Blast from the past

I have recently unearthed a bunch of reviews from some of the earliest days of my original review site, back in the late 1990s. After much inner debate, I've decided to share some of those, so if you take a look at the timeline at the lower right side of the page over the coming weeks, you'll notice some new reviews popping in from the past.

I'll warn you in advance that some of them, particularly the earliest ones, are very short and not very good. But re-reading them has been interesting for me, and maybe it will be for someone else, too.

Memory Lane: "Golden Sword of Dragonwalk" by R.L. Stine

I’ve always loved used book fairs and sales. In years past, I’d bring home huge stacks every time I went. Books that looked marginally interesting to me, well they were only a buck or two, sometimes less, throw them in the basket. These days, I’m a little pickier about what I bring home, mainly because I don’t want to end up on one of those A&E shows. I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that not every book that I get for review needs to come home, and I’m painfully culling the books that fill up my storage building and donating them to the local symphony league’s semi-annual sale, which is also a great place for me to replenish the hoard.

I stopped in last weekend looking not for myself, but for my son. He’s a “Nate the Great” addict, and I’ve been desperately searching for other books that he likes as well as those to keep him going after he runs through that series. The book fair’s a great place for that because I can walk out with a huge stack of books for five or six dollars – the price of one new book. If he sets one aside after the first page, not interested, I’m not that worried about it. It only cost a quarter or 50 cents.

Review: "Farlander" by Col Buchanan

I initially picked up Col Buchanan’s debut “Farlander” ($24.99, Tor) for a couple of reasons. One, I’m a sucker for assassin’s apprentice stories and was hoping for something along the lines of Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy or Brent Weeks’ Night Angel Series. Second, the cover intrigued me with the flying machine in the background and the hint that Buchanan’s world could be a little different from what I’m used to.

The book follows the story of a boy named Nico, who has run away from home and is living as best he can on the streets of a city under siege. On his first attempt at stealing to support himself and a friend, Nico is caught. As it turns out, the man he was stealing from is a farlander named Ash, who is part of a guild of assassins known as the Roshun. Ash is aging and his health is fading. He needs to take on an apprentice, so Nico is offered the option of a harsh and public punishment or going with the farlander for training.

Review: "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

So here’s another one of those books that I’ve been meaning to get around to reading, but haven’t. When I started down “The Road” ($15, Vintage Books), I was almost certain that the sparse writing style and lack of proper punctuation were going to drive me crazy before I got past the first 50 pages. A couple of hours and more than half the book later, I was amazed at how the story kept pulling me along.

Cormac McCarthy’s novel tells the story of a father and his son traveling alone across a post-apocalyptic wasteland of America. It’s been years since the catastrophe struck. We’re never told exactly what ended the world, and we’re led to believe that the nameless father isn’t entirely sure, either. But ashes continue to rain down and cover the earth. The sun remains obscured by a cloud of the stuff. Almost every store and home has been looted and stripped of food and anything else that might be useful. The few humans remaining in the world have mostly turned savage, fighting for survival and often doing horrible things to achieve it.

Review: "Dead Witch Walking" by Kim Harrison

When I occasionally go on and on about Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files,” which I’ve had a habit of doing for the past 10 years or so, almost invariably, someone will tell me that if I like Butcher I really should read Kim Harrison. So, after years of hearing that, I finally picked up the first book in her Hollows series, “Dead Witch Walking” ($7.99, Harper Voyager).

After a genetically-engineered virus carried by tomatoes wipes out a large portion of the human population, the Inderlanders – witches, vampires, werewolves, leprechauns, fairies, pixies, etc. – who are largely unaffected, reveal themselves to the world. They pretty much come to the rescue while humans were being decimated by the virus, and now the humans and the supernaturals are having to learn to co-exist – sort of.

Revisiting "The Phantom Menace"

I both looked forward to and kind of dreaded it when I heard about the 3D conversion of the Star Wars movies. I was excited for my son to get the chance to see them on the big screen, but there is the gimmickiness of 3D, and you always have to wonder what George Lucas will decide to change in a new edition.

I took my son to see “The Phantom Menace” last week, and I had a few observations. First, I’ll admit that I really liked the movie when it was originally released, and I’ve never quite understood the hatred for it. I think, perhaps, most of us had expectations that were far too high. We expected something that connected with us like the original movies, but these were made in a different time and, really, a different world. I don’t believe they had a chance to be nearly as good as the originals, which were a fairly new and fresh idea when they were released.

Review: "The Night Eternal" by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

As we reach the conclusion of Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s vampire trilogy in “The Night Eternal” ($26.99, William Morrow), the Master and his vampiric legions have been in control for two years. Most humans have lined up like cattle with the new order. Some are placed in camps for bleeding and breeding, others continue to work for vouchers for food and clothing. Very few resist.

The Master has thrown the world into a nuclear winter, perfect for he and his kind. Only a few hours of sunlight each day penetrate the toxic clouds that cover the earth. Ephraim Goodweather, the CDC doctor who first documented the vampiric virus, has let the resistance down. He’s tormented by the loss of his wife to the virus and the kidnapping of his son by the Master, and he’s turned to stealing from the dwindling supply of prescription drugs in abandoned stores and hospitals to deal with it. He’s become unreliable to his partners, fellow doctor Nora Martinez and one-time exterminator Vasiliy Fet, who are determined to decipher the Occido Lumen, a book left to them by vampire hunter Abraham Setrakian, who was killed by the Master. It might hold the key to destroying the creature once and for all and freeing the world from the rule of the vampires.