Quickie: A History of Florida Forts (de Quesada, Alejandro)

Rating: 4
Year: 2006
Genre: History/Forts
Read again? (still reading)

I'm all about forts, especially those built along the Coastal U.S. in the aftermath of the War of 1812. But any fort is cool with me.

I got this book in May 2007 during a visit to the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine. I started in on it, but didn't get very deep in, so this'll be a "quickie" review.

There's a wealth of information in its 200 pages, and plenty of half-tone black & white photos and illustrations. The book's divided into four large chapters:

1. The Colonial Era
2. The Territorial Era and Seminole Wars
3. The Civil War
4. The Modern Era

I seem to remember that the reading was dry, but in fairness it's been nearly 2 years, so I need to start over.

Quickie: Valdemar--the Shin'a'in and Tayledras

Now that I'm done with Foster for the time being, it's back to the grind with the next set of three Valdemar books. Time for a little history and a bit on the Shin'a'in and Tayledras, who will be figuring a good bit in the rest of the books.

It's about 200 years since the days of Lavan Firestorm (which, ironically, took about 200 years to read), about 1270 years since the Founding of Valdemar, and 2270 years since the Cataclysm.

The twin explosions of the great Cataclysm were centered on the strongholds of Urtho and his nemesis Ma'ar. Urtho was the more powerful mage, or at least had more power invested in his Tower, and upon his death the explosion carved a crater many miles across. Ma'ar's own end was brought about by a device Urtho sent to him in care of the Black Gryphon. This explosion was much smaller and its crater formed what later became Lake Evindem.

The explosions also did weird things to magical energy; in the two millenia since the Cataclysm, there are still wild lands where twisted magic makes for great danger to regular people. This area is known as the Pelagirs, a great forest along the western border of present-day Valdemar.

At some point after the fireworks faded, the remainder of Urtho's followers wandered back toward his Tower and found the crater instead. They were divided--some of the Clans wanted to keep using magic, the rest wanted no part of it. The magic-users went West, and were charged by their Goddess with using magic the cleanse the Pelagirs of wild magic (and bad mages and twisted creatures), taming it so regular folks could move in and live in peace. These are the Tale'edras or Tayledras, the "Hawkbrothers." They breed enormous birds of prey which are highly intelligent. The Hawkbrothers keep themselves hidden away from much of the rest of the world, living in luxurious man-made valleys--Vales--and storing the magic they gather in a Heartstone.

The remaining Clans were charged by the same Goddess with keeping the secret of Urtho's Tower: it wasn't completely destroyed and still contained powerful artifacts and weapons. She remade the entire crater into a vast grassland, the Dhorisha Plains, and set the people to guarding it against any who would intrude. These are the Shin'a'in, the "people of the plains." They breed horses that are the envy of riders everywhere and are known to be fierce warriors.

Quickie: DeLorean: Stainless Steel Illusion (Lamm, John)

Rating: 5/5
Year: 1983
Genre: Nonfiction
Read again? Yes, at 88 miles per hour


My first real look at a DeLorean was in 1985, in a movie theatre, where Marty McFly watched as Doc Brown backed a modified car out of his van. More than 20 years have gone by, and those sleek steel cars still quicken my pulse and awaken the same desire as when I was 18.

The theatre's a megachurch now, the original company is long gone, and John DeLorean himself is dead. But I still want a DeLorean. I bought the "Back To The Future" booklet as soon as I found it--lots of pictures of the people from the movie, yes, but who cares about them (well, aside from Lea Thompson)? The only thing I really cared about were the photos and Ron Cobb's drawings of the car, from which I tried to make my own scale drawings of an unmodified DeLorean. Cobb's drawings weren't accurate, and I was left with working things out as best I could all through 12th Grade. I'm still pretty proud of a 3D-ish technical drawing I made of it--given the lack of accurate source material, I did a good job.

At some point in 1988 (if I remember right), I found an ad for this book and waited impatiently for the thing to arrive. I wasn't disappointed. I'd have to say that having the book is the next best thing to having the car.

You can't tell the story of the car or the company without the story of the man's rise in General Motors and fall in a drug scandal. But I didn't care about that. I was all about the car! I wasn't disappointed there, either. From the earliest stages of design, through the high-tech assembly line, to the disappointing end as the last one rolls out in December of 1983, there's plenty of material.

Photos and illustrations are mostly black & white, but there are some truly stunning color pages featuring aftermarket-painted cars in black, red, and yellow as well as stock stainless-skinned beauties.

A must-have book for a DeLorean fan.

Quickie--Valdemar: Heralds and Valdemar

As promised, a quickie entry for Valdemar and the Heralds. This is all off the top of my head; once I get to the books in which these things are fleshed out more, I'll revise my notes as needed.

The nation of Valdemar was founded about 1,000 years after the Cataclysm in which Urtho destroyed himself and his evil enemy Ma'ar.

Valdemar is named for a man who led a band of freedom-seekers into the West, fleeing the reach of a great Empire. His followers named him King, and he and his closest advisors asked the gods for help in ensuring that only good, honest people become future leaders of the young nation.

The gods answered by sending forth magical creatures that look like pure-white horses with blue eyes and silver hooves, creatures called Companions. They are at least as intelligent as humans--and probably more so, given that they are god-touched (and, we find out later, they're usually reincarnated Heralds).

The Companions Choose individuals who are to become Heralds, the best of the best. Heralds aren't Chosen by class, social standing, education, religion, or other similar qualities, but rather by traits that will make them good Heralds, and therefore good representatives of the government and people of Valdemar. There are civilian members in the government in Council and advisory positions, but only a Herald may become King or Queen.

Heralds are kind of like the Jedi Knights in "Star Wars"--they're a little bit of everything. Some Heralds are assigned as circuit-riders; it's their job to ride from village to village, bringing news and information about new laws and passing judgment on disputes or criminal matters. This duty is typically assigned to trainees as their final 'exam'--they ride the circuit with an experienced Herald, first observing how things are done, then taking the reins and doing it themselves.

Other Heralds become advisors; for example, the Herald second in rank only to the monarch is called the King's Own (or Queen's Own) Herald. This person is close to the monarch--a confidante, a friend, the one person the King or Queen can talk to with absolute trust. It's not unusual for the Monarch's Own Herald to be a spouse.

Other jobs would include spying, diplomacy, or messenger relay.

In times of war, Heralds are attached to the military both as fighters and leaders. Much of their training centers on tactics, strategy, and fighting with common weapons (swords, knives, archery, etc.) or magic (if they have such abilities).

For some 500 years after the end of the "Last Herald-Mage" trilogy, there are no Herald-Mages--just "plain" Heralds. The difference in the two is, of course, the use of classical magic (spells and manipulation of magical energy) over what Lackey calls "Mind-magic" (think ESP-type stuff like telekinesis, fire-starting, Mindspeech, and ForeSight for example).

Quickie: A Song of Ice and Fire (series; Martin, George R. R.)

Rating: 5/5 (all)
Years:
A Game of Thrones (1996)
A Clash of Kings (1998)
A Storm of Swords (2000)
A Feast for Crows (2005)
Genre: Fantasy
Read again? HELL yes.

George R. R. Martin has firmly established himself as my second-favorite author, period (Roger Zelazny being Number One), with this series. Each of the books is freaking huge, and Martin uses every inch of every page to tell a big (and perhaps disorienting at first) story.

He changes point-of-view characters at need (25 by the end of the 4th book)--but don't get too attached to them, because once the fighting starts people start dying. That said, how the hell do I summarize it?

I'll try, but I can't do it justice. This is a Quickie, after all.

Everything starts on the continent of Westeros, with its Seven Kingdoms. The Seven were brought together under the rule of King Robert. When Robert dies, the Kingdom is rent asunder and the seven families go to war to claim the Iron Throne.

At the same time, to the north, there's a great Wall that stretches 300 miles, from the west to the east of the continent. It stands 700 feet high, built of ice and rock, and is a barrier between the Kingdoms and a fearsome enemy known as The Others. The Others are something akin to ice-zombies: once a man is killed by one of these creatures, he may very well rise against you.

And then there's the third main plotline, far to the east on the desert continent of Essos. We follow Daenerys Targaryen, the last of the original family that ruled in Westeros, as she comes into her own power and moves toward taking the Iron Throne for herself.

This is pretty sketchy, yeah, but it's going to be several months before I'm ready to read these four brutes, mostly because I'm right in the beginnings of Mercedes Lackey's "Valdemar" series. Assuming one week per book (considering work and other stuff I want to do), that's another 22 weeks (at most!) after the one I'm reading now--it's February 26, 2009, so that puts it in the last week of June, 2009. I doubt it'll take that long--maybe 3 or 4 days per book is more realistic.

It's been all too long since I waited impatiently for the next book in a series. The last time it was for the second half of Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

I highly, HIGHLY!! recommend this series.

Quickie: Ranma 1/2 (series, Takahashi, Rumiko)

Rating: 5/5
Year:
Genre: Martial Arts comedy
Read again? Hai!

I first got turned on to the animated ("Anime") version of this back in 1996. I'd say the Anime version is somewhat funnier, but both are driven by slapstick violence and physical gags.

There are some 36 volumes in the novels ("Manga"), each divided into nearly stand-alone "chapters." Think of them as episodes in a sit-com, where you don't really have to watch everything to understand a story in the middle. But it does help, especially with Takahashi's insane list of characters.

We're introduced to up-and-coming teen-aged martial arts master Ranma Saotome and his father Genma. They're scrambling through the streets somewhere in Japan, beating the hell out of each other. Well, actually, we meet a red-haired girl and a giant panda beating the hell out of each other.

Then we cut to the lovely home of Soun Tendo and his three teen daughters Kasumi (the domestic one), Nabiki (the schemer), and Akane (the martial-arts badass). Soun is excited, for today his old friend Genma Saotome and his son will return from a long trip to China, where they learned the secrets of Chinese martial arts--and today, Ranma will be given the chance to choose his wife from one of Soun's three daughters.

As he's explaining this to the girls, there's a loud racket at the door--the guests have arrived! Well, a red-haired girl and a giant panda have arrived!

Turns out that these are the very guests Tendo has been waiting for; Genma turns into a panda when he's hit with cold water. Ranma--macho, arrogant Ranma--turns into a red-haired hottie. Hot water turns them back. They fell into cursed pools somewhere in China.

Takahashi has an excellent hand--I really like her drawing style. Granted, the stories and situations are aimed more at the teen and twentysomething market, and many of the stories are romantic comedies, but Takakashi's also taking a swipe at martial arts as a whole, because just about everyone is a martial artist in these books. You've got martial arts figure skating. Martial arts pizza-making. Martial arts gymnastics. Martial-arts hair care products. Martial arts cheerleading.

Then there's the cast of characters; in addition to those mentioned already, some of the most memorable are:

Happosai, a martial arts master and panty thief.
Ryoga, the guy with no sense of direction, and who turns into a potbellied piglet.
Shampoo, the Chinese girl who must marry Ranma or kill him. Turns into a cat.
Tatewaki Kunou, the guy who wants Akane and girl Ranma--and wants to kill boy Ranma.
Kodachi Kunou, the girl who wants boy Ranma--and wants to kill girl Ranma.
Ukyo, one of three Ranma fiancees, who can kick your ass with a spatula!

The interactions of these seemingly insane people are what drive the story and make me willing to pop for ten bucks per book.

Quickie: Star Wars: New Jedi Order (series, various)

Rating: 1/5
Years: 1999-2003
Genre: Sci-Fi
Read again? HELL no.

Yeah, I know I just finished saying you shouldn't look for a "Star Wars" review anytime soon. Changed my mind--because this series is one of the reasons (aside from Luca$) I don't want to read "Star Wars" books. There may be spoilers without warning--this is a series I will not recommend to anyone.

It is a dark time for "Star Wars" fans. Although he's raking cash in at a phenomenal rate, the money-crazed Lord Luca$ isn't happy with destroying the franchise in film. He spreads his grasping tentacles outward into the book market.

Hiring hacks who vomited some of the worst "Star Wars"-affiliated crap to ever grace the page, he and his agents set forth to deliver the coup de grace to what was once a treasured childhood world.

I first encountered this "New Jedi Order" series with book #4, "Hero's Trial." Chewbacca is dead. Han Solo is utterly wrecked. On first reading, I thought it a reasonably good book, and it made me want to read the others to see how Chewie bought it.

I got that chance in January, 2007. For three full months, I slogged through the series from start to finish. Oh, man, did I slog. And there are only maybe 3 of the 19 books (plus short stories/novellas) where I wasn't groaning "Oh, for F*CK'S SAKE!" every other page. Few of the writers have any sort of grasp of the characters and "feel" of Star Wars. They could all have learned from Timothy Zahn, who wrote the best damn "Star Wars" novels, period, with his Thrawn trilogy. I can live with the inevitable continuity issues from one author to the next. But idiotic plots and crappy dialogue are unforgiveable.

In a nutshell, a race of beings with living technology invades the galaxy, killing and destroying anyone and everyone who oppose them. Droids are anathema. Any technology that comes from a non-living source is anathema. They are capable of growing anything they need--ships, weapons, communications, clothing. Even their human disguises are a living skin.

Basically, they waste everyone. Chewie dies. Han and Leia's boy Anakin (inexplicably named after his evil grandfather) dies. The freaking Hutts die. This all sounds cool, but I know damn well there are better writers out there who could have made this turd into something pretty.

This series runs entirely too long--and it brings us back into contact with characters and situations from the worst "Star Wars" novels ever written, such as Dave Wolverton's "The Courtship of Princess Leia" (which is some unholy melding of crappy Harlequin romance complete with hunky prince Fabio type trying to woo the Princess away from Han) and Roger MacBride Allen's Corellian trilogy (where we find that Han Solo has an evil twin cousin with access to a super weapon that will rule the...yeah. Crap.). Yeah, they bring Fabio and the Evil Twin back, and both are still the same after some 20 years.

The worst of it is, I went to Wookieepedia shortly after beginning the set. The write-up makes the series sound good. That's false advertising, isn't it?

Read this series at your own peril. I know of one person who actually liked it, so your mileage may vary.

Quickie: The Dresden Files (Series; Butcher, Jim)

Rating (series): 5/5
Year:
1. Storm Front (2000)
2. Fool Moon (2000)
3. Grave Peril (2001)
4. Summer Knight (2002)
5. Death Masks (2003)
6. Blood Rites (2004)
7. Dead Beat (2005)
8. Proven Guilty (2006)
9. White Night (2007)
10. Small Favor (2008)
Genre: Fantasy/Detective
Read again? Absolutely!

To fill in space between the weekly-or-so posts where I review a single book, I'm going to try doing a "quickie" review of a book or series. No idea if it'll be a daily thing, since I'm about as erratic as any other blogger, but *shrug*.

So we begin with Jim Butcher's freaking cool detective wizard, Harry Dresden of "The Dresden Files." If you've seen the very short-run series that the Sci-Fi network squeezed out a few years back...please don't judge these books by the bad coverage. TV and Hollywood types--and especially the Sci-Fi folks--can't seem to stick to a book very well. They changed an awful lot, and it didn't work as well as they hoped.

They should have left damn good enough alone.

Harry Dresden lives in Chicago. He's the only wizard in the phone book, and the only wizard who's trying to make a living as an actual wizard. Much of his work is detective-type stuff, and he fits well into the hard-boiled mold made by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. I can't really see Humphrey Bogart as Dresden, though Dresden is as much of a wise-ass as Bogey ever was. He makes his pennies finding people's keys or lost dogs, and he makes his dollars doing freelance consulting for the Chicago Police Department's Special Crimes unit, where all the weird, unexplained crimes get sent. "Weird" and "unexplained" ends up meaning "supernatural."

Each book features a different supernatural or mythical critter, and you can get an idea of which ones they are by the pun in the book title. Butcher throws in plenty of little pop-culture things (which could really date the series in 10 years, but that's okay), movie quotes, and truly funny moments--for example, while he's about to be clubbed to death in a Wal-Mart garden center by a demon that's taken form by collecting plants and earth, Dresden's busy trying to come up with a name for the damn thing, just because it's good to know what killed you. He names it a "Chlorofiend." His buddy the lady cop kills it with a chainsaw.

Even better, each book builds on the ones before, so there's plenty of room for character development and relationships. And there are lots of interesting regulars: Karrin Murphy, the lady cop; "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone, the local Mob boss; Bob, the talking skull and magical database; Mister, Dresden's enormous gray cat; Mouse, his even bigger dog; Michael, an honest-to-god Knight; Billy the Werewolf; Thomas the vampire; and Susan, his girlfriend who happens to be a reporter.

1. Storm Front (2000): Grisly murders happen during powerful thunderstorms--and there's no physical evidence. Dresden quickly finds himself the target of police scrutiny as people he's spoken to end up dead. Then the killer goes after him--and so does an enforcer of the White Council of mages, who is convinced that Dresden is the killer!

2. Fool Moon (2000): Werewolves! Something is tearing people apart. But is it a) the werewolf whose family was cursed centuries ago by the Church; b) the college werewolf kids who happen to be forming their own pack; or c) something else? Or--as Chicago PD thinks--is it Dresden?

3. Grave Peril (2001): Ghosts! Something is torturing the ghosts in Chicago; something wants revenge on Dresden. Dresden gets invited to a vampire party--and shows up dressed as a cheesy Dracula.

4. Summer Knight (2002): Faeries! Bad things are happening in Faerie land; war is approaching, and it will affect the Faeries and our own world. Can Dresden find the killer of the Summer Knight before the White Council decides to kill him?

5. Death Masks (2003): Demons! Remember the "thirty pieces of silver" story about Jesus? Well, there are thirty silver coins, each one with one of the Fallen Angels in it. One who takes up a coin becomes a murderin' badass. This book has one of the most awesome "interrogation" scenes between Dresden and a guy named Cassius. You'll know it when you read it.

6. Blood Rites (2004): Vampires! Would you believe incubus porn? Not the band, the creatures that feed on sexual energy. Bow-chicka-wow-wow.

7. Dead Beat (2005): Zombies! A head-to-head competition between three black magic practitioners, with the world as the prize. The Big Battle features Dresden riding a zombie T. Rex to fight the bad guys.

8. Proven Guilty (2006): Movie monsters! Harry goes to SplatterCon, where the movie geeks are unreal...and the movie monsters are all too real!

9. White Night (2007): Witches! Someone's been killing witches. And the vampires are back!

10. Small Favor (2008): Billy goats Gruff! First, they're small...Harry defeats them. And each time, their bigger siblings come calling to set him straight. Can Harry survive the biggest Gruff of all?

A quickie review can't do the series justice. But it's going to be several months before I get to it, considering that I'm still one book into the huge Valdemar series. There's a new Dresden coming in April 2009, too.

Quickie: Chronicles of Amber, The (Series; Zelazny, Roger)

Rating (series) 5/5
Year:
Corwin:
1. Nine Princes in Amber (1970)
2. The Guns of Avalon (1972)
3. The Sign of the Unicorn (1975)
4. The Hand of Oberon (1976)
5. The Courts of Chaos (1978)

Genre: Fantasy
Read again? Yes!

Gotta start with this series, since that's the one that grabbed me back in 1983 or so.

I got Volume 1 of 2 from my brother-in-law. The thick hardcover sat unread for a few months before I finally picked it up and opened it. From that point, it was difficult to put the thing down. Zelazny had a sharp, solid writing style that has become the major influence in my own muddling attempts at writing. All the Amber books are written in first person, with Lord Corwin, Prince of Amber, the man who would be king, telling us his life story. Several times--for as events unfold through the five Corwin novels, he is forced to re-evaluate his understanding of things.

There are many literary references, mostly to Shakespeare; and there is enough dealing and double-dealing in Corwin's family to give Machiavelli a migraine. But through all the back-stabbing and throat-cutting, all the intrigues and secretive alliances, through all things runs a single golden thread, the reason for all these things: Amber.

Amber is the archetype of every city, every civilization that has existed, does exist, or will ever exist. It is said that all roads lead to Amber: this is true, if one but knows the way. Amber represents Order. Her polar opposite at the far end of reality is the Courts of Chaos. Between these two poles--Order and Disorder--lies everything, including our own world, which is but a shadow of Amber.

Corwin and his family are granted certain powers by the Power that formed Amber itself, a mysterious glowing design graven in blue fire. This "Pattern" gives them the ability to walk (or ride a horse) away from Amber, working their will upon their surroundings, changing the sky, the land, the people until the world matches what they've imagined. They call these worlds "Shadows," little more than pale copies of Amber herself.

Their other big ability (and the one that I thought the coolest) lies in the Trumps. Basically a set of Tarot cards, with some added face cards representing each member of the royal family. If you have a Trump for a person, you just concentrate on the card, imagine that the person is actually there, and *contact* you're looking at them and talking to them. If you touch the other person, you can bring them through the link to wherever you are.

Who needs Warp Speed, with cool stuff like this?