"Fun and Games" by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)

Fun and Games
Duane Swierczynski
304 pp. Mulholland Books. $14.99
Pub. Date: 6/20/2011
ISBN-13: 9780316133289

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

Publisher Blurb: Charlie Hardie, an ex-cop still reeling from the revenge killing of his former partner's entire family, fears one thing above all else: that he'll suffer the same fate.

Languishing in self-imposed exile, Hardie has become a glorified house sitter. His latest gig comes replete with an illegally squatting B-movie actress who rants about hit men who specialize in making deaths look like accidents. Unfortunately, it's the real deal. Hardie finds himself squared off against a small army of the most lethal men in the world: The Accident People.

It's nothing personal-the girl just happens to be the next name on their list. For Hardie, though, it's intensely personal. He's not about to let more innocent people die. Not on his watch.

Of all the sitting jobs, housesitting seems the easiest. Beats the hell out of babysitting. Never met a house that'd have the mood swings of a toddler. But housesitting is a simple life: sit around, watch DVDs, start a book blog, and hope a natural disaster doesn't strike. Because getting your house sucked up Wizard-of-Oz style kills your career. For those who want to escape reality like Kurt Russell wants to escape New York, it's the perfect occupation.

Unless reality fights back. Throws both the monkey and the wrench into your best-laid slacker plans. Housesitting isn't fun and games when someone is trying to kill you. And you don't know why.

I loved Duane Swierczynski's novel Expiration Date, so I was excited for his new novel Fun and Games, the first volume of Swierczynski's Charlie Hardie trilogy. If the rest of the trilogy is as awesome as Fun and Games, this series is going to be one for the crime fiction Hall of Fame. Every year or so, you get a novel that blows you away. That makes you remember why reading is so damn fun. A book that takes a Louisville Slugger to your Id, Ego, and Superego, cracking it upside its collective Freudian head.

Fun and Games is that book for me. People talk about page-turners, but Fun and Games will have you ignoring your spouse, kids, bodily functions, and that pesky raccoon that keeps dumpster diving in your bins. Swierczynski immediately hooks you in from the first chapter, dropping you into a massive conspiracy that centers around Lane Madden, a Hollywood starlet with a checkered past. Stumbling into this is Charlie Hardie, a housesitter with a checkered past. A past he drowns with alcohol and self-pity.

The key here is the checkered past of both main characters. It is where the answers reside. The question: why are some highly organized people trying to kill them? And make it look like an accident?

The action never stops, never pauses. Swierczynski raises the danger for Hardie and Madden with each new chapter, their outlook for survival bleak. The killers are intelligent, resourceful, and driven. Authors stack the odds against their characters, but not to this extent. The setup is so outstanding, you can't imagine how Charlie and Lane will survive. And this is what makes you continue reading, makes you ignore your family, or the fact your goldfish has gone belly up.

If you haven't experienced Duane Swierczynski's work, Fun and Games is a great place to jump in. You won't regret it. Right now, this is the best book I've read this year. And it will take an amazing novel to change that.

Game of Thrones Episode Seven Preview

Game of Thrones is just going by way too fast. Here are two clips from the upcoming seventh episode of the excellent HBO series.

Collector's Corner - Kris Saknussemm

I have a signed copy of Kris Saknussemm's Enigmatic Pilot on my ever-growing to-read pile.

Here's the blurbage: In 1844, in a still-young America, the first intimations of civil war are stirring throughout the land. In Zanesville, Ohio, the Sitturd family—Hephaestus, a clubfooted inventor; his wife, Rapture, a Creole from the Sea Islands; and their prodigiously gifted six-year-old son, Lloyd, whose libido is as precocious as his intellect—are forced to flee the only home they have ever known for an uncertain future in Texas, whence Hephaestus’s half-brother, Micah, has sent them a mysterious invitation, promising riches and wonders too amazing to be entrusted to paper.

Thus begins one of the most incredible American journeys since Huck Finn and Jim first pushed their raft into the Mississippi. Along the way, Lloyd will learn the intricacies of poker and murder, solve the problem of manned flight, find—and lose—true love, and become swept up in an ancient struggle between two secret societies whose arcane dispute has shaped the world’s past and threatens to reshape its future. Each side wants to use Lloyd against the other, but Lloyd has his own ideas—and access to an occult technology as powerful as his imagination.

Sounds like great fun. I just need more hours in the day. And for those interested, here is Mr. Saknussemm's signature.

"Tome of the Undergates" by Sam Sykes (Gollancz)

Tome of the Undergates
Sam Sykes
704 pp. Gollancz. £18.99
Pub. Date: 4/15/2010
ISBN-13: 9780575090286

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

Publisher Blurb: Adventurers. Long loathed for their knowledge of nothing beyond murder and thievery, they are the savages, zealots, heathens, monsters; the thugs of society. And Lenk, a young man with a sword in his hand and a voice in his head, counts them all as his sole and most hated of companions.

His otherwise trivial employment under an esteemed clergyman is interrupted when bloodthirsty and eloquent pirates, led by an ageless demon risen from the depths of the ocean, pilfer the object of their protection: the Tome of the Undergates, the key to opening a door that guards the mouths of hell. A hell the demons want out of.

Against titanic horrors from the deep, psychotic warrior women, and creatures forgotten by mankind, Lenk has only two weapons: a piece of steel and five companions who are as eager to kill each other as they are to retrieve the book.

Adolescent males. It's a group not known for their common sense or maturity. Someone pissing themselves is their idea of highbrow humor, and the butt equals comedic gold. Life for the high school boy is groin-centric. Every guy has gone through it. Most survive it and mature, looking back on those years with a mixture of regret and embarassment. Some remain stuck there forever, playing their Xbox 360 in the basement, hoping for a glimpse of pixellated boobie.

Tome of the Undergates by Sam Sykes is definitely written for the basement dweller. Sophomoric and scatological, Sykes' debut novel would have a proctologist screaming: Too much! Its immaturity hinders it. This isn't adult fantasy; this is the whiny rumblings of adolescence. Full of posturing and cluelessness. The proverbial rebel without a clue. The novel wants to be edgy, but in a PG-13 kind of way. All the good parts are clearly still in the R-rated material provided by George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie.

Lenk and his crew of adventurers are essentially adolescents posing as adults. They are shallow emotionally. Their interactions are nothing more than juvenile bickering. The big idea is that Lenk and his companions hate each other. With the way they acted toward each other, I hated them way before the end of the novel, too. I found myself cheering for their demise.

The storyline is bookended by two battles with a small transition between them. It is a novella length plot stretched into a five hundred page novel. I like extended battle scenes, but not if it means sacrificing all of the story. What is left here is: boy loses item, boy fights to regain item. It is two action scenes done in a John Woo-style slo-mo. Except there are no white doves. Or Chow Yun-Fat.

Let's keep this short, because I hate not having anything good to say about a book. Tome of the Undergates is terrible. About the only good thing I can say about it is: it ends. Just not soon enough.

"Yellow Medicine" by Anthony Neil Smith (Bleak House Books)

Yellow Medicine
Anthony Neil Smith
260 pp. Bleak House Books. $14.95
Pub. Date: 5/15/2008
ISBN-13: 9781932557718

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

Publisher Blurb: Deputy Billy Lafitte is not unfamiliar with the law--he just prefers to enforce it, rather than abide by it. But his rule-bending and bribe-taking have gotten him kicked off the force in Gulfport, Mississippi, and he's been given a second chance--in the desolate, Siberian wastelands of rural Minnesota. Now Billy's only got the local girls and local booze to keep him company.


Until one of the local girls--cute little Drew, bassist for a psychobilly band--asks Billy for help with her boyfriend. Something about the drugs Ian's been selling, some product he may have lost, and the men who are threatening him because of it. Billy agrees to look into it, and before long he's speeding down a snowy road, tracking a cell of terrorists, with a severed head in his truck's cab. And that's only the start.

Is there anything as good as a bad cop? The kind of cop that bends the rules, always blazing his own trail, interpreting the law in a way that suits him. Payoffs? He takes them. Kicking some ass and busting heads? In a good day's work. Murder? Sometimes you've got to put a dog down. The bad cop is a crime fiction staple—the lawman who's above the law. The bad cop is a symbol of power's corrupting influence and how law can break down. It is the introduction of chaos in an orderly society; it is for people who enjoy pulling out a string to see how the whole cloth unravels.

In Anthony Neil Smith's Yellow Medicine, Deputy Billy Lafitte is a bad cop—not necessarily a bad man; he struggles with that conflict. But he isn't big on the rules. Who needs rules when you are patrolling the suburban snow fields of Minnesota. So Billy takes liberties, takes advantage of people, often in unseemly ways. There isn't too many people Billy cares about—including himself. Except for Drew, the bassist for a local psychobilly band. Billy struggles with his feelings for her.

Which is how he finds himself caught up with a terrorist cell looking to make inroads in the suburban Minnesota meth trade. Things only go downhill from there.

I've been reading Victor Gischler's novels recently, and it is through Gischler's work that I came to discover Anthony Neil Smith. And I'm fortunate I did. Smith writes with a bleakness and isolation that matches the snowy Minnesota roads that Deputy Lafitte patrols, as well as the starkness of Lafitte's soul. Yellow Medicine isn't just a crime drama; it is Lafitte struggling with his actions and decisions. It is about a man asking himself: Where did my life go wrong? Maybe he has the answer, but he can't seem to break his pattern of making bad decisions.

And this makes good crime fiction. Conflicted characters whose inner demons manifest in their view and interaction with the world. The turmoil inside the man reflected in the violence we see in the world. Smith doesn't provide easy answers, or any answers for that matter, that is left up to the reader. This is evident in the book's final sentence, which will either annoy or cause you to applaud. I love the starkness, unapologetic nature of Yellow Medicine and how Anthony Neil Smith doesn't spoon-feed the reader offering a simple resolution. Just the way crime fiction should be.

If you haven't discovered Anthony Neil Smith yet and you love crime noir stories, I highly recommend you give Yellow Medicine a try. A highly addictive, non-stop ride that buries you under a barrage of punches that you never see coming. It's a good old-fashioned punch in the mouth. But in a good way.

Comic Break - Doorways #1 (IDW Publishing)

Doorways
Issue: #1
Writer: George R.R. Martin
Artist: Stefano Martino
32 pp. IDW Publishing. $3.99

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

Here's a comic I picked up just because George R.R. Martin wrote the issue. It had to be interesting, right? Martin doesn't disappoint, turning in an issue that is definitely above average.

Doorways is not an original made-for-comic story. The source is an unaired pilot that Martin created in the early '90s. (I shed a tear thinking about the awesomeness that could have been if Martin had gotten on the schedule.) The underlying premise is classic Sci-Fi: the enigmatic Cat can create doors between universes. And she isn't doing it just for giggles or a snappy front row Interstellar-Traveler-of-the-Month parking space—she is either going toward something or running away from something. Two guesses which one it is. That's right: Run, Cat, Run.

She's barely arrived when she forms a bond with the doctor treating her. Their bond blooms quickly, like third graders going from strangers to BFFs in fifteen minutes. The sudden frienship is rushed and contrived, never feeling right or believable. But it's a comic—go with it! In true Martin fashion, there are enemies from both within (the government) and without (interstellar baddies) that put Cat and the good doctor through a gauntlet.

Martin supplies little touches that, prima facie, seem simple, but which really elevate the story. If you only looked at Doorways from it synopsis, it would seem like it could be boringly cliched. But it isn't. And I'm not certain how Martin accomplishes that.

Stefano Martino's artwork reminds me of Jim Lee's (whose work I've always enjoyed. So this is a compliment.) Not only for the look of the art, but also he has those panels in which people can appear disproportionate. There are some rushed looking panels, but ultimately I think the art adequately told the story.

Doorways #1 proves the axiom that good writing is the most essential element in a comic book. A very solid script and artwork make this series a definite buy.

Game of Thrones Episode Six Preview

More Game of Thrones goodness. Here are two clips from the upcoming six episode of the excellent HBO series.

Collector's Corner - Douglas Hulick

Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick has been the best debut novel of the year for me. So I made certain to get myself a signed copy. Pardon the saliva, but it makes me drool a little just looking at it.

"Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Conviction" by Aaron Allston (Del Rey)

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Conviction
Aaron Allston
400 pp. Del Rey. $27.00
Pub. Date: 5/24/2011
ISBN-13: 9780345509109

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

Publisher Blurb: Chief of State Natasi Daala has been overthrown, and the Jedi Order has taken control of the Galactic Alliance. But while the new governors dismantle Daala’s draconian regime, forces still loyal to the deposed official are mobilizing a counterstrike. And even the Jedi’s new authority may not be enough to save Tahiri Veila, the former Jedi Knight and onetime Sith apprentice convicted of treason for the killing of Galactic Alliance officer Gilad Pellaeon.

Meanwhile, Luke and Ben Skywalker are relentlessly pursuing Abeloth, the powerful dark-side entity bent on ruling the galaxy. But as they corner their monstrous quarry on the planet Nam Chorios, the two lone Jedi must also face the fury of the Sith death squadron bearing down on them. And when Abeloth turns the tables with an insidious ambush, the Skywalkers’ quest threatens to become a suicide mission.

In a galaxy very, very close—so close it appears exactly like this galaxy—are a group of people (some may say social misfits) who read books about a galaxy far, far away. (For a science fiction novel, isn't "far, far away" a rather imprecise measurement. C'mon guys, let's see that in meters.) I am one of those people. This is my story. (Orchestra swells.)

Or my story as it relates to Aaron Allston's excellent new installment in the Star Wars Fate of the Jedi series, Conviction. (Orchestra gives way to a mad flutist. Think Jethro Tull doing the music for Sesame Street.)

The Star Wars movies have always been epic science fiction. The story, grand in scope, has strong mythological elements underlying it, and the heroes and villains are undeniably larger than life. When someone says a book or movie is epic, I think about the Star Wars movies. They are the very definition to me of epic.

Strangely, the novels have never come off that way to me; they have always been more personal, simpler. The storylines usually don't occupy the universe in the same way. Villains fare better in the novels generally than the heroes, unless said heroes are from the movies. Most of the characters are two-dimensional, lacking that legendary larger-than-life feel. (The villains have been the closer to the larger-than-life status, which is the reason they come off better.)

Allston has transcended these issues, writing a book that is epic, but also at the same time, detailed and personal. Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Conviction feels closer to the movies than many of the other Star Wars-themed books. Which makes Conviction so magical. All Star Wars stories are, at their heart, always about good versus evil, and the moral choices one has to make concerning their power and how to use it. When these choices have huge consequences, that is when we are getting into epic territory. And it is this area in which Conviction shines, the severity of the consequences make the novel a success. Allston doesn't just lay out the same storyline again, he examines it in greater detail than most of the other Star Wars novels have. The stakes are high here, and that is what makes Conviction so special.

Great action scenes sucked me in from the beginning, and I found I couldn't stop reading, flying through the pages, hungry for what happens next. With Star Wars Fate of the Jedi Conviction, Aaron Allston has clinched my favorite writer currently working in the Star Wars novel-verse. My fellow social misfits are going to love this one.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight Volume 8: Last Gleaming" by Joss Whedon and George Jeanty (Dark Horse Comics)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight Volume 8: Last Gleaming
Writers: Joss Whedon, Scott Allie, Jane Espenson
Artists: George Jeanty, Karl Moline
170 pp. Dark Horse Comics. $16.99
Pub. Date: 6/14/2011
ISBN-13: 9781595826107

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

Publisher Blurb: The battle to save humanity comes to a boiling point in the finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8!

War. It's messy, and Buffy knows it. As the Slayer army crumbles against an endless swarm of demons, Buffy joins forces with the U.S. military to put an end to her greatest enemy to date—the mysterious Twilight, who will see the world end to give birth to another.

Spike and Buffy reunite and take the fight closer to home, where everything and everyone will change.

All things come to an end. And when that end is Buffy the Vampire Slayer-related, it means a large battle against a supernatural force intent on destroying the world is about to happen. Always, evil is afoot, and only Buffy and gang can save the world. Characters may die, situations will change. So, no surprise, this is exactly what happens in issues 36 through 40 of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 comic, now all collected in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight Volume 8: Last Gleaming.

Buffy finales are like reincarnations, something dies, and something new arises from the corpse. The direction of the next season is evident in the ashes of the current season. So like a good big bang, Last Gleaming is clearing ground for the upcoming Season 9. And it does a remarkable job of this.

Last Gleaming is as action-packed as Jell-o is jiggly. Exposition missed its alarm, because it's no where in sight in any of the issues. This is a comic in full kick-ass mode, each panel upping the emotional ante until the unbelievable tipping point. Many questions are answered, while new one arise. The final issue provides resolution, though it doesn't examine the fallout from a pivotal event in the previous issue to my satisfaction, and a distinct direction is realized for Season 9. A direction that has me excited, since it promises to take Buffy back to her roots.

George Jeanty's artwork fits the series perfectly. All the characters look right without being caricatures of the actors. Jeanty is able to perfectly capture nuances that the actors brought to their roles that have become identifiable with their characters. So you don't get expressions from characters, you can't imagine their real-life counterparts performing. Which keeps you hooked into the comic.

As for Joss Whedon's scripting (along with co-writer Scott Allie), it's Joss Whedon, so suckage isn't even in the realm of possibility. The scripting and story line are straightforward, this is purely a case where things are being resolved, strings tied. But the humor you've come to expect from the show and comic series is there, even going a little further than the show.

For fans, Last Gleaming is a wonderful conclusion to Season Eight, filled with action, memorable scenes, poignant moments, and an interesting new direction for Season Nine.

"Just Wanna Testify" by Pearl Cleage (Ballantine)

Just Wanna Testify
Pearl Cleage
256 pp. Ballantine. $25.00
Pub. Date: 5/10/2011
ISBN-13: 9780345506368

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

Publisher Blurb: Atlanta’s West End district has always been a haven and home to a coterie of unique characters—artists and thinkers, dreamers and doers. Folks here know one another’s names, keep their doors unlocked, and look out for their neighbors. Anyone planning to sell drugs, vandalize, or rob a little old lady should think twice before hitting this part of town. And Blue Hamilton, West End’s unofficial mayor and longtime protector, will see to it that you do. Blue wears many hats here, including adored husband to Regina, dear nephew to Abbey, and doting father to Sweetie and another little one on the way.

Blue is also the man you pay your respects to if you’re looking to set up shop in this urban enclave—just ask Serena Mayflower, whom Blue sees striding down Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard wearing skin-tight black leather pants, thigh-high boots, and bright red lipstick. This tall, slender, ethereally beautiful woman and her four equally striking sisters make up the Too Fine Five, a quintet of international supermodels who have arrived in town for an Essence magazine photo shoot.

But Blue’s gut tells him that there’s more to these Mayflower mademoiselles than their affection for full moons and Bloody Marys. With the help of his beloved Regina and their close friends and relations in West End, Blue vows to uncover the women’s secret intentions—and prove once and for all that there is no greater force on earth than the power of love.

A mesmerizing slice of not-so-everyday life, brimming with wicked wit and spiced with a few supernatural surprises, Just Wanna Testify showcases Pearl Cleage’s masterly storytelling at its soulful and satisfying finest.

Vampires. Does every book have them now? Has it become a prerequisite for publication, a publishing house fiat? Does an editor look at the latest legal thriller, and say, "It's good, but it needs more vampires"? (Wait. Vampires and lawyers might not be such a stretch now that I think about it.) Vampires even cause ubiquity to scream, Too much! Whatever the reason, people like blood sucking parasites. Why else would anyone have kids? Or have medical insurance?

To say I'm bored with vampires is the troll, burping up billy goat bones, living under the understatement. Too much vampirism has made all the literary Draculas running about dull. There just isn't anything new under the sun, or under the pitch of night if we are talking old-school vampires. Shakespeare said that. (I said it, too. But that's because I read aloud what I write. But Shakespeare got there first.)

This doesn't mean that vamps can't get worked into places that are unexpected. Just Wanna Testify by Pearl Cleage is one of those places. It is unexpected because Pearl Cleage's novel is so full of life and unbounded enthusiasm that vampires shouldn't even exist in the fictional Utopian neighborhood in Atlanta that Cleage dubs the West End. (Such a delightfully British name. Shakespeare would approve. So would the Pet Shop Boys.) Which is why they are outsiders to the West End. The vamps, Amazonian-sized supermodels shaped like bulimic scarecrows, have come to the West End for a photo shoot. That's the cover story, though.

Pissed-off supermodels with an ethereal grace and beauty make interesting vampires. They have the right look, and blood is a low calorie diet, helpful for trying to watch one's girlish figure. They are intelligent, but its a predatory type of intelligence. Their otherworldliness makes them aloof, hard for the reader to connect with. Compared to the warmth of Cleage's other characters, the vamps are sterile and cold. Which reads right, it just doesn't make them the most interesting foils.

Cleage's prose is naturally warm and welcoming, like the smell of bread baking when you enter someone's home. Her characters are sunny and joyful like children laughing on a bright summer day. Clearly, these are good, loving people. Even Blue Hamilton, the de facto Godfather of the West End, has an exuberant outlook on life different than one would expect. It is a great pleasure reading about these characters, their interactions, and their world. It made me envious of the idyllic paradise, always wanting to learn more, but never comfortable in completely suspending disbelief.

The plot is too restrained, like Cleage isn't comfortable taking the story into much riskier and darker territory. The natural charm of her writing is wonderful in the character drama aspects of the novel, but the story meanders, never straying into new or exciting areas. Still, Just Wanna Testify highlights one of the great aspects of reading: a story can be uplifting, making you feel better about the world and the people in it. And because of this, Just Wanna Testify is ultimately a pleasurable experience.

Final Grade: 7.5 out of 10

Trailer for Eric Van Lustbader's "Last Snow"

Must be video day. I know I have some Eric Van Lustbader fans out there, so here is a trailer for his book Last Snow. Quite well done.

From The Author of "The Bourne Sanction" and "The Bourne Legacy" comes Eric Van Lustbader's electrifying second novel in the Jack McClure/ Alli Carson Series, "Last Snow". 

Game of Thrones Episode Five Preview

I'm completely smitten. Don't tell my wife, but my latest love affair is with HBO's Game of Thrones. I thought I'd be disappointed with the series, but I'm actually amazed at how well they have pulled everything off so far. Hopefully, it'll continue. I know I'll be turning in each Sunday night.

And just in time for this upcoming Sunday is a preview clip from the fifth episode. Enjoy!

"Disciple of the Dog" by R. Scott Bakker (Forge)

Disciple of the Dog
R. Scott Bakker
288 pp. Forge. $24.99
Pub. Date: 11/23/2010
ISBN-13: 9780765321909

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

Publisher Blurb: No matter how hard he drinks, gambles, or womanizes, Disciple Manning simply cannot forget: not a word spoken, not an image glimpsed, not a pain suffered. Disciple Manning has total recall. Whatever he hears, he can remember with 100 percent accuracy. He can play it back in his head an infinite number of times without a single change. This ability makes him a dangerously unorthodox private investigator.

When a New Jersey couple hires Manning to find their daughter, who joined a religious cult before vanishing in a small Rust Belt town called Ruddick, he finds himself embroiled in a mystery that will pit his unnatural ability to remember against his desperate desire to forget.

Be warned. This is going to be a love letter to R. Scott Bakker's Disciple of the Dog. Minus the lipstick kissy marks serving as the valediction. Any book which is still fantastic, even though you are bedridden with excruciating back pain, and tranked to the gills on a prescription cocktail, deserves all the honorifics one can heap upon it. And then some. So if a grown man writing a greeting card laminated with gush makes you uncomfortable, or you piss-shiver within fifty feet of a Hallmark store—you heartless swine, stop reading now, or I'll be forced to bring out the blind orphans and mewling kittens. (And men, get that prostate checked out. Piss-shivers are no joke.)

Prima facie, Disciple of the Dog is a straightforward pulp noir mystery: the story of a private investigator hired to search for a missing girl who finds herself mixed in with a bad crowd. The bad crowd this time around played by a religious cult. What separates the novel, and makes it fascinating is the intellectual baggage and details Bakker stores away in the story. Disciple of the Dog is a mindfuck posing as a mystery.

The lead character, Disciple Manning, is rather unsavory, and prone to poor moral decisions. But this makes sense because decisions take on a different context when one has total recall. While Disciple may not be like-able, he is believable. If you could recall everything that happened in your life, how would that change you? Bakker's novel provides one answer. While the answer is engaging and interesting, it is in asking the question that the novel gets its intellectual impetus.

I can imagine some readers turned off by the intellectual positing in the novel. Bakker's books are really literature geared toward philosophy geeks. If you have studied philosophy academically, the book takes on an added richness, hitting on topics that many philosophy lovers would recognize, but might be lost on the average reader. If epistemology interests you, it is difficult not to be charmed by Bakker's books, since you are the audience his work is intended for. So color me biased, since my educational background is in philosophy.

Disciple of the Dog is, like Bakker's other books, an absolute pleasure, appealing to the philosophy student in me who finds this intellectual back-and-forth amusing. But the novel also satisfies my love for a good crime noir. Not only is Disciple of the Dog a good crime noir, the intelligence Bakker gives to his characters makes the novel a masterpiece in its genre.

Final Grade: 9.5 out of 10

"The Unremembered" by Peter Orullian (Tor)

The Unremembered
Peter Orullian
672 pp. Tor. $27.99
Pub. Date: 4/12/2011
ISBN-13: 9780765325716

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

I have nothing against retelling classic archetypes. The classics work even in the face of repetition. Like the boy meets girl storyline. Boy falls in love, boy gives her his class ring, boy loses girl, girl pawns his ring to the Pawn Stars, starts dating Chumlee, boy despairs, travels to Vegas, drinks heavily and gambles, finally getting into a fight with Chumlee over his ring during a television taping, boy becomes a reality TV star, boy meets supermodel and unfriends girl on Facebook. The End.

But there is a point in which the story can go beyond a retelling and, instead, become a rehashing. When there is no single aspect original enough to distinguish it from previous material. It is a Xerox copy, a pale imitation. While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it doesn't make for an engaging read. And this is the biggest issue with The Unremembered by Peter Orullian: it is an unoriginal imitation of Robert Jordan's Eye of the World. Same characters, same general idea behind the plot, but written in a much more tedious fashion.

The prologue is terrible, overwrought and pretentious, and doesn't do much to save you from the worldbuilding infodumps in the first few chapters. Within a few pages, I was already rolling my eyes at how stilted and overblown the prologue was, and figuring out why it was taking itself so seriously. Then Orullian launches into the main story: youths from a country backwater called the Hollows discover evil has penetrated their sleepy village (for like the first time...EVER), and that said evil wants them. Luckily, two mysterious strangers come to town and convince them they need to leave the Hollows and travel with them to escape a cataclysmic evil. Rinse. Repeat. There are three main protagonists, Tahn, Sutter, and Braethan, in The Unremembered, each strikingly similar to Rand, Mat and Perrin. Their saviors read like Lan and Moraine, except their genders have been swapped. Only a hundred pages in and you already feel the weight of a rehashing bearing down your soul. It is deja vu, all over again.

The motivation behind the characters don't make sense in spots. Wendra, who gives birth at the beginning of the novel, is immediately put upon a horse to ride away from the Hollows with the rest of them. I know it is a fantasy, but this really stretches believability. Also, the boys immediately trusting their savior, Vendanj, failed to ring true.

The motivations are often covered up by the enormous about of description, much of it forced and unnecessary. Some of the descriptions were so overdone that it hinder me getting into the story. And no matter how descriptive Orullian gets, he can't cover up the fact he's essentially rewriting The Eye of the World. That might not have been so problematic if he had Jordan's level of experience, but The Unremembered is his debut novel, and it is apparent in its clunkiness.

There is nothing to hate about The Unremembered; it is just derivative and overwrought, which, unfortunately, turns it into a slog of a novel. Maybe Orullian can bounce back, but he is not going to do it reworking this type of material. The genre has moved on; there needs to be something more now.

Final Grade: 2 out of 10

"Hounded" by Kevin Hearne (Del Rey)

Hounded
Kevin Hearne
320 pp. Del Rey. $7.99
Pub. Date: 5/3/2011
ISBN-13: 9780345522474

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

Another day, another urban fantasy book. The things propagate like bunnies on a heavy oyster and Viagra smoothie diet. Most don't warrant a first look—these belong to the me-too generation of urban fantasy. But there are unique ones occasionally—ones without vampires, werewolves or magic practitioners. (Forget mummies. Writers avoid those. Pus-filled bandages and decay just aren't sexy. Doesn't mean a mummy can't solve a crime, or vanquish evil. They just do it slowly. I call it methodical.)

But what you don't see in urban fantasy often. Druids. They just don't have that coolness factor usually; no one dresses up as one at Comic-Con. Blame Dungeons and Dragons. No one wants to roleplay the druid—bad fighters, good healers, boredom personified. They are health care professionals with slingshots. Medieval EMTs. But they do earth magic, you point out. So do geologists, just without the abracadabra. But who wants to read about nerds sitting in a room at Cal-Tech.

Kevin Hearne has done the impossible in Hounded, the first volume in the Iron Druid Chronicles. He makes druids cool, elevating the class beyond just a Kaiser employee with a better attitude. Atticus O'Sullivan (Love the name Atticus. Thank you Mr. Hearne for naming my next son.) is—in the immortal words of Samuel L. Jackson—a bad mutha-use-your-imagination. And not because he owns an occult bookstore, though that's a big plus on his Match.com profile. It's because he's had the smarts to stick around for twenty-one centuries. Impressive if you consider how many petty gods he deals with.

The only thing in his corner: his Irish wolfhound Oberon and his magical sword Fragarach. Calling Fragarach a  sword is like calling a nuclear missile a weapon: a vast understatement. Fragarach is more than just a pointy end on iron; it's a supernatural Cusinart that goes to 11.

Same with the Irish wolfhound Oberon. He isn't just a dog; he's a pooch that can have mental conversations with Atticus. Sounds groan worthy, right? Here let me help: urghhh. But Hearne pulls it off magnificently, because Oberon is one charming hound. Think of him as a combination of Bob the Skull and Mouse from Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, though not as lecherous and built for sin as Bob, though Oberon does want a harem of French poodles. (For the Francophobes you can refer to them as Freedom poodles. Here's a fun fact: French poodles earned that moniker because of their presence at the storming of the Bastille. Prisoner's restraints were gnawed away by the dogs. That's a completely made up fact, but the image makes me laugh.)

Into any druid's life, a little drama must come, and what vexes Atticus (since one does not trouble a druid, one vexes them) are the mythological and non-mythological gods roaming the earth. Think Neil Gaiman's American Gods where all the gods have a physical embodiment, and spend their time hanging out at Buffalo Wild Wings watching lacrosse matches. One Celtic god in particular hounds Atticus like the paparazzi stalks Kim Kardashian in a thong. His motives are simple: he wants the sword. Atticus doesn't want to give it up. Conflict.

And in that conflict is one hell of a story. It is rare that I'll read an urban fantasy novel, it is even rarer that I will want to continue a series after reading the first book. But I can't wait for the next installment in the Iron Druid Chronicles. The world that Hearne has created is top-notch, rich and so full of potential for interesting stories and directions in the series. The heart of the book is the humor, you can't have conversations between a man and his wolfhound without a lot of funny taking place. But the most interesting aspect of Hounded is that Atticus isn't an idealistic do-gooder. He is a reluctant hero, who has made a habit of staying alive for a very long time by using his head instead of his muscles. Living twenty-one centuries gives a person a unique perspective on life, and Atticus has that.

For both the urban fantasy and non-urban fantasy geekoids, Hounded is a tremendous read. Fun, well-written, and entertaining, it will have you wishing you could talk with your dog. (I don't have a dog, so I went with my kid. Results were mixed.) And it just might make you reconsider being a druid on your next roleplaying campaign. Earth magic for the win!

Final Grade: 8 out of 10