Jack Reacher Is In Too Deep in "In Too Deep"

 

Jack Reacher goes through a standard mystery in “In Too Deep”. In fact, one can say, once again, Jack Reacher is in too deep. Reacher wakes up chained to a makeshift bed, not knowing how he got there. It’s a standard start to a Jack Reacher novel. Reacher is always stuck somewhere, sometimes knowing how he got there and sometimes not. This time, a guy named Vidic is standing there, and tells him to stay there, and that he’ll help. Right away Reacher doesn’t trust him. Vidic has a small group of sketchy people with him, in an abandoned house, who seem to have millions of dollars worth of random antiques. Of course, this all seems fishy to Jack Reacher. Add into the fact that the FBI seems to be onto him, and an agent seems to want to want revenge on one of the members of Vidic’s crew for killing her father. Of course, this is a female agent, and she automatically takes an attraction to Reacher. Pretty standard stuff for a Reacher novel. Reacher decides to help her out, while pretending to be also on this sketchy crew’s side to crack their operation wide open.

The novel is pretty normal for a Reacher novel, while in usual Lee Child style, a step above the usual writing of a thriller novel proses wise. There’s a lot of description, if a bit too much showing instead of telling. However, Lee Child (or in this case, his brother, Andrew Child who has taken over the series), seems to write his usual descriptive and wordy writing, that moves the story along but doesn’t skim on the details. Reacher chapters are proper length, unlike the two-page chapters of James Patterson, and aren’t bogged down by tons of dialogue, like the later novels of Robert B. Parker.

However, Reacher is still Reacher, even with a new author. He still has creative ways to set up bad guys, and play both sides, and get both sides to trust him until the bad side doesn’t anymore. Ever since I started watching the Jack Reacher TV series on Amazon, the voice of Reacher on the page sounds like Alan Ritcher, the actor who plays him. That straight to the point voice.

The story takes an international crisis turns as Reacher puts together the pieces, which include a report that could pose danger to the United States as a whole. These turn out to not be the small-time crooks they appear to be at the beginning of the novel. It’s a solid Reacher thriller, and a page turning mystery. Sometimes the characters put together the pieces to the reader and sometimes the reader turns to put it together with the character. Jack Reacher is so good at putting together the pieces that the reader tends to follow Reacher as he puts it all together. This isn’t the best Jack Reacher novel ever, but it’s a solid read. I look forward to the next adventure.

Get To The Point: Great Short Story Collections To Read

 If you’re not in the mood for a novel, you can always read a short story collection. Short story collections are perfect if you want to skip around a book or be done with a story faster. So, what kind of short story collections should you read? There are short story collections of multiple genres and types. There are even novella collections, where the stories are slightly longer than your typical short stories but are also shorter than your typical novels. Here are some books worth checking out.

“Different Seasons” by Stephen King – A collection by Stephen King, this book is close to perfect, as in every story in this collection is gold. Even two iconic movies, The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, have come out of this collection. “The Shawshank Redemption” is based on the story “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” and “Stand by Me” is based on the story “The Body”. Both stories are well worth reading, with “The Body” being one of my personal favorite Stephen King stories. Another story in the collection, also made into a film, is “Apt Pupil”, which unlike “The Body” and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” isn’t heartwarming but instead terrifying, but in a more realistic way than supernatural way you often find in a Stephen King story, as a kid becomes obsessed with his Nazi neighbor.

“Get In Trouble” by Kelly Link – Kelly Link is the only fantasy writer to be a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, and this is the book that was up for it. While known mainly as a fantasy editor, she started to publish short story collections in 2005 with her book, “Magic for Beginners.” Link’s writing style varies from story to story, but she often dives into not just the supernatural but the unusual as well. Some of the stories in this book include “The Summer People” about mysterious neighbors, “Secret Identity” which bends the supernatural and mundane, and “Origin Story” about a trip to a Wizard of Oz themed amusement park and many other oddities. Link is a very good writer.

“I Robot” By Issac Asimov – “I Robot” is the classic short story collection by science fiction author Issac Asimov, and though it’s sometimes labelled as a novel, it’s really a short story collection. Asimov is one of the best science fiction writers of all time, and this is a collection of short stories with a simple theme: robots. Asimov was known for his robot novels and would go on to write 37 books about this theme. However, “I Robot” is where this all starts. The stories are woven together by a women named Susan, who is telling the stories to a reporter who is writing about the robotics company she works for. Each story explores the ethics of and the relationships robots have with humans. It is arguably Asimov’s most famous book, and worth a read.

“The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” by Sherman Alexie – Sherman Alexie is the great modern storyteller of native American culture, and in this 1993 short story collection, he continues being this. What makes this collection interesting is many of the stories in this collection are about the same character, Victor. In one story, Victor looks back on his childhood on the Native American reservation, in another story, he collects his father’s ashes, and still another story, Victor attends a carnival with his friends, leading him to reflect on conforming to the white man’s identity. There are also other stories in this collection, including a women reflecting on her son’s birth, a narration of a women raising her son year by year, and other stories. Sherman Alexie is a funny and sensitive writer, and well worth checking out.

So, these are some short story collections worth checking out. Oddly when I was writing this article, I was trying to remember the short story collection I read “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, but on further research, I realize that this piece was published in a magazine back in the 1980s.  I had to read this for a college course, but I remember it being a great short story, so I recommend seeking this one out on the internet, as well as it’s well-done movie adaptation “Smooth Talk”. These books should get you started on the artform of shorter fiction. Despite not having a book on this list, I also recommend seeking out any short story you can by Ray Bradberry, Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain.

A Tribute To Terry Brooks

 

Terry Brooks was the first author I clicked with as a teenager, and that seems to be the case with a lot of readers who become hooked on fantasy. Brooks’s first novel “The Sword of Shannara” is also the first fantasy novel to appear on the New York Times bestseller list at a time when the genre was considered niche. Though, my first experience with Brooks wasn’t his famed “Shannara” series, but his second most popular fantasy series, the “Landover” series. I remember going to Mr. Sealand, my English teacher in middle school and telling him I didn’t have anything I really enjoyed reading at the time, and he pulled a paperback off his shelf, a cover with a normal looking man surrounded by a wizard and a talking dog, holding a magic looking piece of jewellery. It was the first in the Landover series “Magic Kingdom for Sale – Sold”.  Published in 1986, the novel was another big bestseller for Terry Brooks, and continued Brooks’s presence on the bestseller list.

When I read “Magic Kingdom For Sale – Sold”, I was entranced with the light-hearted tale of a normal lawyer from Chicago, Ben Holiday, who by mistake buys a magic kingdom from a catalogue. He ends up best friends with a wizard and a talking dog, as well as falling in love with Willow, a magical woman with green skin. I also loved how it wasn’t bogged down by what bogged down other fantasy novels at the time, like dry descriptions and long explanations of magic systems. There was plenty of action, monsters and quests. For a teenage boy who wasn’t that into reading at the time, it was the perfect portal into the fantasy genre.

I ended up reading the rest of the series and enjoying them quite a lot. That led me to read other authors in the genre like Philip Pullman, and his “Dark Materials” trilogy, which I picked up because it had a blurb from Terry Brooks on the cover. Brooks is best known, however, for his “Shannara” series, beginning with the “The Sword of Shannara” in 1977. This is the novel, which was credited for saving the fantasy genre, becoming the first fantasy novel to sell extremely well, since “The Lord of the Rings” singly handedly dominated the genre for many years.

“The Sword of Shannara” is a rip-roaring fantasy adventure tale, complete with the trademarks that makes Terry Brooks such a big figure in the fantasy genre. It’s not just a good fantasy story, which much like, “Lord of the Rings” is a quest novel, but a page turner as well. In the 726 pages, you find yourself drawn into an epic of finding oneself and having to uncover an ancient sword that hides mystical power and can defeat an evil warlord.

The “Shannara” series would have a dozen sequels, but instead of simply following a standard set of characters, the “Shannara” series would often have 100 years separating the novels, becoming a generational tale of the Olmsford family as they go on various quests throughout this magic world. Another thing that sets “Shannara” apart from other fantasy series is the novels are hinted to have taken place in the future instead of the past, and as the series goes on, elements of science fiction are even introduced.

Terry Brooks is one of the beloved members of the fantasy community, as he is considered one of the nicest people in it. He often attends comic cons, including the Rose City Comic Con every year in Seattle, where he lives. Now at 81 years old, Terry Brooks has announced his retirement. However, the “Shannara” series will continue with fellow fantasy author Delilah S Dawson taking the reins. I hope he’ll find someone to continue the “Landover” series as well, as I would love to continue reading adventures in that world as well.  Brooks’s work will be fondly remembered by millions of fantasy readers. As for me, he is the book that started me on my lifelong love of reading and thank you Mr. Sealand.

"The Righteous Men" is a Solid Mystery If A Bit of a "DaVinci Code" Knock Off

 

“The Righteous Men” isn’t bad but a bit silly in parts but also a solid page turner. It’s obvious this first novel by Sam Bourne, a pen name for an award-winning journalist from the UK, Jonathan Freedland, is trying to ride the coattails of the then mega bestseller “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. It even says on the cover of the novel that this is the biggest challenger to Dan Brown’s crown.

The plot concerns a young journalist named Will Monroe, an American who was raised overseas in the UK. He never knew this father very well until he was an adult living in New York City. He’s also married. His wife gets mad at him one day because he forgot the appointment of visiting a fidelity doctor, and that’s the last time he sees her before she is kidnapped. I was a little hazy on the details of how she got kidnapped, and the book doesn’t dive too much into that. However, we quickly find her kidnaping is part of a bigger conspiracy where good men around the world are being killed. Soon Will is thrown into a vast conspiracy which includes a cult which shares beliefs with more mainstream Jewish branches. He also teams up with an old flame, who is constantly described as hot. The author describes her being attractive way too many times throughout the book. However, she has a secret of her own.

The book kept me turning pages and is a solid enough mystery. However, at 568 pages, the book felt a bit too long. “The DaVinci Code”, by contrast, was 489 pages, which felt like enough. It’s going to be hard not to bring up “The DaVinci Code” in this review, because this book obviously wants to be it. One of the things other reviewers pointed out about this book is it’s better written than “The DaVinci Code”, which isn’t that hard but also missing the point. People don’t read Dan Brown for great proses. They read Dan Brown for a conspiracy thriller crossed with travel porn. I’ve read just about every Dan Brown novel myself, and I would be lying if I didn’t say they are fun reads.

However, New York City doesn’t make for great travel porn like Robert Langon running through Paris, and a Jewish cult having a conspiracy isn’t as interesting as an established mega religion like the Catholic Church having one. There are a ton of twists and turns in this book, and Will keeps getting text messages with religious riddles. I was mostly interested in why good people around the world where being murdered. These men being murdered where all doing good deeds, but a good chunk of this book was scenes of Will and his ex-girlfriend running through New York City.

The twist at the end of the book didn’t surprise me, but I’ve read so many of these types of these. All in all, it was a solid page turner.

"Fairy Tale" Isn't Bad But Isn't King's Best

I’ve never read a Stephen King novel that’s been really bad, and “Fairy Tale” isn’t bad. However, he’s done this type of story better in other books. Other reviews I’ve read of “Fairy Tale” have suggested people read the 1984 novel “The Talisman” he co-authored with Peter Straub instead. I would say that’s about right. It’s a mistake people make when they talk about Stephen King to put him down as simply a horror writer, as he has written in many other genres. Yet, there is plenty of nightmare fuel in “Fairytale”, imagery that is scary enough to come out of a horror novel despite King’s insistence that this one is a straight fantasy novel. Two things work against that notion. One is the fact that the first 100+ pages take place in our world, which makes this novel seem more like a portal fantasy novel (see my last article for more information on that genre), and also King’s writing style sometimes can make the details of a fantasy world a little hard to follow. 

 This novel is about a 17 year old named Charlie Reade, a really good kid who recounts his mother’s death and dad’s descent into alcoholism. This is classic King. A long backstory that doesn’t go too deep into the supernatural as it sets up a character who’s human enough to root for when he does get to the supernatural part. A lot of King books actually take their time before getting into supernatural territory. Some people have cited books like his 1,000+ page novel “It” as an example of this. King always does a good job of balancing the supernatural horror with the everyday and that isn’t any different here. One of the problems I did have with this book is how King writes Charlie. Charlie is a good kid. A really good kid. Too good a kid. When King tries to give Charlie some background that shows he isn’t that good of a kid, like him mentioning guilt over pranks he and a friend of his played when they were younger, it rings a bit hollow. It’s just not enough to make me think Charlie has a dark edge.

Also, King hasn’t been a teenager for a really long time and it shows in his writing of Charlie who just doesn’t come off like a 21st century teen. Look, I myself would probably not be great at writing a current teenager as I haven’t been one myself for awhile at this point either, but King choosing to write this in the 1st person as Charlie probably wasn’t the best idea. I wonder if King wrote Charlie in the 3rd person, he would have been able to write a teenage character better. The plot really kicks into gear when Charlie meets his mysterious neighbor Mr. Bowditch when he falls off a ladder and Charlie saves him after being alerted by his dog running up to him. Mr. Bowditch is a good character, but a mysterious one. He has no wife, no kids and is older. He also has a mysterious shed in his backyard that he warns Charlie not to go to. As it’s strongly hinted, there’s something supernatural about this shed and Charlie wonders about that. Yet, Charlie does end up going to the shed. 

 After a series of events, Charlie goes into the shed and discovers it’s a portal to a mysterious supernatural world apart from our world. Now, the world King paints is grand, and reminded me a bit of other supernatural worlds like Middle Earth and Shannara. However, I found some of the events in this world a bit hard to follow at times, as King dives into a power struggle between two potential queens, a magic sundial which can make Charlie’s new dog younger and battle royales between prisoners of the kingdom. At times, it just felt like too much was going on in this fantasy world. I know this book was 500+ pages, but King felt like he was stuffing too much into the story at times. All in all, it’s not a bad King book but he’s done it better in other books he’s written.

Are You in The Mood for Both Escapism and Realism? These Novels Should Bridge That Gap

Portal fantasy is a genre that bridges the gap between reality world and a fantasy world. Stephen King recently had written a portal fantasy called “Fairy Tale”, about a teenage boy from our world finding the portal to a fantasy world. Portal fantasy is a popular genre, and even major bestsellers are arguably portal fantasy like “Harry Potter”.  Portal fantasy bridges the gap between real and fantasy world and allows the reader to feel that gap close. Here are some portal fantasy novels worth reading.

“Magic Kingdom For Sale – Sold!” by Terry Brooks – Terry Brooks is better known for his “Shannara” series of fantasy novels, but after he wrote his first trilogy in that series, he switched to more humorous fantasy novels. Thus, he wrote the “Landover” series, a series of portal novels about a lawyer named Ben Holiday who buys a magic kingdom out of a catalogue. At first, he thinks it’s a joke, but then he discovers it’s a real place, and finds a court wizard, a talking dog and a beautiful green woman who may not be entirely human. This book is a fun introduction to the portal fantasy genre.

“A Yankee in King Arthurs Court” by Mark Twain – One of the earliest examples of portal fantasy, A Yankee in King Arthurs Court follows an engineer from Connecticut as he falls into a portal which transfers him to another time at Warwick Castle in medieval London. This book has the great wit of Mark Twain, to boot, and is a great example of an early portal fantasy novel.

“Neverwhere” By Neil Gaiman – Neil Gaiman’s portal fantasy novel “Neverwhere” is the story of an ordinary man named Richard, who has a promising career in front of him in banking. However, one day, while going on a walk to meet his boss, he ends up meeting a girl named Door, who is hurt on the sidewalk. When he loses her, he follows her into an underground London world that challenges everything he thought he knew. His whole perception of reality is turned upside down.

“The Magicians” by Lev Grossman – Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” is often considered “Harry Potter” for adults. Quienten, a normal teenager from Brooklyn, is whisked away to a magical school with his friends. On the day he is supposed to interview for Princeton, he is instead transported to Brakebills, a school for magic. What follows is an adult variation on “Harry Potter”, where the older characters indulge in sex, drugs and other more adult pursuits. Grossman’s novel is a hoot for readers who grew up with more kid flare like “Harry Potter” but still want their magical schools.

“The Talisman” by Stephen King and Peter Straub – Stephen King and Peter Straub are two legends of the horror novel world. When they got together to write a book, however, they wrote a portal fantasy novel. When Jack Sawyer, a young boy whose mother is dying, finds a portal into a fantasy world where he is told if he finds a talisman, he can cure his mother. What follows is considered one of the best books of both horror legends.

“Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch – Much like Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere”, Blake Crouch’s “Dark Matters” starts with a normal man walking down the street. He’s going to spend a quiet evening with his wife and kid. However, that all shatters when a man he never met before holds him at gunpoint. To make matters worse, the man and mysterious group inject him with a mysterious drug, and he ends up going between parallel universes, meeting different versions of himself. This is one psychedelic novel.

So, these are some good examples of portal fantasy, a genre which bridges the gap between our world and a fantasy world. So, if you want to read something that can make you feel like you could be two places at once, in our world and in a fantasy realm, these books are a good choice for you.

Author Spotlight: Mark Twain

 

For today’s author spotlight, we are going back to 1800s, to the father of American literature. Mark Twain is a name you probably know, even if you never read any of his books, and you might ask yourself if you should read his books considering how long ago, they were? Well, you defiantly should. Mark Twain is my favorite of the older authors I have read, and all-American literature owes a great debt to this all-American genius. Mark Twain, who’s real name was Samuel Clemons, has written some of the most iconic books of all times. Capturing both the nature of his time in American history, while upholding issues America still deals with even to this very day, Twain is one of the great and most iconic forefathers of American books. Here are some books and stories worth reading if you want to get into the world of Mark Twain.

The Adventures of Tom Swayer – One of Twain’s most iconic books, this 1876 book is simply about a boy named Tom Swayer and his friends, including another iconic character, Huckleberry Finn. Tom Swayer is an orphan who lives his Aunt Polly, in Missouri. While living with his aunt, he gets into all sorts of mischief, including running away to the woods with his friends, trying to impress his crush, Becky, and tricking unsuspecting neighbour kids into doing his chores. This includes the iconic scene where he tricks the kids into painting that white fence. Tom Swayer was one of the first books to be written in an American dialect, something Twain is known for. Also, according to Twain himself, the first novel ever to be written on a typewriter.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – The most iconic book of Twain’s bibliography, the 1884 novel is considered by some scholars and readers to be the best American novel ever written. Huckleberry Finn is a trouble making boy, who runs away from his guardian, and starts rafting the Mississippi river. While on the run from both his guardian, and his abusive alcoholic father who comes back to town, Finn meets a runaway slave named Jim. This leads to an unlikely friendship, as the two unite against trouble on the riverfront, all the while Huckleberry Finn must confront his prejudges himself and see Jim as a person. Does Huckleberry sell out his new friend to a slave owner or does he continue their journey to freedom? To this day, the book is controversial for his expensive use of the N word. However, this book was controversial in its day for its anti-racism message. Hemingway himself would say “all American literature comes from Huckleberry Finn.”

 

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – A fantasy adventure novel, Twain deals with time travel in this comedy. A Yankee engineer, named Hank Morgan, from Connecticut suffers a blow to the head and is transported through space and time back to England, during King Arthur’s rule. After some confusion, Hank realizes he had time travelled and starts to cause mischief in England during the rule of King Arthur. This includes becoming a ravel of Marlin, who he quickly realizes is a fraud, and gaining the trust of King Arthur. However, he also starts to see how the common people during this era were treated and is disguised by it. While this book is a time travel novel, it also pokes fun at the modern era during which Twain’s writing took place.

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – One of Twain’s most famous short stories, the story takes place as a flashback. The narrator is sent to interview an old man, Simon, who might know the location of an old acquaintance named Leonidas. While there, he finds the man at an old mining camp. While the narrator is sent to find the location of Leonidas, he instead tells the man a truly off the topic story about a frog everyone was betting on. Everyone in Calaveras County bets on a found frog and if the frog was going to jump or not. The story goes on for a while, and while by modern standards, this story might sound plain, it’s one of Twain’s funniest stories. The story is included in an 1867 collection called “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches”.

 Extracts from Adam’s Dairy - One of my favorite Mark Twain stories, the story is narrated by Adam himself, as he is introduced to this new creature, Eve, and how annoying he finds her at first. He tries to figure out what exactly Eve is. Is she a fish, a kangaroo or a bear? However, as the story progresses, he finds out Eve is a human like himself. A long short story, at 89 pages, Extracts from Adam’s Dairy is well worth reading for Twain’s unique take on the biblical story.

The Prince and the Pauper – Yet another example of Twain’s fascination with class and times past, The Prince and the Pauper is the story of Tom Canty, a young boy living in England during 1547. During a royal event, he meets Edward Tutor, who is the prince of Wales. Edward invites Tom to his royal quarters, and they get to know each other. The two boys notice they look alike and decide to switch clothes and switch each other’s lives. While they are exploring each other’s lives, they find there are both good and bad to being rich and poor. Class and society were a constant theme in Twain’s works, and this is yet another example of a work that explores this. This is also the first attempt Twain made at historical fiction, but the same themes he has in all of his works is still present.

These are some works to start with to explore the world of Mark Twain. Twain is one of the greatest and most influential writers of all times. It would be fair to say that American storytelling would not exist without Mark Twain’s giant contribution to writing. It’s well worth checking out.