Hero Wanted

Hero Wanted

by Dan McGirt

Trove Books

204 pages

December 2009

A rollicking fantasy romp across the Eleven Kingdoms with reluctant hero Jason Cosmo and cynical wizard Mercury Boltblaster. Forced to flee his home in Lower Hicksnittle and pursued by bounty hunters, demons, and the sinister Dark Magic Society, Jason goes from the bright realm of The Gods to the depths of the Incredibly Dark Forest to learn the awful truth behind the price on his head.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this free book from Barnes & Noble, and it's relatively short at 204 pages.

With that small amount of pages, the characters, the plot, and the story is not overly involved. The plot so thin that the suspension of disbelief is even more of an issue with this story than it would be with most. However, that is the extent of the negativity that I can have with this book.

This was a fun, quick read that spoofs modern culture as well as fantasy adventure stories, and it is difficult to go even one page without laughing out loud at the absurdities that it presents. I have not had such a good time reading a story since.....well, never. I would list this book's comedic value in the ranks of Tom Holt, Robert Asprin, and Douglas Adams (probably Adams more so than the former two). This book has it all--the damsels in distress that then latch onto the hero longer than they need to who have their turn at miraculously saving the day to green luminous talking spiders.

If you like spoofs of popular culture and movies like Naked Gun, Airplane, Date Movie, Scary Movie, and the like, then you will probably like this book. If you want more substance and a story you can lose yourself in, this probably isn't a book you're going to like. I, however, look forward to reading more of the adventures of Jason Cosmo

However, I am giving this my top award for the simple fact that it kept my interest on every page and made me laugh more than I've laughed from any other book. Five out of five stars.

The Mermaid's Madness

The Mermaid's Madness
by Jim C. Hines

352 pages

DAW Books

October 6, 2009

What would happen if a star writer went back to the darker themes of the original fairy tales for plots, and then crossed the Disney princesses with Charlie's Angels? What he'd end up with is The Mermaid's Madness-a whole new take on The Little Mermaid. And with Jim C. Hines, of Jig the Goblin fame, penning the tale, you can bet it won't be "They lived happily ever after."

Jim Hines is one of my favorite authors--he has been since I picked up his Goblin Quest book a year ago. His style of writing is reminescent to me of the likes of Robert Asprin or Tom Holt, telling a good story while still maintaining a sense of humor.

Whereas Mr. Hines Jig Trilogy felt like a Dungeons & Dragons sort of feel, his new series, of which The Mermaid's Madness is the second book, he takes on a Charlie's Angel's feel. His slant, though, is what if the fairy tales got it wrong? Remember Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty? Those are his three main characters, and they go on quests, working with Queen Beatrice who is starring in the role of Charlie. Book one saw the trio rescue Cinderella's Prince Armand from Fairytown, and The Mermaid's Madness continues about a year after they came back from that adventure. While comedic writing can still be found in The Mermaid's Madness, and parts of it made me laugh out loud, he has moved into a slightly more mature and darker theme than his Goblin series.

Enter into the mix a couple of more characters--Lannadae, a mermaid who has had to go into hiding from her sister Linea (remember the story of the Little Mermaid?) who has gone mad, and a tree dryad who happens to be the captain of Queen Beatrice's ship.

So, in a group of four women characters, you add three more women characters. The men in the story--the king, Prince Armand, and various assorted sailors, are delegated to supporting roles and barely present. That alone makes the Princess series seem much like an adolescent's fantasy, though the same could be said of Charlie's Angels. But The Mermaid's Madness seems to take that one step further, as Mr. Hines doesn't waste any opportunities to mention the fact that the mermaids are less than fully clothed, and dryads are a sensual, sexual character as well. It's obvious who Mr. Hines targetted audience is--teenaged boys--however, as with any of his books, you may enjoy his version of these fairy tale characters even if you don't fit into his targetted audience. I know I do.

Overall, while maintaining a somewhat darker tone than other books by Hines, the story is still a fun retelling of the Little Mermaid lore, making you want to keep turning the pages to see what little twist will be coming next, as well as to continue to see how the story and the characters continue to unfold. There are some unexpected twists and turns along the way that I must admit I did not see coming, despite being aware of Mr. Hines' other stories. The characters are great--though his little princess universe is vastly changed at the end of the book from what it was at the beginning, and it will be interesting to see what direction his universe and our three princesses as well as Queen Bea take in the next book, which is due out later this year.

Not quite a perfect 5/5 story, but pretty close.

Heart of Stone

Heart of Stone
by C. E. Murphy
416 pages
Luna/Harlequin
November 2007 (reprint: April 2010)

Okay, so jogging through Central Park after midnight wasn't a bright idea. But Margrit Knight never thought she'd encounter a dark new world filled with magical beings—not to mention a dying woman and a mysterious stranger with blood on his hands. Her logical, lawyer instincts told her it couldn't all be real—but she could hardly deny what she'd seen…and touched.

The mystery man, Alban, was a gargoyle. One of the fabled Old Races who had hidden their existence for centuries. Now he was a murder suspect, and he needed Margrit's help to take the heat off him and find the real killer. And as the dead pile up, it's a race against the sunrise to clear Alban's name and keep them both alive….

There is something different about Heart of Stone over other urban fantasy books, and I'm not sure I am quite able to put my finger on it. On one hand, Heart of Stone is a quick read, and it kept my interest going. It seems to be sort of shallow, almost like a TV show or even a movie, and not going any deeper than that concept. On the other hand, it seems to flow, and it's easy to see this book play out in my mind as I'm reading it, almost as seamlessly as it would if I were watching it on the screen. And while it seems shallow and almost fluff in nature compared to some urban fantasy, you can really get into the characters, unlike some books where you can never truly get into the characters.

There are five of the Old Races in this universe , which could be our own, and they stem from legend: Djinn, Dragons, Gargoyles, Selkies, and Vampires. Others, such as the yeti and the syrens, have died off.

At times, I found myself thinking that the dialogue seemed forced and fake, that people would talk like that outside of movies and TV, and I'm not quite sure the author did any research regarding legal aid or law enforcement seem real, but why let things like reality get in the way of a good story, right? There are two types of authors--those who believe that research is a necessary major component of the writing process and those who just put pen to paper and start writing. C. E. Murphy is among the latter.

I will disagree with the complaint that the beginning of the book starts off slow. It actually starts off a lot quicker than a lot of other books that I have read lately, with Margrit coming face to face with Alban in the first couple of pages, and then she continues to run into him. However, it does begin to move a lot faster--along the lines of an action movie fast--as you reach the middle of the book. It's here where I started to exceed my self-imposed goal of reading (I try to read 10% of a book a day--it's not much, but with limited time to read, 10% is a vast improvement from what I used to do). It also keeps you guessing as to who is behind the killings of the women in the park, and you're just not quite sure until the close of the book as to who the killer is.

There are quite a few threads that are left unresolved at the close of the book, which presumably will be dealt with in the second book--among these unresolved threads is one of the main instigators as to why Margrit got involved with the Old Races to begin with. I'm still uncommitted if I will pick up the second book of this series or not. On one hand, the book did keep me turning the pages, and it did set up a compelling alternate universe with the Old Races, and it is far enough removed from other urban fantasy books to avoid being a cookie-cutter series (including having romance that doesn't interfere with the story telling), but on the other hand, I don't know if I really found myself immersed enough in this universe to want to keep reading it.

Barnes & Noble Nook

My wife and I each bought a Barnes & Noble Nook this spring to join the growing number of people who read ebooks--though I still have a number of hard copy books to read as well, thanks to the fact that I bought a number of books following Christmas as well as the Early Reviewer and Member Give-away programs over at http://www.librarything.com/. We made our decision to get ereaders following looking at the Sony eReader that is available practically everywhere--and they looked like they would be fun to have. However, I remembered that of the three eReaders that were becoming commonly available at an affordable price, Sony was ranked at number three. So that left the Kindle from Amazon (and which will start to be sold at Target this year) or the Barnes & Noble Nook. When comparing the Kindle and the Nook, I learned that Kindle apparently only allowed books from their site (and have only recently allowed .pdf books to be imported onto their device as well), whereas the Nook had more of an open system, allowing you to get your books from practically any site where you could buy or get free ebooks, as well as being able to check ebooks out from public libraries. Because of that, we chose to go with the Nook.

THE BAD

There aren't too many bad things I would say about the Nook. I personally didn't have a problem with the speed of the page turns, which is one of the improvements Barnes & Noble made with the new update. To me, it seemed to be about the same speed as turning pages if reading an ebook on a computer, so to me, that update was sort of worthless. However, after the update, it took a long time for the Nook to restart. I hope that is not indicative of how long it is now going to take to start up all the time now, because that was just ridiculous.

The built-in dictionary for the Nook is sort of clumsy to use, and if you need to use it, it's going to severely cut into the flow of the book, though I don't know how the dictionary feature works in the Kindle or the Sony eReader. And the dictionary only apparently works for books bought from Barnes & Noble, not books obtained elsewhere.

The Nook is prone to freezing up from time to time, though for me personally, this was more problematic early on and it hasn't happened recently. Again, I don't know if the Kindle or the eReader have this problem, but as with any technology, it is prone to fail. Imagine if you never had to worry about your computer crashing or getting a virus, or about your car or appliances breaking down, or your gaming system always worked flawlessly. It happens, and it's no different with the Nook. Still, it is frustrating, and to unfreeze it, you need to power off the Nook and wait for it to start back up again.

The last negative thing I have for the Nook is that Adobe Digital Editions would not recognize my Nook whereas the computer would recognize the Nook being hooked up. This may sound like either a computer problem or a problem with Adobe Digital Editions at first, the fix for this, as detailed on many Nook forums, is to unregister the Nook, reset the Nook settings, and then reregister. (Adobe Digital Editions is what you would need to use if you use a site other than Barnes & Noble to get your books, whether you buy them from another site, or get free ebooks from other sites, or check ebooks out from your public library with).

THE INDIFFERENT

One thing that the Nook has is a More in Store feature, where you can go to a Barnes & Noble and connect via their 3G network and obtain unique features. However, they are mainly short one to five page articles and interviews, or perhaps a single recipe and mostly unnoteworthy. I would not make a special trip to Barnes & Noble for these features. Since I work a block and a half from a Barnes & Noble, however, I can easily take my Nook there on a short break and see if there is anything I would be interested in (or you can check the BN website for a rundown on what they are offering as More in Store as well).

I was also at a Barnes & Noble once and could not connect to their network. I went to find the people working at the information desk, and they said that it was likely due to the large number of people there with laptops using the bandwidth.

You can customize your Nook with your own wallpaper and screensavers, which I just recently downloaded a new wallpaper for mine; however, the more pictures you put on it, the less space you will have for your ebooks.

The Lend Me feature sounds like it would be great. You buy a hard copy of a book, and you can lend it out to friends when you're done with it. So, if you buy an ebook, you should have this feature as well. However, this is in "beta" mode which means there are only some books you can do this with.

For some reason I want to keep touching the larger, black and white screen to use as a touch screen when only the smaller screen works as a touch screen. It would be great if the larger screen were touch screen as well, and in color. Only the small screen is in color, so you can see book covers in color, but they are too small to see all that well. Again, color in the large screen would be nice.

There are a number of books you can get for free, including many of them being from Google books. Others seem to be short novellas instead of actual books, and some apparently are incomplete, coming from sources such as Smashwords, so you have to be careful about what you think you are getting for free.

The daily features articles can be entertaining, though I don't go in and read those very much.

The selection of magazine and newspaper subscriptions seems sparse, and not much I would bother even picking up in hard copy edition. It would be nice if they had newsmagazines, media magazines, travel magazines, etc. included in the mix, or more than the 15 or so newspapers that they offer.

THE JURY'S STILL OUT ON...

The new Read in Store feature. It sounds like a good deal--go to a Barnes & Noble, and be able to read many of the ebooks free of charge for up to an hour per day. However, how often do you go to Barnes & Noble to read the hard copy books without buying them. Myself, I will briefly browse through a book to see if I want it, I don't go and read the book while I'm there. If you do read the hard copy books, you don't have an hour time limit to do so. And, the idea is to get people with Nooks to come into the store and be seen with them, thus making other people decide they want one, too. So, why limit this free reading to an hour? Wouldn't it make a lot of sense to not limit the time, and if someone wants to spend all afternoon at Barnes & Noble doing this, that should be up to them, plus it would increase the number of other customers who would see the Nook in use by people. The one good thing about the Read in Store feature is that since not all the stores can carry all the books that would be available, you may be able to read a book--or at least preview a book--that you wouldn't have been able to find in store.

May 16 update: Twice now, we have gone to one of the Barnes & Noble stores here in town to "read in store" (store 2080, I believe). On those two trips, we didn't get anywhere near the one hour limit. The first time, we didn't time it, but it didn't seem like we were getting an hour's worth of time. On the second trip, we did time it. I got 22 minutes. My wife got about 15. That's a total of about 37 minutes (40, if we round up). When we complained to the staff, they said they never heard of that happening. They called customer support and were told that they did not have this complaint before. They did say that it may go by email account, so together, we'd only get an hour per day. Still, we only got a maximum of 40 minutes, not the one hour that Barnes & Nobles claims. We asked if it depended on publisher, and they said that it wouldn't.

THE GOOD

As I've already said, with the Nook, you have the ability to read books in the epub and .pdf formats so you aren't stuck with only one location to get your books, and this was a huge reason why we went with the Nook.

The font, which is adjustable (one of the most commonly asked questions I get when I have it) is crisp, and the screen is clear and readable even if you're sitting outside (another common question).

I'm all about functionality, and the Nook has functionality. You can use the Nook as an mp3 player, though admittedly, due to its size you probably aren't going to take this to the gym while you work out. However, if you wanted to listen to mp3's while you read, you would be able to do this. You can also apparently use this to listen to audio books, which isn't something I have done yet.

With the recent update, you now also have games on the Nook. Right now, the oly two offerings are sodoku and chess, and I can only hope that more will be coming soon. Crosswords puzzles or other mental games would be a welcome addition.

And you have a web browser with the Nook now, allowing you to surf the internet just as you'd be able to on your other handheld portable devices such as your smart phone. I don't expect much from this, but it is nice to have, especially for times when you are looking for the news, a phone number, or a new restaurant. Sure, you may say you have that with your phone or laptop or iPad, but the phone's screen would be smaller, and a laptop seems clumsy compared to the Nook--only the iPad would be comparible to this in my opinion, and was one of the few reasons I was considering an iPad before deciding on the Nook (the iPad price was a major reason I didn't go in that direction). I doubt I'd be able to really watch videos or listen to online music through the Nook's browser, but I doubt that would be a major thing I would want to do anyway. I also tried accessing my yahoo mail, and I didn't have much luck with this, which would have been something I would have done more option, so this does bring the browser feature down a little bit in my book.

May 16 update: The wifi connection doesn't seem to work all the time. In fact, my work place is one big wifi hotspot. However, the nook can't seem to connect there. I was standing right next to another person who was able to connect to the wifi network on his blackberry phone with an android operating system and he had no problem connecting to the network whereas the nook could not connect, or if it did, it would immediately disconnect.

Free Fridays: Each week, Barnes & Noble offers one book for free, which are typically full length novels and in different genres each week. These aren't available for free for long, so if you see something you like, you'd best get it as soon as possible, and check back each Friday.

I also like the fact that the mp3 and the wifi connectivity features have more prominence in the new touch menu so that you don't have to go looking for them.

OTHER THINGS I'D LIKE TO SEE IN THE NOOK

One thing that the Nook doesn't have that a coworker keeps trying to use as his main (and really only) reason why the Kindle is better than the Nook is the text to speech feature. I don't know if I'd use this or not, but it would definitely silence what seems to be Kindle supporters' main argument from what I've heard.

The other thing I'd like to see goes back to my argument for functionality. I would like to see a calendar with the Nook. Right now, I have a PDA (traditional) that I use for my calendar since I don't have a smart phone and likely won't be spending the money on a smart phone, especially with the new features of the Nook. I could get rid of my PDA and use my Nook to keep track of my appointments with.

With the addition of things such as the games and the web browser, can a Nook app store be that far off? I would definitely be willing to spend a couple of dollars per app if they are useful apps, or fun time wasters.

All-in-all, I love my Nook, and I believe the money spent on this is definitely worthwhile. I would recommend anyone who likes reading to get a Nook. If you have any other questions for me regarding this, I'd be happy to answer them.

Star Trek: Titan: Taking Wing

Star Trek: Titan: Taking Wing
By Michael Martin and Mangels
Pocket Books
359 pages
March 2005

After almost a decdade of strife against foes such as the Borg, the Cardassians, the Klingons, and the Dominion, the United Federation of Planets is at the dawn of a new era. Starfleet is renewing its mission of peaceful exploration, diplomacy, and the expansion of knowledge. Among the starships spearheading that endeavor is the U.S.S. Titan, commanded by Captain William T. Riker and manned by the most biologically varied and culturally diverse crew in Starfleet history.

But their mission does not begin as planned.

In the wake of Star Trek: Nemesis, Praetor Shinzon, slayer of the Romulan Senate, is dead. The power vacuum created by his demise has put the Romulan Star Empire, longtime adversary of the Federation, at the brink of civil war. Competing factions now vie for control of their fragmenting civilization, and if the empire should fall, that entire area of the galaxy may destabilize.

To restore order to the region, Titan's long-anticipated mission of exploration is delayed as Starfleet assigns Riker to set up power-sharing talks among the Romulan factions. But even as the first tentative steps are taken toward building a new Romulus, the remants of the Tal Shiar, the dreaded Romulan intelligence service, are regrouping behind the scenes for a power play of their own. With no other help avaiable, Riker and the Titan crew become the last hope to prevent the quadrant from falling into chaos.

In reading this book, I felt like it was almost two different books, based on the style of writing and what was happening. I know that it was written by Michael Martin and Andy Mangels, and I am unsure how that collaboration on the book went, and at the back of the book, there is a short paragraph on each author that establishes his credentials within the Star Trek universe.

Star Trek: Titan is a series based on Will Riker being offered his own command, as seen in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis, and of course Deanna Troi, his wife, goes along with him. The series picks up almost immediately where the movie left off as far as Riker and the starship Titan are concerned, with the ship still in space dock. The primary mission of the Titan is long-range exploration.

I have been out of the Star Trek book circle for awhile, and recently made the decision to get back to reading some of these. And like other reviewers of this book, I felt that there were too many characters with too many different names to really keep track of them all or feel any connection to many of them. Some of those characters apparently had been in some of the Star Trek: The Next Generation relaunch of books, though I wasn't familiar with them. Others were both minor and major characters of one or another TV show. I felt that the first part of this book was littered with minute little details that had no bearing to the story that was going on, whether that the author(s) tried to put everything they knew about Star Trek (and what they knew, it seemed, came from cliff notes)into the book. Also in the first half of the book, the action seemed to be glossed over, with very little dialogue, I felt. The characters of Will Riker and Deanna Troi seemed almost out of character for how they would have acted while on TNG.

And then about half way through, everything changes. The story actually becomes exciting as the Titan finally reaches Romulan space, meets up with the Klingons and then the Romulans as they make their final way to Romulus and the various factions of the Romulans that are trying to get into power. In the second half of this book, I found it difficult to put down and was a much quicker read than the first half of the book. The action is better, the dialogue is better, with the characters acting more within character, and less of the almost constant anti-racism preaching that was prevalent throughout the first half of the book.

The Romulans are not depicted as good as they have been by Diane Duane, and because of that, I would not consider this book essential Romulan reading, but overall, the book does set up the Star Trek Titan universe fairly well.

So, whereas the first half of the book would have warranted two or two-and-a-half stars, the second half redeemed the book to get it up to three-and-a-half stars. I will add the second book of the series to my "will read" column, and give the series at least one more chance.

Dead Witch Walking

Dead Witch Walking
by Kim Harrison
Pages: 368
Publisher: Eos/Harper Collins
April 2004

The underground population of witches, vampires, werewolves—creatures of dreams and nightmares—has lived beside humans for centuries, hiding their powers. But after a genetically engineered virus wipes out a large part of humanity, many of the "Inderlanders" reveal themselves, changing everything.

Rachel Morgan, witch and bounty hunter with the Inderland Runner Services, is one of the best at apprehending supernatural lawbreakers throughout Cincinnati, but when it comes to following the rules, she falls desperately short. Determined to buck the system, she quits and takes off on the run with an I.S. contract on her head and is reluctantly forced to team up with Ivy, Inderland's best runner . . . and a living vampire. But this witch is way out of her league, and to clear her name, Rachel must evade shape-changing assassins, outwit a powerful businessman/crime lord, and survive a vicious underground fight-to-the-death . . . not to mention her own roommate.

I decided to read Dead Witch Walking after reading about Kim Harrison’s book series on a Barnes & Noble Nook blog, where they were hyping this first book of the series as part of their ebook give aways. So, it’s free, why not give it a try? I had somewhat glanced over her books in the past in the bookstore, thinking that they might be interesting, but never actually took the step of either buying it or going to the library to see if I could get it there. It took this free give away and the accompanying rave review of the blogger to convince me that I should give it a try, some six years after it was published.

Dead Witch Walking has a variety of urban fantasy beings—vampires, witches, demons, were-creatures, pixies, and faeries. It’s an interesting mix, and the three main characters of the book are one witch, one vampire, and one pixie. These paranormal beings are referred to as Inderlanders in Harrison’s universe, and considered separate from actual humans. I don’t feel that was adequately explained. For instance, humans in her universe have an aversion to tomatoes, but inderlanders don’t. So, what makes a witch different from a human? What happens when a human is turned into a vampire? Do they suddenly like tomatoes again? Another thing that bothers me is the relationship between Ivy and Rachel Morgan—colleagues that set off together to form their own venture, but yet Rachel, as she has to struggle with getting to know Ivy better, doesn’t seem to be all that trusting of Ivy, something that you can hardly go two pages without being reminded of. In that regard, I think this book could have built a better framework, but maybe as the series goes on, that basic framework will improve. This book also was hard for me to get into. Is that just a funk I’m going through? I don’t think so, as my wife also decided to read this book as well, and as we were reading the first few pages, I asked her what she thought of the book. Her comment was that she had trouble figuring out what was going on, which is a description I’d agree with it. Ms. Harrison throws you right into the middle of her universe without working up to anything, leaving you the reader a bit confused. Imagine yourself walking through a door, and finding yourself in a foreign country that you know nothing about, and that is how this book starts out. Sure, you eventually find your way around, but it takes a bit.

However, as the story progressed, I found myself not wanting to put the book down, as Ms. Harrison’s universe truly came alive and the flow seemed to improve significantly. She does a good job of setting up the series over the course of the book, introducing characters—both allies, villains, future possibilities, and just who are some of these characters?—at a good pace, and she leaves room for growth within their characters as well. If you are wanting a good paranormal romance book, this isn’t it. There are other authors out there that can give that to you. There are some authors out there that started out there series as good urban fantasy and then ruined their series by focusing less on an actual urban fantasy story and turning it more into a romance story with very little action going on. If you want a good urban fantasy book with maybe a small touch of romance, then I’d suggest checking this book out.

I would have given this book a much higher rating if the story had been consistent all the way through it.

The Long Man

The Long Man
by Steve Englehart
Tor books
384 pages
Copyright 2010

In 1981, DJ and Vietnam vet Max August was thrust into a hidden war between the forces of chaos and order. In that war, magick--real, potent magick--was the chief weapon. Mentored by legendary alchemist Cornelius Agrippa, Max was an eager student. Before Agrippa died in 1985--having lived for five hundred years--Max learned the secret to stopping the aging of his body, making himself "timeless."

Nearly three decades later, he saes Dr. Pamela Blackwell from a magickal dart that would have killed her. Her life-saving research has made her an enemy of the FRC, a cabal intent on world domination.

From San Francisco to Barbados to the shores of Suriname, Max and Pam must fight off magick-wielding assassins, legions of zombies, and the FRC's more mundane weapon--corporate clout and friends in high places. Max may be powerful and timeless, but he's not indestructible. He'll need all his powers, his hard-earned fighting skills, and Pam's help to prevent a genocidal apocalypse.

Supernatural enemies, dazzling magic, and nonstop excitement mark this international thriller, a page-turner from a master storyteller.


I never read Steve Englehart's first book, The Point Man, which was published in 1981. I would have been 9 years old. And I'm not Timeless. The Long Man is a follow-up to that book, and follows the continuing adventures of Max August, but just as 25 years have passed in our world, 25 years have passed in his. Because I wasn't familiar with the back story of the characters of Max, Agrippa, or the superstar singer Val, it did take some figuring out what was going on in the books first few pages. I wasn't sure if this was the sort of book that would keep my interest going or not, as Englehart kept changing the time from the current time and going back to 1985 as he filled in some of the gaps of what has happened to our main character in the intervening years between his first book and this one. His mentor has been killed by Aleksandra. Val has been to, though this doesn't stop him from spending the years in between trying to find her and bring her back on each October 31.

So, when in 2007, he feels a pull back to San Francisco, where he had his popular radio show back in the day, he thinks that it's his desire to reach Val that is bringing him back. That, however, is not what fate has in store for him when he receives a phone call from an old friend that results in a new adventure taking him from San Francisco to Barbados and to Suriname (that's in South America if you slept through your geography class) as he faces off against black magic, zombies, chupacabra, and the FRC. In tow is Dr. Pam Blackwell, a doctor who has come up with an antidote for puffer fish poison--an antidote that earns her some powerful enemies that don't want to see that antidote known about in their scheme for world domination. The Long Man is nonstop action from start to finish, presented in a fun and irrelevent manner, while at the same time putting it all into context of the way the world was in 2007 and the changes our world went through as a result of 9/11 and the need for change and hope in the 2008 Presidential election.

It's interesting that the FRC is chosen as the initials of the evil cartel that he comes up against, and how those same initials are used by these high-ranking and powerful individuals who run the world behind the scenes. One of the several examples of this presented by the author is the Federal Reserve Chair. Of course, FRC has a variety of different meanings, in all fields--politics, manufacturing, financial institutions, some of which you can find by searching Wikipedia and/or Google.

This is Steve Englehart's second book. He is more known for his work on writing for comic book series, "The Avengers," "Captain America," "The Fantastic Four," "Batman," and "Justice League of America."

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Long Man. Will you? I would have you do what Max August says. Explore but verify.