A Cry of Hounds (Ackley-McPhail, ed)

A Cry of Hounds
by Danielle Ackley-McPhail (2024)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

A Cry of Hounds was a Kickstarter book, published by eSpec Books and edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, who also edited my book, In A Flash 2020 and the upcoming A Bucket Full of Moonlight.

A quick check of the Internet says that the paperback hasn't been released yet. However, this book was created in conjunction with the Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival, which took place a couple of months ago.

The stories in this volume are steampunk or have a steampunk feel to them. And while they are not Sherlock Holmes stories, they are meant to evoke Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And, of course, they needed to have a dog in them. That dog could be Cerberus, a giant puppy, a construct, or any mythological creature. And the fact that they don't repeat is a testament to the editor. (Note: I mean it -- I'm not kissing up.)

A couple of the stories feel like they are the "continuing adventures" of the characters contained within, but Keith R. A. DeCandido fooled me by using other Doyle characters and setting this adventure immediately after the events of one that Doyle published a century ago. (And I only know this because I was at a reading at the eSpec Book Launch party at Heliosphere, in Piscataway, NJ.)

The stories include "The Curse of the Baskervilles" by Arthur Conan Doyle (an excerpt from the novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles"), "The Night of the Howling Wind", by Ef Deal, "The Adventure of the Exploding Airship" by John L. French, "A Grecian Pawse" by Doc Coleman, "The Vampire of Rannoch Moor", by David Lee Summers, "Amber Waves of Bane" by Dana Fraedrich, "Weighed and Measured" by Bill Bodden, "Progenitor" by Keith R.A. DeCandido, "Ember Eyes" by Jessica Lucci, "The Houndstooth Affair" by Aaron Rosenberg, "A Glimpse of Death" by James Chambers, "They Who Have Lost Their Way" by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and "Sherlock Holmes and the Stonyhurst Terror" by Christopher D. Abbott.

This is one of those times when I wish I'd been on the ball about recording my reading. I finished this book back in May, but with the end of school and real life events, this blog (and my others) took a back seat.

To highlight a few of them: Ef Deal sets the stage with "The Night of the Howling Wind" which takes place in Ireland during a historic windstorm (really, it happened) and involves werewolves and murder. "The Exploding Airship" is a "Hope and Gracie mystery" dealing with an automated plane that exploded over the banks of the Thames (bonus points for naming the airships Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace.) "The Houndstooth Affair" takes place in New York City, specifically involving the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a clockwork songbird built by Cartier. And "Sherlock Holmes and the Stonyhurst Terror" unravels the mystery of a Yeth Hound, which given that this story employed Holmes and Watson, you knew that it would have a rational explanation but you still had to wonder what it was.

An enjoyable read. Recommended. Again, for anyone who stumbled upon this blog -- it isn't private, but I don't actively publicize it -- I've written for eSpec Books and I've participated in many of their Kickstarter campaigns, so I own a lot of their books (and bonus stories), and they are a large part of my digital TBR pile.

My Hero Academia Volume 36

My Hero Academia Volume 36, by Kōhei Horikoshi (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Now that I'm caught up, I'm reading these once every few months, so I'll list them separately.

The "final battle" continues. I notice that the anime that I'm watching on Hulu has almost caught up with the books. This past Saturday, Monoma copied powers that allowed him to use Kurogiri warp gate abilities to separate all of the villains into groups where heroes would be waiting. (Deku unfortunately gets snagged and dragged into the wrong portal.)

As shown on the cover, the highlight is the showdown between brothers Dabi and Shoto. Dabi notes that Endeavor didn't come himself and assumes he's too ashamed to be there. This doesn't bother Dabi because he wants to destroy everything Endeavor holds dear before disposing of him.

At the coffin in the sky, Tomura Shigaraki still has the power to create more hands from his body as a natural ability. However, his Decay quirk is being negated by Monoma who is standing by Aizawa so that he can use his ability past the normal time limit. (Aizawa has one eye bandaged -- I don't remember if he lost it entirely -- and his ability isn't what it had been.)

Without Deku, they can't finish off Shigaraki.

Three month wait for the next book.

In Defense of Witches (Chollet)

In Defense of Witches
Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial
by Mona Chollet (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a pandemic book club selection. I listened to it as well as read it.

The club decided that we would try our luck with nonfiction for a month. It didn't go much better.

The Introduction was over 40 pages. That in itself tells you that the book was going to drag. The overall sentiment was that this book should've been an essay. I wouldn't been fine with a Buzzfeed article, or if the 40 page introduction had been the entire book. Not much to add afterward.

The book was short on witches and long on generic feminism, and also the fact that all women are witches, so every woman is still on trial. Not something I buy, but the author made an effort to make the case. Granted, you had to get through a lot of the book before there were more mentioned of Gloria Steinem than there were of Donald Trump or Rush Limbaugh. The author also states that feminists aren't out to kill all the children and then spends dozens of pages supporting the assertion that women would do better for themselves if they don't have children.

Speaking of children, there could've been more about the midwives delivering babies. Now these were women who were accused of being witches if for no other reason than more of their babies lived while those delivered by doctors had a higher mortality rate. The answer was simple: hand-washing. And cleaning in general. Cleanliness is next to godliness after all. Actually, that last statement was NOT made in the book. That was something I read decades ago in an article that mentioned that many of the midwives in question were, in fact, nuns. Mothers wanted the nuns delivering their babies and not doctors.

Even leaving out the religious connection, more about this would've been more about the defense of witches.

An extra chapter about some of the witches killed in Salem or in England, France and the rest of Europe might've been appreciated.

At our meeting, the book didn't get higher than an average rating. Some good ideas but rambled too much. For the record, there were 4 women and 2 men in the webspace.

Fangirl: the Manga (Volumes 1, 2, 3)

Fangirl: the Manga (Volumes 1, 2, 3)
Manga adaptation of Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl by Sam Maggs (2020-2023)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Looking for random manga and the New York Public Library website recommended "Fangirl", which was a four-part adaptation of a novel, which I wasn't familiar with. So I started reading it. What I wasn't aware of at the time was that the fourth and final book has not been published yet. Arg.

Yes, I'll borrow it sometime after it comes out.

There are twins named Cath and Wren, whose mother only had one name picked out (Catherine). The two were fans of "Simon and Baz", two characters from popular fiction (I'm guessing similar to Twilight, but I never read that and has no plans to). They are "shipped" together despite the fact that neither of the characters are gay in the source material. For that matter, neither of the sisters are gay either (at least in the first three volumes).

The two are going off to college, but they won't be rooming together. Wren knows that they need to spread their wings and be individuals. Cath is a little afraid of this. Wren is the extrovert which gets her into trouble sometimes, and Cath is an introvert who stays in her room if her roommate doesn't drag her out of it.

Wren has given up on the fanfic. Cath still lives for it, so much so that it interferes with her creative writing class.

Wren starts to reconnect with their mother, who abandoned the family when the kids were little. Cath hates her mother and doesn't want to see her again.

And Cath falls for her roommate's ex-boyfriend who is a fan of Cath's stories.

Nothing objectionable. An interesting read. Obviously, I'm not the target demographic for this.

If I had any complaint, it would be the construction of the books that I got from the library. The first book was formatted like a regular graphic novel, not magna. The front page was on the left. The second and third books start on the right BUT ... and this is the annoying part ... the pages themselves are meant to be read from left to right, not right to left. THAT was confusing.

But I dealt with it.

Waiting for part 4. I don't think I'll read the actual book though.

Manga: The Devil in a Part-Timer, Volume 17

The Devil in a Part-Timer, Volume 17
(2017)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This is just here for completeness.

Walking past the library one Saturday morning a couple months ago, someone had left a bunch of books outside on top of the book return bin for anyone to take. There wasn't anything of real interest, but I saw this one volume of a manga that I hadn't heard of. Even though it was Volume 17, I figured it'd be enough for me to decide if it was something I'd like to find the first volume of and read through.

If what I guessed is true, the devil is a teenager for some reason, and in this particular episode, he's concerned about getting his driver's license. At the same time, another character is missing, and others show up looking for her.

By the end, demons are showing up and there's a showdown, which you'd expect any manga to have.

Nothing gripping. I didn't hate it, but I don't think I would've read volume 2 if I'd picked up volume 1 instead. I'm not planning on looking for this series.

Note: After I read this (more than a month ago), I was looking at the anime listings on a couple of platforms, and I saw that this is a show. If I had time, I might watch the first two episodes, but it's low on the list.

Pinata: A Novel (Gout)

Pinata: A Novel
by Leopoldo Gout (2023)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a pandemic book club alternate selection. It wasn't selected. However, given the wait time for the book, I reserved it before the poll results were in. I listened to most of the book, and I read it in its entirety. Since I finished reading it, I didn't feel the need to finish listening.

I read this book before The Saint of Bright Doors but I forgot to include it in the blog when I was catching up with my backlog. Oops. I read this a month ago, end of March, begining of April. I could check Libby to see when I checked it out, but it's not that important.

Pinata sits on top as the best book I've read this year although it isn't perfect. I believe I gave it 4 stars on Good Reads, and I would give it 4.5 out of 5 here. I enjoyed it, but the ending was a little off for me.

The book opens centuries ago with Mexico being conquered and a church being constructed on Mexican burial grounds. The priests there find pinatas, the ancient kind made of dead bodies, and destroy them. One priests suffers a horrible supernatural death because of it.

Flash forward to the present day. The church is being restored to create a boutique hotel. Carmen Sanchez is an architect sent to Mexcio to oversee the work. She faces sexism and nationalism -- she's of Mexican heritage but still a foreighner. It's summertime, so she brings her two daughters. One, Izel, is a teen who hates that she was dragged along instead of going to drama camp with her friends (she has lots of teen drama) and who has a secret boyfriend that she's constantly texting. The younger daughter, Luna, is a bit of a misfit in school but she devours all the curiousities that Mexico has to offer.

A Mexican woman who works at city hall, Yoltzi, has the ability to see spirits, an ability she's always had. (I have to admit, when first reading, I thought she was an older woman, not someone in her 20s or 30s.) She spots Luna being followed by spirits and is worried that her openness makes her vulnerable to spirits taken over her.

When an accident at the cathedral causes a wall to be broken and a secret chamber (not on any of the floorplans going back hundreds of years) is revealed, containing some of the pinatas we read about earlier. Because of the incident, Sanchez is recalled to New York, but not before Luna steals one of the pinatas and manages to get in through custons. (She had a jar of crickets which would've been confiscated instead except that she ate them.

Once back in New York, the weirdness which started in Mexico starts to ramp up, and Luna is at the center of it.

Yoltzi, along with other side characters Father Verón and Quauhtli, try to get to New York. Here is where I was less happy with the book. It's not that I want characters to have Plot Armor but they don't need to have unnecessary targets on their backs either. It doesn't come down to one person standing, which if it had, I would've knocked a full star off my rating.

I enjoyed the book overall although the pacing was off a bit here and there.

DNR: The Saint of Bright Doors (Chandrasekera)

The Saint of Bright Doors
by Vajra Chandrasekera (2023)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a pandemic book club selection. This book was chosen because it was one of three in the window of a bookstore in Nashville. We all hate this bookstore now.

The book was popular enough that I had to settle for reading the hardcover, which I needed to pick up in Manhattan because I couldn't get it in Brooklyn. Being only a year old, it's still quite popular, apparently.

If this had not been a book club selection, I would've given up on it a lot sooner than I did. As it was, I kept reading until the day of our meeting and I was still only about a third of the way through the book. I found out that only one person managed to finish it (and she was mad at us that she stuck it out). Even the group founder, who is a librarian, was unable to finish this.

No one had anything nice oto say about it beyond the fact that it started off interesting in the first chapter and then went whereever it was that it went. It didn't go through a bright door, though, which were described a lot, but otherwise were beside the point of the story, which went hither and yon.

Anway, this book was a waste of a few weeks of my time -- although not completely because I did read a different book on my kindle app at the same time. It's not only a "DNF" but I've added the tag "WTHDIJR" to the blog for this book. Because what the hell did I just read?

Once vacation is over, I'll be on my way back to Manhattan to drop this thing off. And then, on to the next book.

The Skeleton in the Closet (Fox)

The Skeleton in the Closet
by Angie Fox (2015)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Book two in the Southern Ghost Hunter Series became available for free from Book Bub, so I picked it up. I was in between book club books and I figured that this would be a quicker read than anything else I had ready since I was alredy familiar with the premise.

Verity Long is still poor, after being forced to pay off her fancy wedding after she left her cheating fiance at the altar. He still wants to get back with Verity despite or even because his mother opposes it. In the meantime, she has (maybe) a thing with his brother who is in local law enforcement, rather than being employed as a rich snob. And Frankie the 1920's era gangster ghost is still around.

Verity tries to unground Frankie (see book one) with little success. Meanwhile, it's the annual Cannonball in the Wall celebration of a Civil War battle that saw a cannonball get lodged a wall in the middle of town.

Darla, a friend of Verity's (and her sister's) is handling donations for the event, and the two oldest and most fuedin'-est families are trying to out-do each other. She makes a startling discovery and ends up dead. Her discovery is missing as well.

Verity investigates the library and all the ghosts who are stuck in time within its walls and finds some revealing evidence, but not THE revealing piece of evidence until much later.

After that, it's dodging dangers on two planes of existence until the truth about the Cannonball in the Wall is know to all.

But most people still think Verity is nuts for blowing off the wedding.

I wouldn't be opposed to reading more of these, but they aren't so great that I'll be buying them any time soon. If the libary has them, I'll borrow them.

Two Short Books

Big Bullet Monster Bomb: lost little things: a short story for mature readers
by Adam Archer (2020)

The Race
by John Russo (2021)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I don't remember where I found these stories. I don't think it was reddit. It could've been on Facebook or Twitter.

Nothing about the Bullet Bomb book was particularly geared toward mature readers, other than the cover showing a woman wearing rags that barely cover what they need to. It seems like a story set in a larger world that I haven't read but I have no idea of this is the case. It's post-apocalyptic and the last of the human race is slowly morphing into cratures. This much is interesting.

The main character is pulling a sled of her belongings (including guns) and looking for some place to hide so she can sleep. Her sleep cycle is screwed up so she's up for a long time and then needs a prolonged sleep.

When she encountered some creatures attacking an overturned RV, she decides to go into action. It's at this point and after that it fell apart for me. It was a bit of a mess after that. But I read it until the end. I didn't bail on it. Interesting, but not great.

The first notes I wrote after reading it were: too many parenthetical expressions. Eloise and Marhsa. Good setup, no follow through. Fell apart with the first battle.

By contrast, The Race is just a mess. It takes place in a dystopian future. Amazon makes deliveries by drone. One brother decides that they can get rich by shooting down the drones and taking the packages for themselves. The packages would be insured, so no one loses. The other brother thinks it's a stupid idea.

Brother 1 shoots down a down with a shotgun (it might've been a rifle, I forget), and the drone goes down. Brother 2 says that Brother 1 has to get the package and return it. Brother 1 says he's going to keep it.

And now the race is on over hill and dale not to mention through woods, quicksand and swamp, to get to this package. It seems like they are surprised by the terrain that is right next to their own farmland. It also seems like Brother 1 must be an incredible marksman to shoot down a drone so far away with a store-bought rifle without a laser scope. You would think that the drone would crash within a couple hundred yards from where he fired.

If that wasn't bad enough, they get to a point where they haul the huge package, a large TV, of the bayou (again, suprise -- there's a bayou!) in a boat. The boat gets flipped, depositing the brothers in the water, and sending the large box flying into the air, up the enbankments, and into the trees. The physics of it are basically "somehow".

The item finally retrieved and they head home after spending most of the day following the path a disabled drone. There's a twist at the end that is 100% the twist you would expect to see even before you knew that there would be a twist at the end because the story needed an ending.

My notes when I read it were: Johnny and Robert. Shooting packages from Amazon drones. how far away was this thing? Race from the farm into the swamp, and they came to a bayou that they seemed surprised to see. They rescue the package and it manages to magically fly up a hill and clear some trees. They spend the majority of the day looking for something that was taken down with a shotgun. And the final twist, SPOILER, telegraphed really, was that the lost package was ordered by the wife.

Funny Shorts 5 (McDonnell)

Funny Shorts 5
More Comic Plays
by John McDonnell (2024)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

My first book of 2024 but not really. It is a collecting on one-act plays, or scenes, really, that one can use in theater classes. I'll use the Good Reads description because I read this nearly a month ago and I've already forgotten much about it:

In this collection you’ll find Dracula getting an image makeover, pigeons discussing their artistic methods, sibling rivalry among witches, an assassin who writes poetry, a verbal shootout in a senior center, Lucifer getting dumped by his girlfriend, a first date with an alien, and much more. These funny skits are perfect for community theater, schools, senior productions – anywhere audiences want to be entertained.

Some were amusing, some were harder to get through. Not much to say. It was a quick read: about three days, reading in fits and starts.

Edit: Okay, so there was a reason that I didn't remember the end of this book: I didn't finish reading it.

I must have been reading this when the last Book Club book came in from the library and then stopped reading. I have now completed it. It had its moments.

My overall opinion hasn't changed, so I guess my sample was indicative of the entire product.

The Shadow Glass (Winning)

The Shadow Glass
by Josh Winning (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a pandemic book club pick. It received a mixed but mostly positive reviews.

For fans of the Dark Crystal or Labyrinth (I've seen the first, not the second), imagine a similar film that was created by a one-time director named Bob Corman that defined a generation and spawned a lot of ancillary material. This is the world of the movie The Shadow Glass, which created a word known as "Iri", pronounced "eerie".

Jack is the son of Bob, who recently passed away. Jack was estranged from his father, and now in financial straits, he looks to sell off some of his father's things. He winds up encountering creatures from Iri in his father's attic, which seek the Shadow Glass. Bad times have come to Iri and they have until the next full moon to set things right.

Jack is a non-believer, but Toby is a fanatic, knowing everything about Iri. He tries to help Jack.

There's a quest to find the Shadow Glass, the actual prompt from the movie, but it's rumored to have been broken up in pieces for storage. (In the end, this seems odd just because the pieces themselves don't seem to be all that big.)

To antagonize Jack, there is someone who hates him and Bob but loves Iri as it was in the film and nothing more. He winds up teaming up with the villains in the piece just so he can get closer to Iri.

The book was enjoyable, but there wasn't much of a payoff to it. What is this big moment on Iri? We never really find out. How will the Shadow Glass help? No clear idea what it will do (or did). And Jack gets faced with a false choice out of nowhere at what he wants to do.

One other point: this is not a book for young children. Jack gets his finger bitten off. It doesn't grow back. It isn't fixed by magic. There isn't a reset at the end of the story. Likewise, a movie studio guard gets swallowed whole and his uniform is spit out. It has its creepy moments.

I don't have much to complain about, but it wasn't the greatest book either. On Good Reads, I'm likely to give it four stars just because of the mediocre things that I've given three stars to.

Once again, this was a book that I listened to while walking concurrently with reading. Some of the script and transcript reading didn't sound well in audio. I also didn't finish the audio because I got to the end of the ebook first.

Graphic Novel: Superman in the Fifties

Superman in the Fifties (2021)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Last summer, I was in my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and while there, I picked up 3 graphic novels. I read part of this one, and then put the pile on the side. I've been renewing them every three weeks since then.

Of the three, this was the one that it took the longest to read. Back in the fifties, the artwork in comics was much simpler but there was a lot more text to read. The pictures are interesting enough, but nothing is visually stunning. And, of coure, the story lines are about 70 years old.

The funny thing about this was the number of other rockets that landed on Earth and how many of those came from Krypton. There were three villains, not the Phantom Zone villains, who were imprisoned in a rocket. There was Krypto and Supergirl. And there was another alien, whose name I unfortunately forget, who thought he was Superman's big brother -- I remember the story being Mon-El, and maybe they reprinted this and changed it to Mon-El for the Legion of Super Heroes, but that wasn't his name. There were Bizarro stories. And, of course, Superman's Best Friend Jimmy Olsen and Superman's Girlfrien Lois Lane.

I remember in the late 70s or early 80s when a grownup Lana Lang came to Metropolis. Apparently, she'd done this back in the 50s as well.

It was an interesting look into the past. Two things that stand out: Superman didn't have "heat vision" then but rather used his "X-ray vision" to heat things up; and he used his "super-ventriloquism" more than once in the book, and the outcome of one story depended upon it. Yes, Superman could literally throw his voice and have it appear to come from somewhere else.

It was a fun but long read. I'm glad I read it, and I'm happy that I finally brought it back.