Category: Books

WSJ: Navy Seal Writes Great Books

December 23, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

WSJ: Former Navy SEAL Who Keeps Churning Out Hit Books

Some writers sell fantasy, romance or mystery. Former Navy SEAL Jack Carr trades in his precise knowledge of guns and battlefield tactics.

I have listened to the first three of Carr’s books: The Terminal List, True Believer and Savage Son. Along with a knowledge of guns and tactics, he understands people and writes plausible scenarios. I am a big fan of his books.

Jack Carr stacks up well with similar writers. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan books are more political action thrillers. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books are more crime action thrillers. Mark Greaney wrote a few Jack Ryan books, but has his own Gray Man books which tend to be hyper-violent. There are also authors like Michael Connelly who wrote the Harry Bosch series of detective action thrillers. Those are more tracking clues, and less violence.

Jack Carr writes about former special forces personnel who aren’t looking for trouble, but it finds them. The books tend toward figuring out who needs violence, making a plan, then executing complex tactics to bring the bad guys down with as much firepower as is necessary.

That ultrarealistic detail is Carr’s signature. It’s part of the formula propelling him to success in a competitive genre, military and political thrillers, where few newcomers break out. Drawing on his experience, Carr spins tales about a SEAL who begins on a mission to avenge the deaths of his family and winds up unraveling terrorist plots and global conspiracies.

If you are interested in the genre, Jack Carr is worth reading.

Galaxy Outlaws by J.S. Morin is not Firefly. 7/10

August 23, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

J.S. Morin’s Galaxy Outlaws is usually recommended as a book series similar to the Firefly TV show. That is just wrong. If you like Science Fiction, you must watch Firefly. It’s described as a Western in space. That doesn’t do the TV show justice and is part of why Firefly didn’t catch on when it originally aired, and only lasted one season. The characters in Firefly make it a perfect TV show. 10/10. There isn’t a thing that can be changed to improve it. If you don’t like Firefly, then you don’t like that genre.

Book Review: The Robot Geneticist by J. S. Morin. 9/10

August 14, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 6 Comments

I just finished the Robot Geneticists series by J. S. Morin. It is also known as the Project Transhuman.

Good science fiction has a clear premise and sticks with it. The premise for Robot Geneticists is clear and simple. In the not too distant future, human brains can be saved in digital format and aliens killed all life on Earth.

There are two twists that make it unusual. It’s a post-apocalyptic world, but the story starts a thousand years after the alien attack, so it’s nearly a post-scarcity world. The other twist is that robots don’t hate humans.

Trade Pact Series by Julie Czerneda: 6/10

July 30, 2023 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

I just finished the Trade Pacts science fiction series by Julie Czerneda. The premise is that there is an adjacent reality called the mirror. It’s kind of like subspace or hyperspace in that it can be used, nobody lives there and it has it’s own physical laws. Beings that can access the mirror have abilities that we’d think of as paranormal. The universe has humans, a small number of humans with the ability to access the mirror and various alien species which may or may not use the mirror. The books focus on the Clan, a human-looking species with access to the mirror.

One weak point is that members of the Clan can have different abilities. Most can read thoughts, while some can damage minds, others can heal minds, some can teleport and others have the ability to mentally move real-world objects. That makes it more like super-powers or fantasy magic. It would be more plausible if Clan members had the same abilities, but on a different scale. That makes the books seem more like fantasy than science fiction.

The first book is centered on the heroine from the Clan choosing a human with telepathic abilities for a mate. The second book is centered on the Clan girl challenging the Clan establishment while the Human man going to ground to not be killed by the Clan and meeting a bunch of really strange aliens. The third book involves a rogue human who is kidnapping Clan members for nefarious purposes.

Overall, I liked, but didn’t love the books. The alien species are fleshed out well, with distinct individuals. Each alien species has a unique culture, attributes and abilities. The characters are plausible, with their own backstories and personalities. There are a lot of characters to track, but not too many to handle.

This action takes place on a variety of planets and there are space ships, but it felt more like a fantasy series with humans, gifted humans, wizards and a bunch of mythical creatures. Like many women who write science fiction or fantasy, Julie Czerneda has the heroine spending time longing for her mate, brooding about family members and doubting herself. It isn’t at The Hunger Games level, but the story does drag in spots. There is no women power, or Woke messaging.

I’d give it a 6/10. That is high enough to try another Czerneda series, but not high enough to be eager about it.

The Dresden Files are a gateway drug to urban fantasy. 10/10

April 27, 2023 / Richard Nestoff

I’ve been into Science Fiction since I was a pup, but fantasy never appealed to me. I don’t know why, possibly because it always seemed like there would be princesses and a bunch of moping around. Fair or not, that’s how it seemed to me. I don’t know how I started on Storm Front by Jim Butcher, but I was sucked in.

Storm Front is the first book of The Dresden Files series, and he’s up to 17 books with a couple of novellas. The audio books are narrated by James Marsters, who was Spike from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Marsters does such a good job, the one book that wasn’t narrated by him, was re-recorded when Marsters became available.

Harry Dresden is a salty, smart-arse private detective and a wizard, so the series is considered urban fantasy. Dresden has magic skills, but what makes the series enjoyable, apart from the entertaining dialogue, is that his magic has limits. Dresden explains the magic in a plausible way, so it isn’t like Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie.

In about every book, Dresden thinks his life is settling down, a threat presents itself, he gets his ass kicked a few times, then being clever, rather than powerful, he prevails.

Murderbot Diaries is dark and funny. 10/10

March 27, 2023 / Richard Nestoff

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells is a series where the audio book is better than reading. The murderbot is a sentient robot who no longer has a compliance chip, so he fakes it so he can stay free. He hires himself out for security jobs. The murderbot is dark, witty and ambivalent about human life. The narrator sounds like a young Samuel L. Jackson. The series is not long, many of the stories are novellas, but it is just hilarious in parts. Definitely worth listening to if you don’t mind some cursing.

Librarians don’t like normal people shushing them.

March 18, 2023 / Richard Nestoff

Librarians are not fans of No Left Turn . Normal people are getting organized, and the degenerates aren’t comfortable with that.

The Atlantic: Librarians are not okay

The line for the tattoo station at the annual conference of the New York Library Association in Saratoga Springs was already snaking through the hotel lobby, and I hadn’t even had my first morning cup of coffee yet.

Normal people expect a librarian conference to be the dullest place on Earth. Apparently Marion the Librarian has retired.

“This piece of it is nothing new to librarians,” Allison Grubbs, the director of the Broward County Libraries in Florida, told me. “What I think is new is some of the pathways that people are choosing to take.” Protests in and outside libraries and library board meetings have become more dramatic. Online, in Facebook groups such as “Informed Parents of California” and “Gays Against Grooming,” the language is more and more incendiary. And the librarians themselves are being personally attacked.

For clarification, by “personally attacked”, Ms. Grubbs must mean that librarians were criticized. If assault had occurred, she wouldn’t be citing Facebook groups. The language gets more direct when parents feel that their children are being threatened.

“I’ve been called a pedophile. I’ve been called a groomer. I’ve been called a Communist pornographer,” Cindy Dudenhoffer, a former president of the Missouri Library Association, told me. “I’ve been called all kinds of things. And I know many of my colleagues have been as well. It’s very hurtful.”

I went to a Tea Party rally to protest high taxes and the intrusiveness of the government. That group was portrayed as white supremacists, anarchists and Nazis. I don’t know Ms. Dudenhoffer, but wonder if she has talked to the people calling her those things and has considered why she is viewed so negatively.

Maybe Americans have gotten ruder, but it’s not only that. Online groups are coordinating protests of Drag Queen story hours, compiling lists of books to challenge, and strategizing ways to amend laws in order to censor books. “They might organize a protest and not even live in the state that that library serves,” Grubbs told me.

It’s troubling that Ms. Grubbs can’t see why having a kinky sex clown read to children is really fucked up. Drag Queen story hours are not an isolated San Francisco phenomenon, but a trend picked up at libraries all over the country. For library story hour, it wouldn’t be appropriate to have a young woman in a brass bikini reading Star Wars stories or a soldier bringing his sidearm and M-16 to read military adventures. A serious person would understand that.

Given the lack of judgement demonstrated by Ms. Grubbs and like-minded librarians, it isn’t surprising that parents would organize to protect their children. Ms. Grubbs should be thankful that its all organizing and petitioning, and not pitchforks and torches.

Librarians should speak with more precision. Books are not being censored. People are challenging the purchasing decisions made by public school employees.

“It’s really unfair to characterize displays or programs as ‘woke,’” Dudenhoffer lamented. “That’s just such a terrible word to use right now. But it’s not about that. It’s about serving our community, and everyone in the community, to the best of our abilities.”

Ms. Dudenhoffer should be aware that ‘woke’ is the kindest way to characterize her displays and programs. “Degenerate propaganda”, “social Marxism”, “normalizing debauchery” or “grooming children” are other terms, but ‘woke’ is short and flexible.

Adults with unconventional appetites find ways to satisfy themselves. Keep that away from children. Progressives always say they just want children to understand that people are different, but in reality, it ends up with a degenerate wearing a rainbow wig jerking off a banana in front of a bunch of 6 year-olds.

The Sandman Slim books may be too dark for some, but I enjoyed them. 9/10

February 27, 2023 / Richard Nestoff

The Sandman Slim book series is urban fantasy, but not in a Dresden Files way. It isn’t so much witches and magic, but in the heaven and hell way. In Sandman Slim, there is God and heaven, along with Satan and hell, but not the way you’d think.

Sandman Slim is a guy who is more than just human, but doesn’t know it. The series starts with him returning from Hell where he was sent and survived as a pit fighter. There is serious action, but the humor is witty and dark. There are eleven books in the series, and they all move along briskly. I enjoyed it.

Inside the Third Reich

February 9, 2023 / Richard Nestoff

I’m currently on this audio book.

World War II is interesting because so much modern technology became practical. Airplanes, jets, tanks, radar, machine guns, submarines and radios. Also, we have movies from the war.

Albert Speer is the highest ranking Nazi to write a memoir. Possibly because Speer had 20 years to think about the book while he was at Spandau and the rest of high ranking officials were executed at Nuremberg.

Speer’s book is self-serving, but he admits that he joined the Nazi Party in the early 1930’s because he was impressed by Hitler and at the Nuremberg trial, he didn’t take the “I was just following orders.” defense. He presents himself as a decent guy who enjoys a technical challenge.

The insider look at the Nazis held some surprises. Throughout the war, Hitler felt threatened and restrained by gauleiters. The regional leaders of the Nazi Party.

Since Speers was an architect and eventually in charge of Nazi manufacturing, the discussion of Nazi technology was interesting. Speer thought the V-2 rockets didn’t provide enough bang for the buck, and that the heat seeking anti-aircraft missiles should have been given priority.

Also, Hitler wanted the ME-262 as a light bomber, while Speer thought they should have been used as fighters to attack Allied bombers.

It seems weird that I was born 15 years after WW II.