Fool's Gold

I debated whether or not to post my thoughts on the book "Fool's Gold" by Hank Quense or not. In the end, I decided that I would.


The description of the book from Amazon.com:
Aliens, ancient gods, beautiful Valkyries, old-fashioned heroes, conniving nobles, betrayal, greed, incest, a magical gold horde; this story has something for everyone. Fafner, the most notorious criminal in the universe, is stranded on Earth after civilization has been ravaged by disease, war and pollution. He decides to hone his felonious skills by stealing the powerful artifacts developed by another alien, Alberich. But Alberich is determined to regain the artifacts or at least make Fafner pay for stealing them. Alberich's devices, made for the magical Rhinegold, give the user vast powers. The Chip, allows the user to receive information instantaneously from anywhere in the universe. The second device, called the Helm is a beanie-like hat that allows the wearer to see the life lines of every creature in the vicinity. Wotan, god of the Saxons and Vikings, has to recover the Rhinegold in order to prevent his aging. He recognizes the greatly enhanced power of the golden horde, thanks to Alberich's genius. He plans to make a big comeback and regain millions of worshippers. To take the devices away from Fafner, he needs an old-fashioned hero: one who is strong of arm and weak of brain. While these conflicts rage on, Brunnhilde, an ex-Valkyrie, searches for the meaning of true love. Despite a few false starts and some problems such as the wrath of the god Wotan and mean-spirited men, Brunnhilde struggles to understand mortal love while she seeks a good man to try it out on.

Unfortunately, this is a book I need to give a rating of "below average" to, despite being excited by reading the description. As I read it, I just couldn't help but feel that it read like a retelling of a myth, with no character development or depth at all. Since it was a "multi-generational" book, and a lot of characters just kept dying, perhaps the author didn't feel it necessary to expand on the characters or make them grow only to be killed off. But as a result, I felt less compassion or connection to the people in the story than I would hearing about someone's death on TV or reading about it in the newspaper.

I think it is an interesting idea that just needs to be worked on a little bit more.

Mr. Quense says that his story is a retelling of an ancient German myth other than the fact that he changed a couple of characters to aliens. And of course, that is his right to do. However, even with a retelling, I expect there to be more substance to a story.

Metro + Med Comics

Walking through the aisles of Fallcon at the grandstand for the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, hoping to come across some great Batman-related stuff, I happened to see a booth for Metro Med comics. I walked over to the booth, as I had heard of Metro Med comics off and on for a few years, as Michael Hutchison also comes from Rochester.

I know what you're asking. What the heck is Fallcon? It's Minnesota's comic book convention. And it's nowhere near what I would imagine somthing like ComicCon would be like. First off, the number of seminars wasn't that big, and the subjects not all that interesting enough to try to be there for. You do have some people who dress up as some comic book hero, which makes it just exciting enough to see. Otherwise, you pay a lot of money to go and see what vendors are selling and/or independent artists and comic book creators are offering. I was at MicroCon in the spring (also at the MN fairgrounds, but smaller) and now this one--and I doubt I'd be interested in going back to either one. Even if you can occasionally find some great independent finds.

But back to Metro Med. For those of you who have never heard of it, it's been around for five years, though I don't know if they are actually still producing the comic or not, to be honest with you. For a comic that has been around for five years, they didn't seem to have that many different issues out on display.

Metro Med (www.metromedcomic.com) is about a superhero/super villian hospital, detailing the saga of the medical team that treats the metahumans injured when the two sides go head to head. The action is set in the fictional East Coast city of Tri-Metro. The unique nature of the medical care needed by metahumans, as well as battle sites that resemble a warzone, bringing in many more casualties than normal hospitals could handle, as well as advanced security as well as an even more important need for privacy (i.e.--unmasking superheroes, having access to strengths--and weaknesses of a particular patient) is the need for a facility like Metro Med.

Managing to snag a free copy of the #0 Summer preview special of Metro Med, I was excited to read through it. I quickly learned that it was a different angle of the normal superhero comic...this is more of a "what's happening behind the scenes" type of comic, with the reader never really knowing what's really happening out "on the field," which is the point of the comic--that doesn't really matter. As a result, though, you never really get to know the superheroes that are being brought in--unless that changes in the other issues. But with that disconnect, with heroes that you don't actually care about, it makes the outcome more anticlimatic. Nor do you care if a hero doesn't actually make it. The story in "Hard Shells and Fruity Centers" the story line seemed fragmented, with a lot of missing information. I realize this may not have actually been the first story ever done for the series, but you don't know the heroes, you don't know the medical staff--nor do you really learn much about either one. Even "inside jokes" between the heroes--whether it just be casual bantor or actual animosity--just sort of falls flat. There are references to the Monster Truck--which undoubtedly is the vehicle one of the heroes drives, but I don't recall ever actually seeing it, which tells me nothing about the vehicle, and makes me care nothing about it. It's all sort of like only being able to watch the first two minutes after each commercial break of an hour-long show.

The concept is a great one, in my opinion, and I think the creators have more of this story in their heads than what I was able to see actually inked out on paper. In fact, in this issue, they had a map of Tri-Metro, as well as a character guide for the medical staff as well as a lot of details about the different heroes and their teams. Now, if this was one issue in the middle of a six or seven part storyline, I would be much more forgiving of the shortfalls with this. However, it was apparently intended as a preview of the series. As such, I felt lost and confused as to what was going on, who was who, with all the different names of heroes, villians, and teams being thrown around. As much as I was excited about this comic and wanted to like it, it's obviously not one for me.

24 Bones

My latest book took me all the way to Cairo, Egypt, and Giza to where the great pyramid is. That book, which some may lay claim to the fact that it doesn't particularly belong here, is 24 Bones by Michael Stewart. This is an ebook, available (that I know of) only from Amazon.com and Mobipocket.com.

This book follows the ancient struggle of right versus wrong, and may challenge your perceptions of what right and wrong are, and their ever changing faces. Yes, there are "evil" characters, and the return of an ancient Egyptian god as he tries to take over the world. What side are you on? And are you sure?

The characters of the book are a professor named Taggart and Samiya (Sam) as they take up their places in that struggle between two cults, and how their fates bring them together in the struggle despite Taggart living in Canada and Sam living in Cairo--both have their roles to play, whether they like it or not, as circumstances bring the two into open conflict with each other.

When I first started reading this book, I wasn't quite sure about it. The story did keep my interest, and when I stopped reading, I would look forward to continuing where I left off. I was curious as to how the book would play out.

There were two things that weighed on me, however, as I started reading this book. One, the tone of the book seemed to portray an anti-Christian theme at almost every chance it got, both in dialogue and thought patterns of the main character of Taggart, to the point that I almost stopped reading even though I am not overtly religious. Now, I realize that for the sake of the story, that was probably a necessary element, and it all becomes an important part of the story down the road to fully understand Taggart's perspective. He's not particularly sold on the Judeo-Christian belief system, yet he goes to Cairo to join "the good fight."

The other thing that bothered me in the beginning of the story was that the writing in a couple of spots seemed sort of weak. The weak spots, though, (and I think there were only two that I can remember)were confined to about the first quarter to third of the book, and were easily overlooked in the context of the continuing story, and didn't cause me to stop reading the book.

Both of those points, though confined to the first quarter or third of the book, were enough to knock half a point off each, down to 4/5 stars.

The next half-point deduction came from the first half of the book, where the details of the cults working against each other were explained in too much detail to the point that it was taking away from the overall story. Granted, much of what was said may have been necessary for the overall story to work.

It wasn't until perhaps halfway through the book that Mr. Stewart finds the proper mix, and the story really starts to take off as the two sides start to maneuver against the other in a series of attack/counter attack which finds the good side on the losing end of most of the time and things are going very, very badly for the side of good. Of course, there wouldn't be much of a compelling reason to read the book if the side of good was always in the advantage. The book is complete with twists and turns that I wouldn't have expected, and kept the suspense going throughout.

I would consider the book to be a mix of the Da Vinci Code, Indiana Jones, and The Mummy, and if you like one or all of those movies/books, you would likely enjoy 24 Bones. It was a very enjoyable journey through Egypt and a very worthwhile story.