Books: Groucho Marx, Master Dectective By Ron Goulart (1998)

“Set in 1937 after the Marx Brothers' career in films had peaked. Groucho is in his late forties. The Dr. Watson to his Sherlock Holmes is young Frank Denby, a Hollywood screenwriter who is working with him on a new radio show named like the title of the novel. When a starlet dies at her home, allegedly a suicide, Groucho resolves to learn what really happened. The young woman had been one of Groucho's many extracurricular affairs, and he's certain she would not have killed herself. So is everyone else except the cops and the executives at the studio where she was angling for a major role in an upcoming movie. Groucho and Frank set out on a madcap investigation that causes them to be kidnapped, shot at, and clubbed on the head more than once.”

Groucho Marx, Master Detective is a pretty funny book, and prolific author Ron Goulart shows off -with a great dexterity- to have an innate ability to mimic the legendary comedian. Sometimes the mystery –which covers some of the darker aspects of Hollywood- takes a backseat to Groucho’s monologues, but the book is often a hoot and yields many surprises.

This was one of six novels the writer produced between 1998 and 2005 featuring Groucho, however, I mostly knew Goulart for his work in fantasy and science fiction and only recently stumbled upon this book series when I was looking for other works by him. I have been reading his short novels on and off since the 1980s, though he’s been producing a wide body of work in many genres since 1952 (he would also publish a great deal of works under a variety of pen names). Goulart is mostly known for his satire on science fiction genre, but he’s also penned comics for Marvel, wrote several novels based on Lee Falk’s The Phantom (using the pseudonym "Frank Shawn") in the 1970s –and where he continues to this day to produce stories for The Phantom comic book. He also ghost wrote all nine of the TekWar novels that were released under William Shatner’s name between 1989 and 1997.

Books: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer By Rick Riordan (2015)

“On his 16th birthday, homeless Boston orphan Magnus Chase (daughter-of-Athena Annabeth’s cousin) magically summon an ancient Norse sword, uses it against a fireball-throwing monster, drops the sword, and dies—but a girl in hijab on a flying horse grabs him and deposits him at the Hotel Valhalla for a new afterlife of perpetual preparation for Ragnarok. Turns out Ragnarok will come pretty soon unless he can retrieve the sword and somehow use it to rebind Fenris Wolf, who is about to slip the magical rope that’s kept him bound for millennia. This will take some doing.”

After the huge success of his Percy Jackson & The Olympians and its sequel series Heroes of Olympus (which I did not bother to read) Rick Riordan released the trilogy called the Kane Chronicles, which tackled Egyptian Mythology. I only read the first book in that series, The Red Pyramid and for one reason or another, never went on to read the others. Pyramid was not bad, but I saw Riordan sort of just doing a variation on a theme here. Plus, he still had difficulty creating three dimensional women characters that did not sound like guys.

But for reasons I can’t explain, I picked up his Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, which takes on Norse Mythology. Riordan does not stray too far from what’s come before, although this first book, The Sword of Summer, plays out more like an absurdist comedy than the mostly serious Percy Jackson books were.  And Magnus is a fairly likable character, smart and solves his problems rather cleverly. To balance out the blond, blue-eyed, skinny twink that is Chase, Riordan gives us a diverse supporting cast that includes a Muslim girl (who does not appear devote here, but seems happy with her future arranged marriage, which also means she and Magnus can be friends, which helps narrative because we don’t have any romantic tension between them) and a deaf elf and dark skinned dwarf.

The book is overlong by about 50 or 60 pages and that’s too bad. By the last 150 or so of this nearly 500 page book, I was ready for the story to end. And while Riordan clearly knows his mythology and expertly crafts them into his narrative, he also needs to know when to stop, because I actually felt the last third of the book was boring (if only because you already knew the ending). Much like the Kane Chronicles, I’m unsure if I want to continue onto books two and three. Maybe if I come across them in a used bookstore, I’ll grab them. But for now, I must move on.

Books: A Map of Days By Ransom Riggs (2018)

“Having defeated the monstrous threat that nearly destroyed the peculiar world, Jacob Portman is back where his story began, in Florida. Except now Miss Peregrine, Emma, and their peculiar friends are with him, and doing their best to blend in. But carefree days of beach visits and normalling lessons are soon interrupted by a discovery—a subterranean bunker that belonged to Jacob’s grandfather, Abe. Clues to Abe’s double-life as a peculiar operative start to emerge, secrets long hidden in plain sight. And Jacob begins to learn about the dangerous legacy he has inherited—truths that were part of him long before he walked into Miss Peregrine’s time loop. Now, the stakes are higher than ever as Jacob and his friends are thrust into the untamed landscape of American peculiardom—a world with few ymbrynes, or rules—that none of them understand.”

Much of A Map of Days is just a long set for what is a new arc for Jacob Portman, which is not saying it’s a bad thing, but there are a lot of set pieces he and friends need to go through before we get to the point of the fourth novel. And even though the plot is not exactly original, author Ransom Riggs does open his series a bit, moving the action from Europe to America and I give him credit for not just rehashing what came before.

After a somewhat slow start –the typical fish-out-of-water concept of kids taken from the past and tossed into the modern world- the book eventually gets going. Yearning to more about his late grandfather, Jake and his fellow Peculiar friends, set out on a road trip to find (eventually) another recruit, a young peculiar named Noor. Much like Jacob, Noor appears to have a very powerful gift, one that appears many people in Americanized peculiar world are now willing to do anything to posses.

Riggs creates a tangled America of peculiars here, where many live in isolated time loops, afraid of not only the normals, but others like them. No longer are peculiars working and trusting each other like in the Devil’s Acre, because there is a mighty fear, along with a schism, within the many syndicates, gangs, boroughs that make up the American peculiars. Late in the book, though, we begin to see why, as there is some shadowy organization everyone fears, one that has helicopters and Men In Black vans.

Meanwhile, if you like sudden, almost savage-like violence mixed with some snark and low-brow humor, you’ll find that unchanged from the first series. As with the others, we also get a set of new photographs that serve touchstones for the many set pieces. There is pacing issues at the beginning, and the series continues to shadow Harry Potter at times (and X Men), but there are some genuine thrills here and I found the book well worth the three year wait.

Books: Small Spaces By Katherine Arden (2018)

“After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn't think--she just acts, stealing the book and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with ‘the smiling man,’ a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price.

“Ollie is captivated by the tale until her school trip the next day to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a haunting history all its own. There she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she's been reading about. Could it be the story about the smiling man is true? Ollie doesn't have too long to think about the answer to that. On the way home, the school bus breaks down, sending their teacher back to the farm for help. But the strange bus driver has some advice for the kids left behind in his care: ‘Best get moving. At nightfall they'll come for the rest of you.’ Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending when Ollie's previously broken digital wristwatch, a keepsake reminder of better times, begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN.

“Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed the bus driver's warning. As the trio head out into the woods--bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them--the bus driver has just one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: ‘Avoid large places. Keep to small.’”

I don’t think I’ve read a middle-aged horror book since I was kid. But even what I remember of those tomes, most were just urban legends come to life. Some were lame, while others just slightly creepy. I was an adult by the time R L Stine started his Goosebumps series but I found no interest in reading them. But I’ve never been truly scared when reading horror novels, even my nearly four decade affair with Stephen King novels.

Even though it’s been a long 7 years since the demise of Borders Books, I do keep up with the publishing industry via Twitter, and I think it was on that social media app –maybe six plus months ago- that I first heard about Katherine Arden’s Small Spaces. The early praise the book was getting made me interested in reading it, so I put it on my wish list and waited.

When I finally began this book yesterday, I discovered the praise was worth it. It’s a wonderful creepy, fast-paced and very atmospheric thriller that shines with great characters and some spooky monsters. Olivia “Ollie” Adler is very smart and at times adult-ish, but not because the story requires it, but because she’s facing life after a terrible loss and sometimes that requires a child to grow up. Anyone who’s lost a parent at a young age can understand this.

I also felt that Katherine Arden is influenced by Stephen King (and Ray Bradbury), with her creepy scarecrow monsters (that also reminded me of two episodes of modern Doctor Who). She takes us to the edge and then pulls back, but I felt she did a great job in creating the weirdness needed to keep readers enthralled. The book could’ve used a bit more development and felt the ending was a bit too convenient, but overall, I highly recommend this book for both kids and adults. 

Books: The Dreaming Stars By Tim Pratt (2018)

“Ancient aliens, the Axiom, will kill us all – when they wake up. In deep space, a swarm of nanoparticles threatens the colonies, transforming everything it meets into computronium – including the colonists. The crew of the White Raven investigate, and discover an Axiom facility filled with aliens hibernating while their minds roam a vast virtual reality. The treacherous Sebastien wakes up, claiming his altered brain architecture can help the crew deactivate the swarm – from inside the Axiom simulation. To protect humanity, beleaguered Captain Callie Machedo must trust him, but if Sebastien still plans to dominate the universe using Axiom tech, they could be in a whole lot of trouble.”

While not quite as impressive as The Wrong Stars, The Dreaming Stars does have some good moments, with characters moving the plot along and giving the reader more world building. That’s what makes this and the first book work, with well constructed, believable band of humans (and aliens) fighting to prevent the universes destruction by the Axiom. However, there is little action until we get to the last quarter of the book, where Callie, Ashok and the unstable 500 year-old Sebastien enter a VR world straight out of World of Warcraft and other computer games.

And while Tim Pratt continues the world building, we do get a lot of rehashing about what happened in the first book. I mean, it’s not enough to say you can skip over The Wrong Stars, but for someone who had read that book, I wondered why we were going over the same ground again. It just made me feel this middle book of a trilogy was just setting everything up for book three –as if he did not have enough material for three, so he stretched out the second. Still, this does have a beginning, middle, and an end, leaving us with hints as to what’s to come. I appreciated that Pratt is changing up the crew, as well, but I also sense everyone will be reunited for the conclusion. 

So I was a bit disappointed that this book was less intense, less exciting than the first, I will undoubtedly be here next year awaiting the next tome.  It may want be a cousin to The Expanse series that publisher Angry Robot hopes for, but it may never achieve that status. Its fun read, with queer characters, a female captain and unstable men; a SJW worst nightmare really. Good, but forgettable.