The Big Ugly: Jake Hinkson: 9780990591627: Amazon.com: Books Ellie Bennett is an ex-corrections officer who has just served a year inside Eastgate Penitentiary for assaulting a prisoner. She’s only been out for a day when she accepts a strange job offer from the head of a Christian political advocacy group. He wants her to track down a missing ex-con named Alexis. Although no one knows where Alexis has gone, it seems like everyone in Arkansas is looking for her—from a rich televangelist running for Congress to the governor’s dirty tricks man. When Bennett finds the troubled young woman, she has to decide whether to hand her over to the highest bidder or help her escape from the most powerful men in the state.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
The Big Ugly: Jake Hinkson: 9780990591627: Amazon.com: Books Ellie Bennett is an ex-corrections officer who has just served a year inside Eastgate Penitentiary for assaulting a prisoner. She’s only been out for a day when she accepts a strange job offer from the head of a Christian political advocacy group. He wants her to track down a missing ex-con named Alexis. Although no one knows where Alexis has gone, it seems like everyone in Arkansas is looking for her—from a rich televangelist running for Congress to the governor’s dirty tricks man. When Bennett finds the troubled young woman, she has to decide whether to hand her over to the highest bidder or help her escape from the most powerful men in the state.
Stories of the Raksura -- Martha Wells
I've enjoyed Martha Wells' novels about the shape-shifting Raksura, and this companion volume is equally entertaining. It's not the place to make the acquaintance of Moon and Jade and Stone and Chime and all the other characters from the novels. The stories stand on their own just fine, but you really need the background of the books to get the full benefit of them.The first story (really a novella) is "The Falling World." Jade and several others disappear on a trade mission to another court, and eventually Moon, Stone, Chime, and several others go looking for them. When they find them, they're in a precarious situation, frozen in time. Freeing them is a real problem, and it's complicated by the appearance of a creature the likes of which none of the Raksura have ever encountered.
"The Tale of Indigo and Cloud," another novella, shows how the two courts came to be separated. This was before the advent of Moon in Cloud, and it's a nicely done story of diplomacy and intrigue and fills in the backstory of the two courts.
The first of the two shorter stories in the volume is "The Forest Boy," which is a tale of Moon's life before he came to be part of Cloud. He was a wanderer and didn't know who (or what) he was. It's a story about being different and being unable to be what you're not, among other things. "Adaptation" is another story about identity, this one featuring Chime. Identity, come to think of it, is a theme running throughout the Raksura stories. Anyway, this is a must-have volume for fans of the series. I'd advise others to start with the first novel, The Cloud Roads, which I reviewed here. You'll be glad you did.
%2BScion%2BLimited%2B(London)%2B1952.JPG)
%2BScion%2BLimited%2B(London)%2B1952.JPG)
NTTAWWT
New York Post: A thief with a creepy foot fetish has been yanking off the shoes of women at Brooklyn subway stations and then running off with them, according to police sources.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson, who, purely coincidentally, lives in Brooklyn.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson, who, purely coincidentally, lives in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn Leads the Way
Which Cities Get the Most Sleep?: The visualizations, prepared by Principal Data Scientist Brian Wilt, paint a nuanced picture of how people sleep across the country. Overall, the county that stays up the latest is Brooklyn (12:07am), and Maui and Kauai counties in Hawaii go to bed the earliest (10:31pm and 10:33pm, respectively). Gotta wake up early to catch the wave!
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee
WTAE Home: Witnesses allege that he then drove around the vehicle, cursing and yelling "I will kill you," then used the tractor to pin a man against the truck before striking him in the face several times.
Friday, October 10, 2014
%2BFrom%2BOuter%2BSpace%2BAvon.JPG)
%2BFrom%2BOuter%2BSpace%2BAvon.JPG)
A Realistic Assessment of the 2015 Rock Hall Nominees
The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame: A Realistic Assessment of the 2015 Rock Hall Nominees
And here's where you can vote for your picks.
And here's where you can vote for your picks.
FFB: Paperback Forum Issue #2 1985
This is another little zine I found not too long ago while rummaging through a neglected shelf.
As hard as it is for a geezer like me to believe, some of you are probably so young that you don't remember the days before the Internet, the days when information about old paperbacks wasn't easily available, when you couldn't go to Bookscans and see just about every vintage paperback cover there ever was, when instead of searching through little out-of the-way thrift shops for years for that elusive book, you could click on Abebooks and find any title you were looking for, make another click and buy it.
What we had in those olden times was zines like Paperback Forum, although this one came along a bit late in the game. It was quite professionally produced, and it had a lot of B&W photos of paperback covers in addition to the articles.
Probably the most interesting thing in this issue, and still of interest to anybody into paperbacks, is an interview with Knox Burger, conducted by Jon White. I don't have to tell you, I'm sure, that Burger quite a career in publishing, especially as an editor at Gold Medal and Dell. Piet Schreuders has an article on Bantam Books. Geoffrey O'Brien has a review of Goodis: LaVie en Noir et Blanc, available at the time only in French and which has only just this year been translated for those of us cretins who don't read that language (that's Goodis on the cover, as you can see). Barry Kaplan's article is on paperback novels about homosexuality. And of course there's other good stuff including Michael Barson's review of a couple of books about Dell.
It's hard to explain to someone who wasn't around what a thrill it was to get a copy of one of these zines in the mail, but, trust me, it was. I still get a little tingle even now when I thumb through one of them.
Thursday, October 09, 2014
Jan Hooks, R. I. P.
Yahoo TV: Jan Hooks, whose Hillary Clinton and Tammy Faye Bakker were hallmarks of Saturday Night Live in the late '80s, has died. She was 57.
Soon All Our Precious Freedoms Will Be Taken Away
And this place doesn't seem so nice to me.
Northwest Florida Daily News: NICEVILLE - Niceville Police officers were called to a residence after a man allegedly decided he wanted to sing and dance outside.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Northwest Florida Daily News: NICEVILLE - Niceville Police officers were called to a residence after a man allegedly decided he wanted to sing and dance outside.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
History of Civil War board game
History of Civil War board game: The Pro-Union Civil War Board Game That Was the Chutes and Ladders of 1862
Tar-Covered Men WBAGNFARB
Police arrest tar-covered man atop Daytona Beach store: When police arrived, they saw Holoman on the roof, covered in tar. He first said he was visiting family and then changed his story, saying he was an air conditioning technician trying to fix the units because he could hear them making noise from the ground, the report states.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Rock Hall of Fame Nominees
Green Day and Nine Inch Nails Among Rock Hall of Fame Nominees: They are among 15 nominees for the Hall of Fame’s class of 2015, along with Lou Reed, Kraftwerk, the Smiths, Sting, War, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the Marvelettes and the Spinners. The Smiths, the pioneering British band led by the singer Morrissey, has been nominated for the first time, as have the blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who died in 1990, and Bill Withers, the singer of 1970s soul hits like “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
The Return of Perry Mason?
E! Online: Yes, we have a Sherlock 3 in development. We want it to be the best of the series, so that's a pretty tall order," R[obert] D[owney] J[unior] answered, "Also, Perry Mason is a property I'm looking forward to developing further, going back to the 1931 book series…similarly to what we did with the first 2 Sherlocks, mining the original material for things that are 'new.'"
I Want to Believe!
Researchers: Is Bigfoot a visitor from space?
And in fact I wrote the story years ago. It's in this book.
And in fact I wrote the story years ago. It's in this book.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
No Comment Department
Even an Ozarks coroner gets surplus military guns: Doug Wortham used a Defense Department giveaway program for law enforcement to stock his office with an assault rifle, a handgun and a Humvee — even though the people in his custody are in no condition to put up a fight.
They're dead.
They're dead.
Captain's Memories -- Henry Melton
I'm in awe of the amount of planning that's gone into Henry Melton's future history series that he calls The Project Saga. He's been writing stories about it since 1977 when one appeared in Analog and another appeared in Stellar 3. The novels have been appearing for several years now from Wire Rim Press, and now we get Captain's Memories, which contains the stories mentioned above along with a lot of others.But it's not just the stories. Melton has created a framework into which they fit and connecting tissue to make them part of a history of some of the early days of the Project.
Captain Pearce wants back into the Star Fleet after her early retirement, and teaching is the only route open to her. She's going to teach students who are candidates for the Academy, and she's going to try to guide them into informed decisions about whether to go into the Fleet or find something else to do with their lives. She also has an agenda of her own.
Captain Pearce's teaching comes through the telling of stories, like "The Christmas Count," which gives a good picture of a domed world and which is a nice Christmas story to boot. And like "We Hold These Rights," which is about a possible rebellion and war and which is as relevant now as the time it was published. And like "Three Coffins," a very unusual first-contact story. And like "Working Alone," a good problem-solving story of the kind that I've always liked a lot. There are a lot of others, and they're mostly hard science fiction. The beamships and the methods of moving whole planets are all carefully worked out. That doesn't mean the people don't count. The characters in every story and in the connecting material are all as real as can be. If you like SF and if you haven't been reading Melton's books, this would be an excellent place to start. Good stories and good storytelling make a potent combo.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
So It's Come to This
Swings too dangerous for Washington schools: Swing sets are being removed from the playgrounds at Richland elementary schools because they're too dangerous.
15 Celebs Who Are Completely Washed Up
15 Celebs Who Are Completely Washed Up
Annoying slideshow and wrong, wrong, wrong!
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Annoying slideshow and wrong, wrong, wrong!
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Uh-Oh
Sony in Talks to Buy High-Priced Robin Hood Project: The tone of the story has been described as Mission: Impossible and the recent Fast & Furious movies.
History's greatest female crime writers
History's greatest female crime writers
Annoying slideshow. And Gillian Flynn is already one of history's greatest female crime writers.
Annoying slideshow. And Gillian Flynn is already one of history's greatest female crime writers.
Marian Seldes, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Marian Seldes, a regal personality in New York theater for more than half a century in plays ranging from whodunits to the work of Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett and, especially, Edward Albee, died Tuesday at her home in New York. She was 88.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Overlooked Movies: What's Up, Tiger Lily?
I saw this movie long ago and thought it was pretty amusing. Woody Allen took a Japanese spy movie, recut it, and dubbed it with U. S. actors doing mostly one-liners that had nothing to do with the original plot. So, for example, whatever the MacGuffin was in the original movie has become the recipe for the world's best egg salad. The trailer and the poster give the impression that Allen is in the movie. He is, but only in the prologue at the beginning, when he tells about making the movie.Little did I know that the movie I saw wasn't the one that Allen intended for me to see. It had been altered with dialogue being added, along with additional scenes from another movie. And the Lovin' Spoonful. Yes, the Lovin' Spoonful sings a couple of numbers during the course of the movie for reasons that are obscure other than that somebody wanted them in there.
Or that's one version of the story, at least. There are others. I don't think anybody really knows for sure how many versions of the movie there are or which ones exist on current DVDs. It's something worth a look, though, if you want a movie unlike just about any other. The one-liners are hit and miss, but they hit more often than they miss. Or that was my long-ago impression. Now they might all fall flat.
Monday, October 06, 2014
Geoffrey Holder, R. I. P.
BBC News: Geoffrey Holder, the Tony-winning actor, dancer and choreographer known to millions as Baron Samedi in Bond movie Live and Let Die, has died at 84.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
Big Lake - Kindle edition by Nick Russell. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.: When an armored car hijacking leaves two men dead, Arizona Sheriff Jim Weber takes the crime personally, because one of the dead men is his brother-in-law. His hunt for the killers leads him into a world of sordid sex, deceit, and violence, with a suspect list that includes jilted women, a family of anti-government survivalists, and the beautiful wife of the richest man in town. With a plot that has more twists and turns than an Arizona mountain road, a cast of characters you won’t soon forget, and a shocking ending that shakes the town of Big Lake to its very foundation, this first book in the Big Lake series will keep you turning pages to the very end!
Trick or Deadly Treat -- Livia Washburn
I always enjoy Livia Washburn's mysteries about Phyllis Newsome and her boarders. Like the earlier books, this one's got a great small-town Texas setting, characters you feel like are old friends, and a solid mystery plot, but I liked this one even more than usual because one of the boarders, Sam Fletcher, adopts a dog. And it's not just any dog. It's a dalmatian. [DIGRESSION ALERT] When I was young, my father brought home a dog that was mostly, but not quite all, dalmatian. He called it Drift, but my younger brother couldn't pronounce that. He said "Drip." So that became the dog's name. Now I know that a lot of you have had dogs that you think were pretty good dogs, and you are, of course entitled to your opinion, but Drip was the best dog ever, the smartest and most loyal and just the downright most lovable. After Drip crossed the rainbow bridge, my parents had several other dogs -- dalmatians. My brother, who has more dogs than I can keep up with, has a dalmatian among them even now. Whenever a book or a movie or a story has a dalmatian in it, I'm almost guaranteed to like it. [END OF DIGRESSION ALERT]
The dog, Buck, proves to be the connection to the murder in the novel because its vet is accused of killing his wife (the vet's wife, not Buck's wife). Sam can't believe the vet would kill anyone, but Phyllis has promised not to get involved in any more murder cases. That leaves it up to Sam to do the investigating. He knows he's not as good as Phyllis, but he's willing to go it alone if he has to. Later in the book, however, he and Phyllis are hired by the vet's lawyer as consultants. For the first time in the series, they're legit. I have a feeling this will come into play in later books.
Naturally there's cooking along the way, and I'm hungry for white chili casserole right now. Not to mention coconut cream pie cookies. Recipes are included.
There's another development at the end of the novel that's related to cooking and that also promises to figure in upcoming books in the series. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out. If you haven't read any of the other books, you can jump right in with this one, but you'll get even more fun from it if you start at the beginning of the series with A Peach of a Murder. The whole series is highly recommended.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)