Inheritance

The Inheritance Cycle #4

Inheritance

Christopher Paolini

Final book in the cycle that began with Eragon. The author's name isn't Hugo or Tolstoy. A book with 839 pages is a wrist sprainer packed with too much detail. The audiobook I just accessed is 31 hours. Where is Reader's Digest Condensed Books when you need them.

A story that began with a young man discovering a dragon's egg ends a few thousand pages later with an entire clutch of dragon eggs. Thirty-one hours of listening is more than a marathon. The book ends with an interview I mainly skipped in which this is again stated the final book in the series. This is fantasy so I'll declare that Pinocchio's nose has grown at least a foot as two more volumes have been added to the stack.

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Like Real People Do

Breakaway #1

Like Real People Do

E.L. Massey

Elite athletes live life in fishbowl and young athletes have to cope with immaturity, growing bodies, developing social skills and managing finances--multi-million dollar contracts are a mixed blessing.

The players:

Eli an elite figure skater who suffered a traumatic injury that has left him with epilepsy and Hawk, a German Shepherd support dog. He's an out and proud gay.

Cody, a hockey player and best friend from early childhood the two separated by college placement and team assignment. Closet gay. Together the pair run a cooking video website.

Alex Price a teenage hockey phenom loaded with talent, high expectations, and emotional baggage. A closet gay in a world where being outed comes with negative consequences.

Cooper an elite figure skater turned hockey player has become Price's team mate and friend, married in a stable non-gay relationship.

Eli is in Houston. The story is about support networks including therapists and relationships.

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Commanding Sia

NCIS #1

Commanding Sia

Zoe Dawson

A Senator's son is killed landing on an aircraft carrier, the situation calling for a quick and discrete investigation; not easy given a small city on board. A naval investigator and a JAG Lawyer are sent to solve the mystery. Both have personal histories involving the case and with one another. The sexual tension exceeds the legal here. The two appear headed to an encounter in the sack. Why their personal involvements didn't exclude them from participation in the case is the issue I'd ask. This appears to be the first in a series devoted to romance, not law.

The suspense here is not about solving the case but how long a virile hunk can resist getting it on with his irresistible partner. One could swear these were hormonal high-schoolers. Not what I expected when I read the trailer. The one thing about investigating on an aircraft carrier at sea, the suspects have no means of escape though there are several thousand of them and they're all killers.

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Lost Light

Harry Bosch #9

Lost Light

Michael Connelly

Harry has retired, sort of. He still listens to Jazz and his dead case files haunt him, His ruminations do not make policing look particularly good.

Investigating the murder of a show runner he is on set when gun fire breaks out for real. Someone let slip that $2 million were arriving on set and the bad guys arrived to pick it up. The sad sacks re-assigned to investigate bungle the case and get involved in another robbery that takes them out of the picture permanently and the case languishes. The plot thickens when an old protege arrives to tell Harry to lay off. Someone doesn't want him nosing around and knowing Harry that isn't going to cut it.

The suspicion here is that someone high up helped themselves to dirty money and it ended up being recycled.

The plot thickens as it always does with Harry and heads roll. As usual we get a few surprises.

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The Incident: a novella

The Incident: a novella

Michael Bronte

This novella demonstrates how easily being in the wrong part of town at the wrong hour can go terribly bad. A robbery victim can find him/herself the accused since the bad guys know how to work the system better than the average law-abiding citizen. Throw in a white guy and black assailants plus a black cop and you have a potent mix. It's like having a robber sue you because your dog bit him in your home but on an entirely other level.

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The Mailman

The Mailman

Michael Bronte

Begins with a letter carrier making his rounds in what feels like a very familiar scenario with the same issues all such face. The observations are so apt I'm curious as to whether the author was so employed for a time.

Scott Campbell, "Soup", is the mailman of the title and his rounds give him loads of time for introspection. Marisa, his girlfriend of five months has needs and is not shy about making them known, one suspects she supplied the rubber. Kaz, a cop, is his best friend whom he is trying to get inspect the goings on in a run-down house on his route occupied by "Mr. Dirty".

Part two of the book switches to a young female Hispanic Detective whose fellow parishioners hint at nefarious goings on in their neighbourhood which leads her to suspect human trafficking and sex slave operations, she just needs a lead and one suspects Scott will provide it. We hear about the operation from the Russian Mafia's end of it all.

Matters heat up when Soup, Marissa and Kaz stake out the house on Newell and make violent contact. I keep forgetting that Soup is a veteran of the Sandbox and takes martial arts classes with his girlfriend.

The story ends with an HEA. The text could use some editing.

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Commodore Hornblower

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #9

Commodore Hornblower

C.S. Forester

The book begins with Sir Horatio already married to Lady Barbara and the redoubtable Mr. Brown his manservant. His infant son has two Wellesleys as Godfathers-his wife their sister. Richard Arthur Horatio.

Hornblower sets off for the Baltic as Commodore of a fleet with Bush as Captain of his flag ship. His escapades continue and include a meeting with the Tsar of Russia. Feeding him weevily ship's biscuits sounds a mite extreme. He wanted to learn about life on a British Man of War.

Since French has been the language of court in many countries it's amusing that Russia, at war with France does so using French. Hornblower is tone deaf. His job is in part tedious diplomacy which sees him sitting through a ballet while the sound of heavy artillery vibrates outside.

History records what happened when Boney's half-million man army reached Moscow only to see it burn. Starving men and horses retreated in the teeth of a Russian Winter. In Riga the battle becomes a fifth column affair when 5000 Spanish forced recruits desert and are offered transport back home. In the affair Hornblower loses a well-beloved and highly capable young captain. It is a tribute to the author's ability that we feel that loss.

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Flying Colours

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #8

Flying Colours

C.S. Forester

spoilers follow

Brave and noble it was for an Admiral 20 miles distant to order a captain to engage 4 enemy while the ship that relayed the message sits idly by and watches. The destruction of his ship and the loss of his men unconscionable to me.

So we find Hornblower in enemy prison while his men rot away uncared for and ill-fed. Well the 4 enemy ships are out of commission.

Proving the wisdom of picking the crewman with the biggest biceps for his manservant when the carriage transporting him runs off the road at night in a snow storm Brown uses his 200 lbs to lay out their captor and the trio escape in a row boat on a river. He had to or there wouldn't have been volumes 9-11.

After 4 months restive repose comes a leisurely drift down the Loire to the Sea. There the trio purloin a captured English prize ship and put to sea with a dozen galley slaves as crew. As the story ends our Captain, his Lieutenant Bush and manservant Brown have an HEA.

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Ship of the Line

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #7

Ship of the Line

C.S. Forester

Takes some time to figure out who did what on shipboard and who was responsible for getting a ship ready for sea and who paid for it all. The ship and its armaments were supplied by the Navy who assigned the officer who would captain her. The Navy supplied his pay and that of his sailors, the vitualling yard their food stores, dunnage, shot and gunpowder, fresh water.

But it was the captain who was responsible for hiring the crew, preventing them from deserting, and keeping them sober when in port. As Hornblower is circling his newly assigned ship of the line, a recently captured prize ship not of English make, and assessing its handling qualities, he is faced with the issue that as a newly rated ship she came with no crew. His friend Bush from his days as Midshipman is his First Lieutenant and many of the other officers and ratings are in place having transferred from his last ship along with the marines without shore leave but a much larger ship is in need of 250 more men. Upon boarding he is presented with a group of 30 men offered the choice between hanging, transport, or goal and servitude aboard ship. The men he does have are faced with waiting for their pay. The ragged gang he just met will be clothed from ship's stores and billed upon their first pay.

As narrator of his own story Hornblower does not spare his own embarrassments admitting to being seasick on his first day in harbour aboard a flagship and thereafter his first days on shipboard on a regular basis. He is bemused to relate that his namesake, Lord Nelson was similarly discommoded, and that general knowledge demonstrating the fact that his own malady was impossible to hide.

A captain may suffer misgivings in private but must always exhibit utter confidence in public. Utterly tone deaf he was required to perform Sunday Worship followed by the reading of the 38 articles of war which list the causes for which death is the punishment.

Asked to render assistance to the Spaniards on land against the French Hornblower encounters the incompetence and unreliability he expected thanks to his incompetent Admiral.

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Awaken

Awaken
Humphrey Quinn, Rachel Humphrey-D'aigle

I can still remember at 13 wanting to outgrow the yardstick; and six
feet tall at 18 wanting to weigh more than 100 pounds. [I should weigh
under 200 today.] Thirteen-year-old fraternal twins Meghan gets her
growth spurt before her mortified shorter brother Colin. Worse being
defended against bullies by that sister.

Meghan is still waiting for other female physical  attributes but being
a creature of magic suddenly undergoes a severe pubescent fever.

No one has told the twins about their heritage of magic. They've always
been able to communicate mind to mind without speaking but twins have
always had such uncanny abilities. But as they mature these two begin to
manifest innate magic beyond their imagining.

As the book ends in defending their friend Jai they are sucked into
another world on another plane.

Fair to say the book is written for children and needs editing.


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Hornblower and His Majesty

Hornblower and His Majesty

C.S. Forester

This short story is spinoff of the Hornblower canon. Captaining the Royal Yacht may be an honour but it turns out to be a dubious honour. A thankless task but dire consequences should something go wrong. Has anyone ever heard of the name of the captain of Elizabeth's Royal Yacht Britannia? The Royal Yacht here is a vessel under sail lacking the diesel engines and navigation aids her antecedents enjoyed.

Spoilers Follow

This review threatens to be longer than the book itself. This is an amusing fragment that fails of any resolution.

If you've watched The Madness of King George then you're aware of the maladies of George III, the king who lost the colonies.

At the time medicine was crude by today's standards and mental illness not understood. George and his doctor are brought aboard the yacht to take the airs and its captain admonished to maintain quiet at all times.

When the yacht encounters dense fog a fog bell was critical quiet or no. The inept captain of the yacht's screening vessel gets separated from his charge and in the ensuing stew the yacht is beset by an American Privateer.

The king comes on deck in the middle of the havoc and cannon fire that ensues and finds it a delightful show.

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Ghost Towns of Ontario Volume 1

Ghost Towns of Ontario Volume 1

Ron Brown

Summary

A stream provides water power for a sawmill around which a town forms. The local forests are clear cut to provide fodder for the mill. The stream dries up for lack of a watershed. The town dies. Early communities depended on water transportation as early roads were virtually impassable and travel painfully slow. When new highways and later railroads by-passed towns they underwent rapid decline. The final coup de grace often was provided by flooding due to Spring runoff resulting from the lack of the moderating influence of the forests cut to feed those very mills.

Early settlers had a beat back the wilderness mentality that persists to this day but the wilderness no longer exists. The likes of Doug Ford would see the demand for housing justifying the destruction of farmland and greenspace to promote urban sprawl but who will feed that population and will those subdivisions be livable without the breathing space of remaining trees.

One of the frustrations of this and other volumes Brown has published is the terrible reproduction of the many images that lace the books.

Grist mills went under when a Wheat Blossom Midge outbreak had farmers switch to dairy production. Dairy herds lead to cheese production.

The Temperance Movement may have been the making of the Mafia in North America but it put many the hotel out of business and made continuing to hire a local constabulary unnecessary. Selling booze may have been illegal but producing it was not.

By their nature ghost towns document exercises in futility. When Mills lost their reason to operate and business moved to more advantageous locations once flourishing villages were left to rack and ruin. Little or nothing has been done to preserve settler heritage unless cottagers moved in to appropriate former structures. Weeds and farmer's fields replace former building lots and streets become rutted tracks. Lilacs, apple trees, and Forsythia typically mark former homesteads.

I've camped on the cold hard granite of the Canadian Shield. Settlers who were lured to Northern Ontario by the offer of free land found thin marshy, rocky soil that grew little including a new crop of trees after the initial tree cover was clear cut in part due to a short growing season.

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Hornblower and the Atropos

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #5

Hornblower and the Atropos

C.S. Forester

Hornblower is a rather unfortunate name connoting a braggart. Named for Horatio Nelson whose death is honoured in this outing a name the owner is not particularly pleased to bear and have a son so named by his adoring wife while he's at sea.

Proving that who you know is more important than what you know his friend, a retiring admiral uses his prerogative to appoint Hornblower a captain jumping the queue.

An officer of the line has little time for personal life and whatever the man's feelings about married life the potency of his seed and the timing of his brief visits home lead to a growing family presented by his adoring wife.

Granted that it's war that sees the navy employed and sees men die the "butcher's bill" seems taken for granted.

Pride, flattery, and politics hinder the success of Hornblower's endeavours and ultimately cause the loss of his ship. The near sinking of the barge carrying Nelson's remains whether or not historical is a rather light touch.

As others have noted sending a ship of the line on a salvage operation, even if it involves a significant fortune is a bit of a comedown. Doing it under the noses of the Turks just another challenge.

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Hornblower and the Hotspur

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #3

Hornblower and the Hotspur

C.S. Forester

Hornblower has married Maria, his former landlady's daughter. She may be smitten but he feels railroaded and since he's off to war he has two nights to consummate the marriage. In any case she's unlikely to see much of him.

In book one a friend dies fighting a duel on his behalf. Since a Midshipman even as young as 12 is a ship's officer commissions were bought so his father paid for it. This is book 3 of an 11-book series.

Napoleon declaring war on Great Britain saved Naval Officers from shore-bound half-pay or worse and sent Hornblower to sea on a small ship. Not all sailors are born with sea legs and this one became seasick in harbour on his first trip to a boat. As captain seasickness is an ignominious condition he'd rather hide though the pail outside his cabin reveals an unspoken acknowledgement of his condition.

Wise is the officer who defers to the superior knowledge of his older more experienced officers and seamen. A captain must appear to know what he is doing even when he doesn't know what he's doing.

The author uses the argot of the age of sail to full effect indicating no small knowledge of the language of sailing. There's an entire encyclopedic list of words describing every part of a sail for example including the fact that a sheet is a rope or line that controls the sail, not the sail itself, a halyard raises and lowers it. Somewhere this writer has a copy of the Annapolis textbook on seamanship.

The book begins and ends in Portsmouth where his wife has borne him a son and saddled him with the moniker, Horatio.

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The Hollow Boys

Fantasy by Douglas Smith. At 500 pages not a book I'll be reading overnight. All too often books this long are padded with long descriptive passages and meandering side plots.

So much fantasy writing is derivative of JRR Tolkien it is a breath of fresh air to encounter something entirely original. This author joins the ranks of fellow Canadian Guy Gavriel Kay and Neil Gaiman.

A name like Douglas Smith offered a few star athletes and at least two Canadian authors.

Interesting to encounter a book set in Toronto though not called that by name and settings like Lakeshore Psychiatric which is indeed closed. Since I studied abnormal Psych I understand agoraphobia and how debilitating it can be.

I've accepted too many freebies and alas this is among the first by this author I've gotten around to reading. After the initial sections I'll say I'm hooked. But for whatever reason I got bogged down as the book progressed. Will comes off as self-indulgent, spoiled, and immature.

Somehow I just couldn't maintain interest in this book and put it aside only just now plowing through the remaining pages.

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Leave Myself Behind

Leave Myself Behind

Bart Yates

Noah York is an artistic 17-yr-old loner. His single-parent mother Victoria is an eccentric poet. For the record I like Noah.

Newly arrived from Chicago it seems to the East Coast his neighbour JD introduces himself and becomes part of Noah's life.

I tend to share Noah's assessment of High School. At home the Centre Consolidated School was located next door to the former County Jail, the joke was two jails on one hill.

Gay bashing figures in the story along with mental illness. Not sure I enjoyed the road these elements lead us down.

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The World and All That It Holds

The World and All That It Holds

Aleksandar Hemon, Aleksandar Mikić (Narrator)

Ten hours in Audio format. The narrator's accent difficult for my ears and words in native Serb mean nothing. Not sure why the recitation of Ferdinand's titles over and over again was necessary. His assassination the catalyst for WW#1. How long it takes for the apothecary upon whom the story is centred to make it to war I'll find out.

After a brief stint, for the reader, in war the story takes us on a whirlwind tour of the earth. The book is a mix of travels, travails, and philosophy.

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