Saturn's moon Titan. Instead, during testing, Dorothy realizes she's on a suicide mission and flees into the internet in order to ensure her survival. Eventually her program is downloaded into a robot, giving her at least something of a body. While this story is based on fact--a probe searching for life actually did explore Titan's surface in January 2005--the rest of this fictional story came off as hokey and downright silly to me. I admit that seeing the test robot that my sister's husband has roaming around their home at any time, tripping people and almost never following orders, let alone answering questions correctly, is the basis for my disdain. My brother-in-law has tested several iterations of these little, cute robots over the years, but they've become progressively stupider and more unmanageable instead of smarter and more lifelike. Dorothy is portrayed as almost entirely human in terms of her feelings and manner of thinking--combined with above-average intelligence and some might say awesome prophesying skills. Nothing about the main plot in The Kraken Project seemed authentic to me. I couldn't get myself to suspend belief enough to buy any part of it and all other subplots suffered as a result. Once again, we had a massive cast of characters, Wyman Ford leading them and not really convincing me he was worth following either. The settings, though, as usual, were vivid and genuine.  

This series would best suit readers who are looking for high tension, unrelenting suspense and action, and adventure set in captivating locations combined with (mainly) authentic science and technology turned into fiction with radical "advances". If you're looking for deep, compelling characterization, you won't find too much of it here other than in the character of Tom Broadbent and his wife in the initial series offering. Both of those characters would have made excellent protagonists in the series in place of the dull, mud-puddle-depth, straight off the character worksheet appeal of Wyman Ford. Do yourself a favor and read The Codex by Douglas Preston, which I'll be reviewing next week, along with or instead of the Wyman Ford Series, which really does have everything a reader might be looking for. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

This first edition cover (UK), frankly looks like something the author's kid might have created with crayons. We've come a long way, baby. 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

It's hard to imagine the classic horror novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, is 128 years old. It was first published in 1896 and, oh, how it has stood the test of time! This story serves as our earliest depiction of "uplift", which is a science fiction motif where an advanced race intervenes in evolving an animal species to a higher level of intelligence. 

The Island of Dr. Moreau starts with a scientifically trained Englishman named Edward Prendick surviving a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean. After being rescued by a passing ship, he's cared for by a man named Montgomery. There, he meets who he assumes is Montgomery's manservant, M'ling, a grotesque bestial native. The ship is transporting a variety of animals to Montgomery's destination--the island of Dr. Moreau, his employer. Once they arrive, Prendick is forced off the ship by the captain, and Montgomery agrees that he can stay temporarily, though few ships pass the island. 

It isn't long before Prendick recalls who Dr. Moreau is--formerly a promising, respected physiologist who was forced out of the scientific community once his gruesome vivisection experiments were exposed. Moreau has all but disappeared in the 11 years since. 

Hearing the screams of the doctor's tortured patients on two early occasions, Prendick is driven by compassion out of the enclosed compound into the jungle. There, he begins to piece together the true horror of what's being done on this remote island. He discovers a colony of half-human/half-animal creatures living in the jungle. They're led by a creature called the "Sayer of the Law". They recite over and over their law, given to them by Moreau, their maker, which prohibits bestial behavior: 

Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not men? 

When I was a kid and watched the 1977 movie version of this book, the ritualistic chanting made quite an impression on me. It shocked and horrified me that Moreau made them obey his laws or he'd severely punish them by sending him to the House of Pain. To be so far removed from those he's, in one perspective, fathered, to feel so little regret or sorrow for their condition, was inconceivable to me, even at that young age. 

Moreau later admits that these "Beast Folk" weren't formerly men but animals he's operated and experimented on in hopes of transforming an animal completely into a human. With each new subject, he wants to believe he's getting closer to perfection, yet each time they revert to their animal form and behavior eventually. 

The balance in this fragile environment begins to erode with Prendick and his intact sense of morality (something Moreau lacks entirely and Montgomery has been losing steadily, at the cost of his own sanity, all these years) pushing it toward the edge. Seeing Prendick's rebellious behavior toward Moreau and Montgomery, the beasts soon begin retaliating for all their years of pain and suffering at the hands of the true monster in their midst. 

To put this story into the context of the time period it was published, note that in 1896, the possibly of humanity's degeneration was being discussed fervently in Europe. That's a whole 'nother subject that can be embarked upon at the reader's leisure and level of interest aside from this review. However, suffice it to say that several groups rose in opposition of animal vivisection on the basis of the topic, and The Island of Dr. Moreau is the author's reflection on the ethical, philosophical, and scientific concerns and controversies of that time period, most especially inspired by the trial of Oscar Wilde. Wells said in his preface to his collected works that The Island of Dr. Moreau embodies an ideal but otherwise "has no allegorical quality". Sure, whatever. 

Whatever the case, it's just plain a fantastic story of horror and, like Frankenstein, takes the concept of showing the monster being more the ideal of what man should be than the man himself, and, in that way, the man is the true monster. This is a story that I can't imagine anyone not finding compelling. Every part of it is perfectly developed. 

The Island of Dr. Moreau has inspired countless artistic endeavors, more than can be documented in this short review, but each of these is a testament to a story so compelling, even a century later, we're still influenced by the resonating message it proclaims. The countless films that have attempted to follow the book version are mainly all worthy of being watched at least, but it's the novel that, above all, shouldn't be missed. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was published in 1895 and is another story by this prolific author that's brilliantly passed the test of time. This forerunner of time-traveling fiction is as amazing now as it was in its own time period. A previous short story by Wells (1888's "The Chronic Argonauts", published in his college newspaper) was the foundation for the novella. 

I resisted reading The Time Machine for a long time because, as I said in my previous review of Timeline by Michael Crichton, I'm not a fan of time-travel fiction, which tends to be convoluted and dependent on too many elements having to converge at exactly the right moment or it simply won't work. In the case of 99% of these types of stories, I find the odds simply too astronomical for me to believe it's possible. And yet in every one of these stories, it does work. Impossibly. And, for the most part, stupidly. So I resisted this pivotal example of one of (the only two, in my opinion) the finest pieces of time-travel fiction available for a long time. Once I finally caved in and read it, it was nothing like I expected with elements of time-travel, yes, but also of horror and adventure, with a post-apocalyptic slant. 

Set in Victorian England (a time period I adore), a gentleman, scientist, and inventor identified only as the Time Traveller journeys into the far future and meets a small, "intellectually degraded", humanoid group called Eloi who live on the surface of the planet along with savage and simian Morlocks, underground darkness dwellers who only emerge at night to capture the Eloi. 

In the  story, the protagonist travels through time for a bit of adventure and goes right back out into other time periods using his machine after returning to tell his friends the tale of the Eloi and Morlocks. There is no deeper reason for his endeavors in creating and using this machine, but many since The Time Machine's publication have attempted to provide answers and justifications and sequels to this very brief story. I must say that I did actually enjoy the 2002 film version with Guy Pearce that gives the Time Traveller a deeply emotional reason for why he (a university professor and inventor) developed a time machine, as well as a name--Dr. Alexander Hartdegen. Follow-ups to the original story do hold appeal, but be sure not to miss the novella that started it all. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Riptide by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Riptide by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Riptide by authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child was published in 1998, one of their first collaborations. While I generally avoid pirate books (notably, I didn't care for Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes either, though I generally read everything I can get from him), I can't deny I love the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. This particular story had a bit more to it than I anticipated and I was intrigued by it, in large part because of all the puzzles the island throws at the main characters, making them a lot like the Lara Croft series I love in any form. The authors themselves describe Riptide as "a fictional tale of suspense, terror, and mystery…based on research into such eclectic subjects as buried treasure, high-seas piracy, 17th century espionage and cryptology, forensic anthropology, as well as the latest high-tech tools of today's treasure hunters." On their website, they listed some of them on a separate page related to the book, for those who want all the details. 

The story in Riptide follows a plot to retrieve the buried treasure of a nefarious pirate, Red Ned Ockham. Not only is the stash reputed to be worth billions of dollars but it supposedly includes a cursed sword that will kill anyone who so much as looks at it. The story takes place on a fictional and dangerous island off the coast of Maine. In part, the story is modeled after the legend of the Oak Island Money Pit (called the Water Pit here), a real-life place that's become famous for numerous theories and attempts to discover buried treasure. 

Malin Hatch is the main character, and the accident when they were little kids (Malin was five) that led to him losing his older brother opens the book. This event is the catalyst for his attempts 25 years later to return to the island his family owns. Unfortunately, the high-tech salvage team--one that has its own motives--he accompanies to the island quickly learns that the island's curse may not be all legend and superstition. Mysterious accidents, illnesses, and tech issues plague them as they try to discover the secrets behind the architecture of the Water Pit. 

The characters are extremely well-drawn and compelling and the settings are realistic to the point that you can almost see everything, as if you're watching a movie. Speaking of which, this story would make an incredible one with nail-biting suspense and a plot that just won't quit. There was talk of it in 2003 but, as far as I know, nothing came of it. I guess I'll just have to read the book again, something I encourage readers who like Indiana Jones/Lara Croft and Captain Jack Sparrow/Barbossa type characters featured in the same story to pick up as well. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Mount Dragon by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Mount Dragon by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Mount Dragon by authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child was published in 1996, their second collaboration. In the vein of Michael Crichton, this technothriller takes existing technology and extrapolates all the horrible places it could go if left unchecked in the hands of madmen. 

Two researchers, Guy and Susana are employed by GeneDyne Corporation, stationed at the Mount Dragon facility in New Mexico, and a hormone that's been engineered to prevent the flu goes horribly wrong. The virulent disease that results and spreads rampantly, not surprisingly, could have been prevented. Guy and Susana discover that their predecessor was driven mad by his work on the virus. Other so-called accidents have also occurred and been hushed up in the time since. Only they can stop a planet-wide epidemic from leaving Mount Dragon, but those who own GeneDyne will stop at nothing to continue their experiments. Note that the authors include on their website a final chapter to Mount Dragon that didn't make it into the book. 

The inspiration for the story was best described in an interview posted on the authors' website, in which they talked about "genetically-engineered tomatoes, or milk produced from cows that have been given growth hormones... ...things like that are just the tip of the iceberg. ...Imagine 'improving' something like cholera or plague so that it's even more deadly. Or...tweaking diseases so they home in on the hereditary differences of certain groups of people. It's a truly, truly scary thought." 

Something I love is that these two authors are always trying to make connections between all their books, regardless of whether they're standalone or series titles. The hacker Mime in Mount Dragon also appears in the Pendergast Series and devices created by GeneDyne are also mentioned there. 

If you like nail-breaking suspense stories with intriguing characters set in memorable places, this one has all the ingredients to satisfying your cravings. Personally, I can't get enough of books like these, whether they're written by Michael Crichton, Robin Cook, Andy Weir, Tom Clancy, Dan Brown, or these two guys Preston and Child separately or together. If you feel the same, this is one to put on your list of must-reads. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Final Girls by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Final Girls by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Final Girls was published in 2017, written by Riley Sager (pen name of Todd Ritter). Although this was the first book written under the author's pen name, it's one of the last I'm reading of his. It fits into a niche genre that includes psychological suspense thrillers characterized almost routinely by unreliable narrators, unexpected plot twists, and complex and usually immoral characters. Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, S.J. Watson, and Sager himself are the forerunners in this category. 

As you can imagine, this "slasher film" trope is based on the last character left alive to tell the tale. The premise of Final Girls stemmed from the author wondering what it would be like for girls who are the last to survive horrific events in which everyone else around them was murdered. He wondered if they thought about it every day, whether it was possible for them to forget such a thing, and if they can ever trust again. 

The heroine, Quincy Carpenter, was involved in such an event. Ten years ago, her and her college friends were on vacation at Pinewood Cottage. Everyone was massacred by a psychotic escapee from a nearby mental hospital. Quinn remembers little about this, and what she does remember is recalled in scenes interspersed with the current story. After the incident, Quinn involuntarily becomes part of an unofficial club of "Final Girls", so named by journalists and social media websites. Lisa Milner and Samantha Boyd also survived harrowing, similar situations. For the most part, Quinn has shunned not only the press but the other "group members". She's getting on with her life, blogging as a baker and committed to a boyfriend lawyer, her hang-ups from the past locked up in a drawer in her kitchen. Lisa commits suicide and, a few days later, Quincy finds a text from her, begging her to make contact. Not long after that, Lisa's death is rule a homicide, and the other Final Girl Sam shows up on Quincy's doorstep. What happens next is a whole lot of disjointed weirdness, doubts about everyone and everything in her life, and the endless red herrings that complicate (and sometimes overwhelm) stories like these. 

Unlike a lot of Sager's other novels that I've read (and reviewed previously on this blog), he didn't include anything vaguely supernatural in this particular one. While I love stories that blend a thriller with the paranormal, I didn't miss it too much in this story, which I thought was one of his best. While, yes, it's true that I'm going to complain like I always do about his books that this one was at least 150 pages longer than it really needed to be, it was an edge-of-the-seat story and I got so caught up in it, I forgot the cardinal rule of not taking anything the writer says at face value. While I was trying to figure out what devious twist he'd try to pull out of his hat at the last minute, Sager sneaked in the back door with something I should have been looking out for from the first. Clever. I love that he out-thought me. Very few fellow writers have that ability so I can give nothing but kudos to him for achieving it with this story. 

In the author's note in the back, he mentioned that his editor's enthusiasm for the book aided him in setting a personal best in speed writing. Stephen King gave Final Girls a mostly positive review but found it "hampered only by bad writing and lack of literary merit". Honestly, I didn't notice anything but an overinflated word count. The book won the International Thriller Writers Awards for best Hard Cover Novel in 2018, so it can't be too bad. Fans of the genre will no doubt find this one worthy. Talk of a movie based on the book was announced in November 2017 but I don't think anything ever happened with it. Incidentally, there were two 2015-released movies (one called Final Girl with Abigail Breslin and another called The Final Girls), neither written by Sager, as well as a 2021 novel, The Final Girl Support Group (by Grady Hendrix), with a similar premise. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Karen S. Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Genius of Leonardo Da Vinci by Barrington Barber

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Genius of Leonardo Da Vinci by Barrington Barber

by Karen S. Wiesner

Leonardo Da Vinci has long been a fascination for me. An Italian polymath of the High Renaissance, his achievements as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect almost feel alien-like. In too many areas, he's just too far ahead of his time to have been relegated to the years of 1452 to 1519, where most of his radically advanced conceptions couldn't even be made in reality. But he and those who trusted him tried making many of them. I marvel that one person was given so many skills. Most theorists don't necessarily design their own projects even in blueprint, nor go on to actually building it. Either they don't have the skills, the materials, or the funding. But he did so much more than conceiving, designing, and construction. He also worked from the inside out, figuring out the inner workings of the human body, proving himself to be a revolutionary in medicine, science, art, and architecture.

How did one man come by all these incredible secrets? It's beyond believing or conceiving.

Barrington Barber gives us glimpses of the genius. I read this beautiful, gold-embossed, clothbound boxed set with reproductions of Da Vinci's work called The Genius of Leonardo Da Vinci. The three volumes delve into his art, life, and work. I enjoyed the overview, marveled at his range and just how much the world owes to his advancements and innovations in such diverse areas. Who can compare to him in any of those disciplines? Even if anyone has gone beyond since, no one else can claim the discoveries he did in the mere 67 years he spent on this Earth…well, that we know of. 😁

My only complaint is one that goes for all biographies. The very last thing I ever want to know about anyone, especially those I admire, are details about their private lives. I learned far too much, things I really didn’t want to know about the man. In this one area, at least, Da Vinci was indeed mortal, fallible, and depressingly common. Sigh.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: "The Oblivion Bride" by Caitlin Starling by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: "The Oblivion Bride" by Caitlin Starling

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

"The Oblivion Bride", a romantic fantasy novella by Caitlyn Starling, was published January 21, 2025 by Neon Hemlock Press, the same publisher that released Starling's 2020 "Yellow Jessamine" novella. This new tale has a lot in common with that one, though I liked this one slightly better. Taking place in a made up city-state called Volun, wild magic surrounds the walls, forcing all to stay inside a warded area for safety's sake. The main character Lorelei has lost almost everyone in her family under suspicious circumstances, including, most recently, her beloved mother. The cause is almost certainly magical in origin, possibly a curse. Her remaining kin, an uncle, is determined to figure out the cause of this and so agrees to marry Lorelei off to the top war alchemist Nephele, who applies herself to investigate while the marriage is being arranged and Lorelei is magically impregnated in a way that also includes Nephele's genes. 

Lorelei is, not surprisingly, a mess, grieving the loss of her mother and never expecting to develop feelings for her betrothed. Nephele has a similar reaction, given that this was an arranged marriage and she's an older woman who's been almost totally consumed by her career up to this point. 

While I enjoyed the dystopian quality of the setting and otherworldly mood of the events, as a whole, the story felt as disjointed and underdeveloped as "Yellow Jessamine" did to me when I read it (which is why I didn't review it). My main issue here was that the past really wasn't dug into deeply in this particular tale. We learned very little about Lorelei and Nephele's histories nor about the circumstances surrounding the state of the world beyond what was told us as statements of facts (i.e., whatever might have been written on a character/plot sheet in advance of writing--no more, no less). That crucial dimension of development forced 2D renderings and never achieved full-fledged lifelike status for me. I also have to comment on the fact that the reader can't help but feel Lorelei was projecting on older-woman Nephele her loss and devastation over her mother--desperately needing maternal comfort. It's difficult not to get an icky feeling about their romantic/sexual relationship because of that. 

Additionally, the last few chapters kind of dissolved a bit with far too many instances of the f-word per page. I don't mind some well-placed swearing, but sometimes overuse gets so drastic that it's hard to know what the author meant a word to actually mean. If everything (noun, verb, adjective, you name it) becomes an acrobatic feat of grammar by twisting the same word to the form needed, the story becomes muddied by the appearance of the same word from one sentence or paragraph to the next. Not only that, but using a word like that absolutely does not in any way intensify the reader's sense of suspense, action, or emotional connection--you know, beyond annoyance that genuine portrayal of said suspense, action, and emotional connection is being reduced to childish cursing. Ergo, the reader is thrust out of the story by lazy writing, which is what happened to me toward the end. I really struggled to finish the last few chapters. 

That said, I nearly always enjoy Starling's offbeat and unusual storytelling, and this tale is no exception, despite the areas I was left wanting more and different things than were being presented. I read eagerly at first and my interest only waned slightly from start to finish. (I certainly would have preferred to be more excited about the novella near the end rather than earlier on.) 

As a little bonus, the exterior and interior of the paperback were very striking. The front cover had such a multifaceted and layered image, I found myself going back often for more, to discover something else that might have been hidden in the cleverly rendered artwork. The interior had compelling, black and white, free-form images before each chapter of a similar but always changing nature. Unfortunately, the text was left-aligned, not justified, and that made it hard for me to read. I just prefer text to be tidy and symmetrical to prevent it from distracting from the story. 

For those who like to view the world in an unconventional, even weird way through their reading, this story will more than satisfy. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Warriors Anthology Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Warriors Anthology

Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

This post contains my 154 review on the Alien Romances Blog! 

Warriors, published in 2010, is another cross-genre anthology George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois edited and assembled together. As before, this collection with 20 shorts (two of them novellas) was originally published in one large volume. Later, the stories were separated into three paperbacks, and all include Martin's introductory article titled "Stories from the Spinner Rack", which I very much enjoyed reading for its shared nostalgia (though I did wonder if the author actually tried to read a few romances or nurses novels before deciding he'd "never did get into" them). All the authors are big names, award-winning and undeniably gifted, and Warriors won the 2011 Locus Award for Best Anthology. 

While I love cross-genre fiction, there were far too many war stories in this one, which probably makes you laugh as much as it does me at this point. For the most part, I picked up this anthology for one story--the George R. R. Martin Dunk and Egg installment (the third in his A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms series). 

I guess the word "warrior" has a positive, noble context in my mind. Most of the "warriors" in this anthology, however, weren't necessarily good people in my estimation. I'd call them "rogues" (or something similar) instead. I prefer to believe the best of warriors, and, in my way of thinking, warriors tend to be ordinary joes or janes who step up and become heroes in a crisis, even if they never wanted to be that in the first or last place. 

Truthfully I was hoping there would be more fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction selections, or that those types of stories would have something more compelling than run-of-the-mill soldiers who follow orders without actually thinking for themselves, or who fight for a good cause and not simply for whatever the agenda on tap is. A few of the stories stood out in this collection--the ones I'll review here--but, with the exception of The Mystery Knight and The Scroll, even those weren't really what I was looking for. I also feel compelled to inject that one story in particular (that I'm choosing not to name here) was so disturbing, I felt dirty after I read it and I'd give anything to just blot it from my mind for the rest of time. Make of that what you will. Another was written in a way that frustrated me and put me off the story instantly. I don't know if I would have liked it if it'd been written differently or by someone else altogether. Again, since it's a subjective opinion, I won't name that particular story either. I was also sad that I didn't like one of the stories by a popular author I've been reading much more of lately and was looking forward to. 

Though similar to other Martin/Dozois anthologies, in that each story in this collection was preceded by a fairly in-depth author biography, the introductory blurbs included for each were so slim, they were all but worthless. It's difficult for me to enjoy something that I don't get an adequate summary for in advance of reading. Probably another "me" thing on that count. I was initially pretty unhappy about the lack of illuminating blurbs until after I read the stories. Then I wondered how to describe them myself. So many defied summary! 

Below you'll find the stories I'm covering in this review listed in the order they appear in the original publication in one volume. Technically, they came in 1st, 9th, 12th, 13th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th. For those of you following my anthology reviews, if I'd edited and assembled this collection, I would have started with "The Scroll", ended with The Mystery Knight, and placed the rest of them in this order: Story #4, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 instead, with the rest of the stories around them.                                                 

1)              "The King of Norway" by Cecelia Holland: Bloodthirsty Vikings, complete with violence and vows, about sums up this story. While I'm sorry to say I found it predictable, especially as the make-or-break-it first included in the collection, I did like the line "All dreams are true somehow". I spent a lot of time considering that line apart from the story, if nothing else.

 

2)              "Seven Years From Home" by Naomi Novik: This was an interesting sci-fi tale about a researcher's role in a manufactured war. I was drawn in by the theme of time not healing some wounds and about how war, "politics and the great concerns of the universe" leave one content to withdraw into a place where peace and simplicity are the rule, not the exception, as it is in reality's ever-present state of violence.

 

3)              "Out of the Dark" by David Weber: Compelling. Literally (and I mean that), humanity's only hope for survival when the Earth is invaded by canine-like aliens is the very last being one would think of in terms of providing help to mankind. All in all, kind of an insane story that makes me laugh in shock each time I think of it now.

 

4)              "The Girls From Avengers" by Carrie Vaughn: Set in 1943, a woman in WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) investigates the death of her friend. While I might have liked this if the subject matter and themes were more interesting to me, I will say that this story did fit the brief of fascinating, worthwhile warriors, the way most of these tales didn't (in my opinion anyway).

 

5)              "My Name is Legion" by David Morell: Set in 1941, members of the French Foreign Legion do their duty, even if it means fighting each other. While the story was generally enjoyable, I felt like I was missing something all the time I was reading. I just didn't get it, which may be more of a commentary on my dislike of war and stories containing that theme than anything actually wrong with the piece.

 

6)              "Defenders of the Frontier" by Robert Silverberg: For two decades, the troops manning a fort that was once teaming with soldiers have done their duty to their realm so completely, they've wiped out every last enemy. There are only 11 defenders left, and they've had no contact with the Empire in long enough for them to wonder if they've been forgotten. I read this in a state of horror from start to finish. These men struck me as the worst kind of monsters--the kind that doesn't even realize what they've become by blindly following orders. After submitting without question for so long, someone and something snaps. It has to. Is all shred of humanity lost at that point? The story tries to answer that question after a fashion by the way the survivors react, but I suspect that my answer to the same question would be on the opposite extreme.   

 

7)              "The Scroll" by David Ball: A French engineer and his fellow slaves under a new regime are mere pawns in a diabolical game in which the madman in charge of building a new city from the rubble follows the whims of an ancient scroll said to prophesize (and predict) what the engineer will do next. Wow, was this yet another horrifying refrain! The engineer trapped in this sad, sordid drama would do anything to stop playing the role he's been cast into. But it seems like everything he says and does, everything he doesn't say and doesn't do leads to one thing and one thing alone: Death. There's no escape. It reminded me a lot of the videogame Fable II, in which the hero is forced to go to the Spire, where the cold, calculating, nutso Commandant tries to teach submission to all the slaves. Devoid of choice or freedom, blindly following some random edict, leaves nothing but no-win situations. This was my second favorite tale in the collection, mostly because it held me so spellbound while I read it.

 

8)              The Mystery Knight (Book 3: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms) by George R. R. Martin: This was hands-down my favorite included in the anthology. I reviewed it back on March 14, 2025 with the two previous stories in its series. 

Warriors had a theme that wasn't really geared toward someone like me, who dislikes war in nearly every context. Those who are fans of war stories and not-necessarily noble warriors will probably enjoy this anthology much more than I did.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/