30 November 2009
29 November 2009
Books: Huge by James W. Fuerst (2009)
Eugene “Huge” Smalls is 12, has an IQ of 133 and has enough anger issues to make him seem -at times - a danger to himself. His only friend is a stuffed frog named Thrash and he also fancies himself a detective -one of those 1940's Raymond Chandler noir types. When someone tags his grandmothers nursing home, he is handed an assignment by his grandmother to find the culprit.
Set in the 1980's New Jersey, the debut novel by Fuerst sparkles with great dialogue and has a hero who has created some sort of faulty logic for his anger. However, at times I was distracted by his conversations with Thrash (which kind of convinced me Huge was a little off his rocker) and the kids self-awareness dialogue that made me feel that I was not listening to a 12 year-old talk. Besides having a dirty mouth, Huge spoke more like an adult.
At the end of the day, its an impressive debut, but I got bored with it, and began to wonder why it was set in the 1980's, because it really did not seem to impact the story. I mean, really, what was the point unless (as most first books tend to be) author Fuerst grew up during that time, thus adding a little autobiographical notions to the novel.
Set in the 1980's New Jersey, the debut novel by Fuerst sparkles with great dialogue and has a hero who has created some sort of faulty logic for his anger. However, at times I was distracted by his conversations with Thrash (which kind of convinced me Huge was a little off his rocker) and the kids self-awareness dialogue that made me feel that I was not listening to a 12 year-old talk. Besides having a dirty mouth, Huge spoke more like an adult.
At the end of the day, its an impressive debut, but I got bored with it, and began to wonder why it was set in the 1980's, because it really did not seem to impact the story. I mean, really, what was the point unless (as most first books tend to be) author Fuerst grew up during that time, thus adding a little autobiographical notions to the novel.
15 November 2009
Doctor Who: Waters of Mars
As David Tennant's tenure as the Doctor nears its end, it appears the Russell T Davies is finally pulling the stops out. After last years less than exciting Christmas special, The Next Doctor and this past Easter's less than spectacular Planet of the Dead" which where good, but nothing new, I wondered what he was planning.
"The Waters of Mars" takes the show into a much darker realm, one where the Doctor (not for the first time) must decide to break the rules of time his fellow Time Lords vowed never to do -the notion that there are historical moments that are fixed in time; that he cannot change those events.
In some ways, I'm reminded of the classic fourth Doctor serial "The Genesis of the Daleks". The Timelords - in a rare moment of interference in historical events - sends the Doctor and his companions to Skaro to prevent the creation of the Daleks. Though the Doctor fails -and even he admits that maybe even he does not posses the right to end a species - he tells Sarah Jane and Harry that although the Daleks will create havoc and destruction for millions of years, he knows that out of their evil must come something good.
The Doctor has this dilemma in "The Waters of Mars", after he realizes when he has arrived. All through the story, he wants to leave, because he knows this accident on Mars - with the first people to have a colony on the Red Planet - will bring bring a sort of renaissance (ala Star Trek: First Contact). That the granddaughter of Captain Adelaide Brooke will be inspired by her grandmothers sacrifice. So this fixed moment in time he cannot change, that all of them must die.
And while the Doctor learns of what caused the accident, he still cannot leave and is soon reminded that he is the Last of the Time Lords. He tells Adelaide, after saving her and two others, that the laws of the Time Lords were only valid while their civilization existed, and since Gallifrey and his fellow Time Lords are gone, he has total control over time.
But she is clever, pragmatic and less emotional than the Doctor is at this point. She points out, quiet correctly (and something Donna Noble pointed out also), that the Doctor has too much power, that the "Time Lord Victorious" he calls himself is wrong.
And with Adelaide's suicide, which reverts the changes that the Doctor has made to the timeline, it triggers a realization that he has crossed a line, one he knows he cannot go back on. When Ood Sigma appears (encountered in "The Planet of the Ood", where he predicted the events of "Journey's End", and the Tenth Doctor's death) on the snowy street, the Doctor realizes his mistake, that there will be a price to pay for his interference. But when Sigma vanishes, apparently not there to end his life, the Doctor staggers back into the TARDIS to the ominous sounds of the Cloister Bell. With a roar of "No!", he sets out.
But the die has been cast.
A nearly flawless episode, one filled with a sense of its past history and what is yet to come. Tennant gives another bravo performance, especially when he leaves the dying crew members of Bowie 1 and listens to their deaths.
This episode also takes a look at why the Time Lords highest crime was interference. They realized what can happen when people try to change things, why even the Daleks could not be stopped.
The trailer for the next episode -out at Christmas - sees the return of Donna Noble. What role she has to play is not know, but one assumes its the Master who'll set the endgame in motion.
"The Waters of Mars" takes the show into a much darker realm, one where the Doctor (not for the first time) must decide to break the rules of time his fellow Time Lords vowed never to do -the notion that there are historical moments that are fixed in time; that he cannot change those events.
In some ways, I'm reminded of the classic fourth Doctor serial "The Genesis of the Daleks". The Timelords - in a rare moment of interference in historical events - sends the Doctor and his companions to Skaro to prevent the creation of the Daleks. Though the Doctor fails -and even he admits that maybe even he does not posses the right to end a species - he tells Sarah Jane and Harry that although the Daleks will create havoc and destruction for millions of years, he knows that out of their evil must come something good.
The Doctor has this dilemma in "The Waters of Mars", after he realizes when he has arrived. All through the story, he wants to leave, because he knows this accident on Mars - with the first people to have a colony on the Red Planet - will bring bring a sort of renaissance (ala Star Trek: First Contact). That the granddaughter of Captain Adelaide Brooke will be inspired by her grandmothers sacrifice. So this fixed moment in time he cannot change, that all of them must die.
And while the Doctor learns of what caused the accident, he still cannot leave and is soon reminded that he is the Last of the Time Lords. He tells Adelaide, after saving her and two others, that the laws of the Time Lords were only valid while their civilization existed, and since Gallifrey and his fellow Time Lords are gone, he has total control over time.
But she is clever, pragmatic and less emotional than the Doctor is at this point. She points out, quiet correctly (and something Donna Noble pointed out also), that the Doctor has too much power, that the "Time Lord Victorious" he calls himself is wrong.
And with Adelaide's suicide, which reverts the changes that the Doctor has made to the timeline, it triggers a realization that he has crossed a line, one he knows he cannot go back on. When Ood Sigma appears (encountered in "The Planet of the Ood", where he predicted the events of "Journey's End", and the Tenth Doctor's death) on the snowy street, the Doctor realizes his mistake, that there will be a price to pay for his interference. But when Sigma vanishes, apparently not there to end his life, the Doctor staggers back into the TARDIS to the ominous sounds of the Cloister Bell. With a roar of "No!", he sets out.
But the die has been cast.
A nearly flawless episode, one filled with a sense of its past history and what is yet to come. Tennant gives another bravo performance, especially when he leaves the dying crew members of Bowie 1 and listens to their deaths.
This episode also takes a look at why the Time Lords highest crime was interference. They realized what can happen when people try to change things, why even the Daleks could not be stopped.
The trailer for the next episode -out at Christmas - sees the return of Donna Noble. What role she has to play is not know, but one assumes its the Master who'll set the endgame in motion.
11 November 2009
10 November 2009
Books: Under the Dome by Stephen King (2009)
While Stephen King’s Under the Dome is more thriller than a chiller, it can scar you. Mostly for its heft, clocking at 1072 pages. Then there’s the town of Chester Mill, it’s elaborate map and it’s large cast of characters that include most of King’s colorful archetypes.
But while the thickness may seeming daunting, the novel -surprisingly - moves fast.
When the town is suddenly surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must do almost anything to survive. But things go from bad to worse rather quickly, with the dome's ecological effects on the town and the maneuvering of one Big Jim Rennie, an deviling local politician and drug lord who quickly realizes he can now make Chester Mill’s his own little private kingdom, with himself as absolute ruler. Our heroes include Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a group of skateboarders and many others.
One of King’s traits is he loves people, and he loves to see what happens when the nine circles of hell open up and see how it slowly unravels their worlds. While the story has been noodling around King’s head since 1976, Under the Dome (which, in the end, resembles the old Twilight Zone episode The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street) is rife with current day issues. He takes the old 1950's communist fears and opens a can of present day terrorist notions to create a nearly flawless novel.
At times funny, disturbing (especially how the people of Chester Mill easily let the fabric of their daily lives unravel), and even moving, Under the Dome is as close to a nonstop thrill ride you can get when a novel tops 1000 pages.
But while the thickness may seeming daunting, the novel -surprisingly - moves fast.
When the town is suddenly surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must do almost anything to survive. But things go from bad to worse rather quickly, with the dome's ecological effects on the town and the maneuvering of one Big Jim Rennie, an deviling local politician and drug lord who quickly realizes he can now make Chester Mill’s his own little private kingdom, with himself as absolute ruler. Our heroes include Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a group of skateboarders and many others.
One of King’s traits is he loves people, and he loves to see what happens when the nine circles of hell open up and see how it slowly unravels their worlds. While the story has been noodling around King’s head since 1976, Under the Dome (which, in the end, resembles the old Twilight Zone episode The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street) is rife with current day issues. He takes the old 1950's communist fears and opens a can of present day terrorist notions to create a nearly flawless novel.
At times funny, disturbing (especially how the people of Chester Mill easily let the fabric of their daily lives unravel), and even moving, Under the Dome is as close to a nonstop thrill ride you can get when a novel tops 1000 pages.
31 October 2009
Happy Halloween!!!
See, it's easy to put a simple costume together.
Bet he had all of this just lying around the house.
30 October 2009
Measure of Me
So, the dullness that is my life continues (thus the lack of posts here on my blog). But times are interesting at work.
* My GM announced she is leaving the company, after 15 or so years with Borders. However, she's not leaving the book industry, just going back to being a DM for a Christian Book company. We also got a new DM for our region, after our last one was fired earlier this month. Since his firing, we've all learned about how piss poor the SoCal region is doing -we seem to be the redheaded step-child of Borders. Also, the GM for Riverside is also leaving next week, which proves how much damage the previous DM did the area and how much work is needed to make this area shine, though I'm guessing the damage is done.
* For the first time in a long time, I agreed to do an overnight shift on Sunday to set-up the holiday stuff. Mostly, the reason I said I do it was because last years crew did a shityy-ass job. So I'm hoping to correct this year; sort of do it right the first time mindset.
* The fate of Borders, by the way, is still not set. It will be an intersting holiday season to say the least.
Happy Halloween all and welcome back standard time.
And less we forget, the Day of The Dead is nearly here.
Peace out.
08 October 2009
05 October 2009
04 October 2009
This weekend
Nothing spectacular, this weekend. Had a quick Frontier Guard shoot on Saturday, was in and out of studio in two hours. We have a bit longer shoot on Tuesday night, which I'm already dreading. I stopped and had lunch before going home and then spent about two hours at Starbucks reading Stephen King's Under the Dome.
Today I went to Disneyland, now all decked out for Halloween. It was pretty crowed, with this weekend being the unofficial Gay Day. As typical, the bears where there early while the twinks showed up at around 1. In some ways, I wanted to be with them, all dressed in red shirts; to fit in. But there is also a part of me who does not want to thrown into such a stereotype.
Argh.
Been on Live Journal checking all the comments about Borders. Seems there are a lot of bitter people working for my company. I posted a few comments myself.
Borders is doomed. Ha!
Today I went to Disneyland, now all decked out for Halloween. It was pretty crowed, with this weekend being the unofficial Gay Day. As typical, the bears where there early while the twinks showed up at around 1. In some ways, I wanted to be with them, all dressed in red shirts; to fit in. But there is also a part of me who does not want to thrown into such a stereotype.
Argh.
Been on Live Journal checking all the comments about Borders. Seems there are a lot of bitter people working for my company. I posted a few comments myself.
Borders is doomed. Ha!
25 September 2009
So, this is Fall?
Fall officially started on Tuesday. It reached 113 that day here. It was 112 on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Suppose to be as warm tomorrow and just a few degrees cooler on Sunday. I love California for its pleasant winters. But like in Chicago when spring arrives in March and its still in the 20s, you get really depressed when fall arrives here and its still blistering hot outside.
Sometimes it just makes me want to cry.
Sometimes it just makes me want to cry.
Books: Star Trek: Assignment: Eternity by Greg Cox
For a number of years during the 1990's, I collected almost all of the Star Trek books that came out. 99.9% of them, I never read. They sit now in box's in my garage, awaiting a fate I don't know.Still, the above novel was published in 1998, and it was one I did not have (or if I did, I've lost it). So, I ordered a used edition. Why, may you ask, did I do this? I've always liked the TOS episode Assignment: Earth. That 1968 episode was originally planned as pilot for a potential spin-off. It featured Robert Lansing as Gary Seven, a mysterious human working for aliens who come from the future. Kirk and company use a gravitational slingshot around the sun and time travel to 1968 Earth for historical research (this time travel plot device was alluded to in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). Suddenly, the Enterprise intercepts a highly powerful transporter beam from a thousand light-years away and a man dressed in a business suit materializes on the pad. He carries a black cat with a diamond collar. He converses with his cat, Isis, then introduces himself to Captain Kirk as Gary Seven.
That episode also featured an appearance by Terri Garr, who played Roberta Lincoln, a young woman who thought she was going for a job interview only to become entangled in Seven's plans.
Anyways, it was a cute episode that never went anywhere. So in 1998, Greg Cox revived the character for the Pocket Book Star Trek line-up. The novel also include many humorous references and inside jokes alluding to TOS, TNG, DS9 episodes, and the TOS movies, as well as references to some popular 1960's and 1970's television series not related to Star Trek.
The plot of the book has a Romulan traveling to the future and assassinates Spock in 2293 during the Khitomer Peace Accords (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). Gary Seven's colleague, Supervisor 146 (a.k.a. Septos) alerts him, and he and Roberta Lincoln travel to 2269 to stop the Romulan and save Septos.
Cox would continue his take on Seven and Roberta in his two volume novels The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (2001/02). Those I've yet to read, and have recently gotten used versions of them.
13 September 2009
Pirates IV gets a title; based on Tim Powers novel?
Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook made several major announcements about upcoming Disney films during an address at the D23 Disney fan expo in Anaheim, including the name of the upcoming fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which will be called Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides, which is due in summer 2011. Johnny Depp showed up in full Jack Sparrow regalia, in character, disturbed by the presence of a talking frog at the earlier Muppets presentation (who return The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made!).
The title begs the question of whether the fourth film is based upon fantasy author Tim Powers 1987 novel On Stranger Tides.
Powers novel is about puppeteer John Chandagnac, bound for Jamaica to recover stolen money from his uncle, who becomes Jack Shandy after pirates attack his ship and force him to join their crew. Shandy's struggle to accept his new life, even as Blackbeard and vodun magicians whisk everyone away to dreamlike lands where the Fountain of Youth itself awaits.
Tim Powers, born in New York in 1952, but relocated with his family to Southern California in 1959 has admitted in the past that On Stranger Tides tale was inspired by Disneyland's Pirates of the Carribean ride.
The title begs the question of whether the fourth film is based upon fantasy author Tim Powers 1987 novel On Stranger Tides.
Powers novel is about puppeteer John Chandagnac, bound for Jamaica to recover stolen money from his uncle, who becomes Jack Shandy after pirates attack his ship and force him to join their crew. Shandy's struggle to accept his new life, even as Blackbeard and vodun magicians whisk everyone away to dreamlike lands where the Fountain of Youth itself awaits.
Tim Powers, born in New York in 1952, but relocated with his family to Southern California in 1959 has admitted in the past that On Stranger Tides tale was inspired by Disneyland's Pirates of the Carribean ride.
10 September 2009
Books: This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
In a pitch perfect take on the family saga, Jonathan Tropper’s side-splitting This Is Where I Leave You is often funny as it is heartbreaking.
We learn, as Judd Foxman’s narrates, is not having anywhere near a perfect few months. Soon after discovering his wife in bed with another man -Judd’s obnoxious, popular radio personality boss - he learns of the death of his father. Faced with returning to his family and home, his future ex-wife compounds the problems by announcing she’s pregnant with Judd’s baby.
With this news, Judd returns to his home town of Elmsbrook where he and his dysfunctional family plan to sit Shiva - which surprises Judd, as he knew his father did not have a religious bone in his body. So, for the first time in years, the Foxman’s are together for seven days following the funeral. In the same house. Like a family.
There’s Judd’s mom, Hillary, is a psychiatrist and the bestselling author of Cradle and All: A Mother's Guide to Enlightened Parenting. "Predictably," Judd notes, "my siblings and I were screwed up beyond repair." Also, there is his sister, Wendy, who has three kids younger than 6 and a husband who works in hedge funds and pays more attention to his BlackBerry than to his wife. Bitter Paul, the oldest, is the partner with their dad in the family sporting goods store, and remains angry at Judd for his failure at a baseball career. Then there’s Philip, the youngest and “the Paul McCartney of our family: better looking than the rest of us, always facing a different direction in pictures, and occasionally rumored to be dead.”
The novel is filled with some wonderful, very sly dialogue about family and death. It’s laugh-out-loud brilliant and I found many passages matched my life, including “Sometimes it’s heartbreaking to see your siblings as the people they’ve become. Maybe that’s why we all stay away from each other as a matter of course.”
Anyways, by the end of the shiva, Paul has one arm in a sling, Philip has a broken hand, Judd has a split lip, Wendy hasn't slept in days and Mom has had a serious falling-out with her lover. And to Tropper’s credit, the comedy is never glib and not everything is resolved by the end.
We learn, as Judd Foxman’s narrates, is not having anywhere near a perfect few months. Soon after discovering his wife in bed with another man -Judd’s obnoxious, popular radio personality boss - he learns of the death of his father. Faced with returning to his family and home, his future ex-wife compounds the problems by announcing she’s pregnant with Judd’s baby.
With this news, Judd returns to his home town of Elmsbrook where he and his dysfunctional family plan to sit Shiva - which surprises Judd, as he knew his father did not have a religious bone in his body. So, for the first time in years, the Foxman’s are together for seven days following the funeral. In the same house. Like a family.
There’s Judd’s mom, Hillary, is a psychiatrist and the bestselling author of Cradle and All: A Mother's Guide to Enlightened Parenting. "Predictably," Judd notes, "my siblings and I were screwed up beyond repair." Also, there is his sister, Wendy, who has three kids younger than 6 and a husband who works in hedge funds and pays more attention to his BlackBerry than to his wife. Bitter Paul, the oldest, is the partner with their dad in the family sporting goods store, and remains angry at Judd for his failure at a baseball career. Then there’s Philip, the youngest and “the Paul McCartney of our family: better looking than the rest of us, always facing a different direction in pictures, and occasionally rumored to be dead.”
The novel is filled with some wonderful, very sly dialogue about family and death. It’s laugh-out-loud brilliant and I found many passages matched my life, including “Sometimes it’s heartbreaking to see your siblings as the people they’ve become. Maybe that’s why we all stay away from each other as a matter of course.”
Anyways, by the end of the shiva, Paul has one arm in a sling, Philip has a broken hand, Judd has a split lip, Wendy hasn't slept in days and Mom has had a serious falling-out with her lover. And to Tropper’s credit, the comedy is never glib and not everything is resolved by the end.
05 September 2009
Glenda Beck and the sorta-lame-ass version of what he thinks is the truth
You know, Glenda, you're becoming more and more crazy as the days go by, now finding menace in every shadow and every relief. You’re a pathetic propaganda machine for the Conservative Right. You and the rest of the Kool Aide drinking crowd grow desperate everyday to show a bunch of non-thinking idiots that some how you have the inside info on everything. You have no credibility and speak no language any rational human being would say.
Glenda Beck is a psychotic monkey who will tilt the world -along with the other cronies of Right and Faux News - into another Civil War. It's your ultimate goal to bring the collapse of America and set up a regime built and conceived on the notion that only religious folks should hold the key of knowledge and all power.
And while I would never stoop so low as to ask God to smite you down for just being a douche bag, I kinda hope that you'll see the light.
Until that day happens, you’ll never be more than a sad loser, a nobody. You’re a narcists, a clown in an expensive suit, who needs some sort acknowledgment to exist.
31 August 2009
21 August 2009
16 August 2009
Books: Retail Hell: Confessions of a Tortured Sales Associate by Freeman Hall
This book is for anyone who works in retail. And its for anyone who shops and wonders why most retail employees hate you. Author Freeman Hall details the life of a retail slave, one who has to put up with an endless parade of people who live by the mantra that the customer is always right (a fallacy created by the retail stores themselves. I’m with Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David when he says most customers are wrong. And are probably assholes. I’ve always found that living by that slogan day in and day out is a miserable way to run a company. It seems unfair that abusive people will and should get better treatment than nice ones).
Anywhoo, Hall’s hilarious rant on customers, customer service and working for The Big Fancy - a probable combination of Macy’s and Nordstroms where he used to work - hits many spots. As an aspiring screenwriter, Hall’s dose of customer insanity will remind anyone of David Sedaris and ultra hyper-reality in which he lives.
For some, they’ll say his stories are absurd, that the situations in his book could not happen. Hell, after 12 years of working with Borders (and add on 22 years in the book business and 29 years in retail overall), I can tell you stories about catching three men having sex in the men's bathroom, or the ones shooting up in the stalls; of hearing a story in my old store about a teenage boy completely naked -for whatever reason - in our bathroom. Then there's the story of me cleaning up a trail of wet, sloppy poop from the front of the store to the back. Yes, what we do for the unforgiving love of our customers.
So, what stories he tells are far from his imagination.
Interspersed, he tells his tale of coming to LA to become a screenwriter, and how working for The Big Fancy is crushing that dream. All of us know that our off days are truly not ours and even though we plan to grand things when we get those days off, we usually fail to do it, because exhaustion usually gets the best of us.
And while other jobs -ones outside the service industry - can be soul crunching, for some reason retail is worse. It’s all about numbers, quotas and reaching a higher quarter than the previous (even though, theoretically, along with the law of averages, is something not possible.
Anyone can quote leadership gurus like John Maxwell and Peter Drucker, but the reality of retail -and of Freeman Hall’s book - is that while the customer is always right is a good idea, in reality it’s a poor excuse to let people screw you up and down the month.
And who gets blamed for poor sales? Not the slumping economy, surely. Nope. It’s the guy, the girl behind the counter who gets blamed. I mean, how many times do we have tohear if we just sold $5.00 more bucks worth of merchandise, we would’ve made plan?
Anywhoo, Hall’s hilarious rant on customers, customer service and working for The Big Fancy - a probable combination of Macy’s and Nordstroms where he used to work - hits many spots. As an aspiring screenwriter, Hall’s dose of customer insanity will remind anyone of David Sedaris and ultra hyper-reality in which he lives.
For some, they’ll say his stories are absurd, that the situations in his book could not happen. Hell, after 12 years of working with Borders (and add on 22 years in the book business and 29 years in retail overall), I can tell you stories about catching three men having sex in the men's bathroom, or the ones shooting up in the stalls; of hearing a story in my old store about a teenage boy completely naked -for whatever reason - in our bathroom. Then there's the story of me cleaning up a trail of wet, sloppy poop from the front of the store to the back. Yes, what we do for the unforgiving love of our customers.
So, what stories he tells are far from his imagination.
Interspersed, he tells his tale of coming to LA to become a screenwriter, and how working for The Big Fancy is crushing that dream. All of us know that our off days are truly not ours and even though we plan to grand things when we get those days off, we usually fail to do it, because exhaustion usually gets the best of us.
And while other jobs -ones outside the service industry - can be soul crunching, for some reason retail is worse. It’s all about numbers, quotas and reaching a higher quarter than the previous (even though, theoretically, along with the law of averages, is something not possible.
Anyone can quote leadership gurus like John Maxwell and Peter Drucker, but the reality of retail -and of Freeman Hall’s book - is that while the customer is always right is a good idea, in reality it’s a poor excuse to let people screw you up and down the month.
And who gets blamed for poor sales? Not the slumping economy, surely. Nope. It’s the guy, the girl behind the counter who gets blamed. I mean, how many times do we have tohear if we just sold $5.00 more bucks worth of merchandise, we would’ve made plan?
10 August 2009
Books: NERDS: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society by Michael Buckley
Despite being a title for the young, Michael Buckley’s (The Sisters Grimm) new series is a comic treat, as fifth graders become secret agents, ala James Bond.
Combining all the excitement of international espionage and all the awkwardness of elementary school, NERDS, features a group of unpopular students who run a spy network from inside their school. With the help of cutting-edge science, their nerdy qualities are enhanced and transformed into incredible abilities. They battle the Hyena, a former junior beauty pageant contestant turned assassin, and an array of James Bond–style villains, each with an evil plan more diabolical and more ridiculous than the last.
There is much to like about this novel, and you can tell Buckely is enjoying himself. It's a nutty, sort of cousin to CN's The Venture Bros. series. The Hyena is the best, and her backstory is just brilliant. The villain Jigsaw reminds me of Hank Scorpio from the classic Simpsons episode You Only Move Twice.
Look for it September 1
Combining all the excitement of international espionage and all the awkwardness of elementary school, NERDS, features a group of unpopular students who run a spy network from inside their school. With the help of cutting-edge science, their nerdy qualities are enhanced and transformed into incredible abilities. They battle the Hyena, a former junior beauty pageant contestant turned assassin, and an array of James Bond–style villains, each with an evil plan more diabolical and more ridiculous than the last.
There is much to like about this novel, and you can tell Buckely is enjoying himself. It's a nutty, sort of cousin to CN's The Venture Bros. series. The Hyena is the best, and her backstory is just brilliant. The villain Jigsaw reminds me of Hank Scorpio from the classic Simpsons episode You Only Move Twice.
Look for it September 1
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