The Haunted Air

I always know I'm in for a good read when I pick up a "Repairman Jack" novel. The Haunted Air by F. Paul Wilson is the 6th in the series about a guy who lives in present day New York City and specializes in fixing things for people, especially things that no one else can fix. Just about any job is doable if approached the right way. Jack lives off the grid: no Social Security Number, no bank accounts, no tax returns, numerous aliases and a great sense of handing out his own brand of justice.

One of the things I love about this series is that it combines several of my favorite genres. These novels are sort of mystery/thriller novels with a good dose of detective sleuthing thrown in and as we go along, more and more horror as well. Each book in the series has a stand-alone situation (or situations) for Jack to help with but there is also an overall arc that ties them all together. The author combines these Repairman Jack novels (of which he has stated there will be 15 in all) with his other works in the "Adversary Cycle" to form an overall "hidden history of the world." Readers certainly need not read all of his works to appreciate each individual novel and, in fact, according to the author's website, even if you did read every word of his numerous works, they have just barely scratched the surface of this hidden history.

This novel continues that bigger story arc in fine style as we really start getting into the back story of "The Otherness". This is the science-fiction/horror aspect of what is happening in the background and is just absolutely fascinating to me. Jack has been told that nothing in his life is coincidence and we really see that played out in this novel. Seemingly unrelated jobs of helping a couple of brothers who run a fake psychic/spiritualist operation to watching another client's brother for three evenings in a row to keep him from harm are, in fact, intimately connected. This novel has everything packed in, from fake spiritualists to real ghosts, from fisticuffs to gunplay, from ritual sacrifices to Jack's girlfriend really getting into the action. And oh yes, she may be pregnant which plays with Jack's conscience...will he be able to continue living off the grid if he is to become a father?

Great characters, great plotting, great mysteries and intrigue, and a killer "universe" make Repairman Jack one of the greatest series I've ever read, especially the further along I travel on this road.

Back in the Saddle Again

Ok, so I kinda missed my blog...

I've decided to take up the reins again but this time in a little different fashion.  I still need to devote spare time to writing and to my on-line bookstore so I'll be taking less time with each of the entries on this blog.  It was starting to feel like a chore before, sort of like doing a term paper for a high school english class.  I always had this need to write up my review just as soon as I completed reading a book.

The other thing I noticed after doing this blog as a book review blog for over a year was that it was deeply effecting how and what I chose to read.  As I read your comments and as I followed other book blogs, I started to choose books that would be agreeable to other people more so than books that I really wanted to read.  Strange, huh?  Moreover, I found myself forming opinions about what I read based on how I felt others would want me to feel.  In essence, I was lying to myself...and reading became less enjoyable.

So now what?  Why not just drop it all together? 

Dunno.  I guess I really do miss it.  So I'll try again but this time, I won't be doing a book review blog.  I'll be writing about what I read and perhaps put in a very short blurb about whether or not I liked it...and who knows what else.  And if anybody out there would like to discuss anything, I'll be happy to give you my two cents.

Just to catch up since my last entry, here's what I've read since then (sorted by genre):

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum
New York, the Novel by Edward Rutherford
Fatally Flaky (Goldy the Caterer #15) by Diane Mott Davidson
Transfer of Power (Mitch Rapp #1) by Vince Flynn
Hosts (Repairman Jack #5) by F. Paul Wilson
The Pirate Devlin by Mark Keating
Hondo by Louis L'Amour
The Street Lawyer by John Grisham
The Tunnel Behind the Waterfall (Magician's House Quartet #3) by William Corlett
The Policy by Bentley Little
The Woods are Dark by Richard Laymon
Stars and Stripes Forever by Harry Harrison
The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century edited by H. Turtledove and M. Greenberg
Island in the Sea of Time by S.M. Stirling
The Crystal Cave (The Arthurian Saga #1) by Mary Stewart
Well of Darkness (The Soverign Stone Trilogy #1) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
The Puppy Handbook by Sara John

So now we're all caught up.  As for what I'm reading now, stay tuned for the next blog entry.  That won't be for a couple of days because I'm going out of town to attend my son's college orientation session.

By the way, the picture at the top is "Abigail" our new puppy.  We call her Abby most of the time.  She's a "Sheepadoodle" which is a cross between an Old English Sheepdog and a Standard Poodle.  She'll be pretty big when she grows up but for now, we're enjoying her playful puppiness.

All the Rage

This weekend was a busy one for me in terms of living in my alternate reality life. (I prefer that to the real world, by the way). I spent my usual two-hour long gaming sessions with World of Warcraft on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and watched quite a few of my TV series via Netflix DVDs. But the big time sink was my acquisition of the new "Dragon Age: Origins" PC game. I absolutely love it and consequently spent way too many hours playing it. I've always loved these "D&D" style computer games, ever since the first "Balder's Gate" came out years ago.

Despite all of this I managed to finish up my latest "Repairman Jack" novel, All the Rage, by F. Paul Wilson. This is the fourth novel I have read by this author and, by most lists, is the fourth in the Repairman Jack series. When I say, "by most lists", I mean exactly that. Cataloging Mr Wilson's books is difficult at best; he seems to keep on revising them, publishing new versions so that his whole "Secret Universe" milieu fits together. It seems to me like he has two series that intertwine: The Repairman Jack books and "The Adversary Cycle", although many of the books exist in both series. Confusing, but nevertheless every time I read one of his books, I come away fulfilled, feeling like I've just experienced a great read. And each book drops just a few more clues on what is really going on in the bigger picture.

This book takes Jack into the world of illegal drugs...but not just any illegal drugs. "Beserk" is the primary street name for a substance that comes from the "Loki" molecule, derived from the blood of a Rokoshi. The very same Rakoshi that has haunted Jack's plot lines before. This drug has incredible effects including an amazing increase in violence on the part of the user. There is a great scene where Jack, himself is accidentally exposed to the drug and the resulting rampage by this normally organized, thoughtful, prepared person is priceless. Most of the story is a fairly straight forward thriller/mystery plot, with Jack involved with solving the mystery of the origin of this drug. But once again we get some clues into the background of "The Otherness" or, whatever it is that is "out there" stiring the pot of human existence. The Rokoshi is one aspect of that "Otherness" but we also meet Ozymandias and his traveling circus. This is a cool character and from the way things were left at the end of this book I can well imagine him reappearing in future books. I most definitely will be continuing to read this fascinating series.

I was also able to complete another Louis L'Amour short story, this one called, "Trail to Squaw Springs". Yet another example of how his stories are always fun to read. This one involves a regular ol' cowhand that manages to overthrow the tyranny of a town's local law enforcement in the space of 24 hours, thereby liberating the town and getting the girl. Yes, it's rather difficult to swallow all of the particluars of the plot and yes, the characters are pretty stock characters, but more importantly yes, it was great fun to read.

Next up: time for a western novel and so I'll be reading a L'Amour novel this time: Callaghen.

Conspiracies

It was a very nice 3-day weekend for me; we built another book case and I spent the rest of the time living in my own alternate reality (better than this one most of the time). I played lots of "World of Warcraft", lots of "Fallout 3" watched 4 episodes of Prison Break (Season1), 2 episodes of "Ghost Whisperer" (Season3), 2 episodes of "Bones" (Season 3), 4 episodes of "Supernatural" (Season 1), and 2 episodes of Stargate SG-1 (Season 3). Whew! Talk about avoiding all semblance of work! It was a great weekend :)

And yet I still had time to complete the third "Repairman Jack" novel, Conspiracies by F. Paul Wilson. I had actually approached this one out of loyalty to others who highly recommend this series. Frankly I was a little apprehensive because up to this point I had found the series to be OK but not outstanding. I knew from reading various reviews that there is a large supernatural element to the series but it was fairly minor (monster of the week) in the first book (The Tomb) and non existent in the second (Legacies). Each of those two books had quite a number of years in between them and I wonder if Mr Wilson was still in the process of determining exactly what kind of novels these were to be. Supernatural? Straight mystery? TBD?

I need not have worried though. This novel was different, a super read in fact. Now I know why so many others swear by this series and this character. These books are very difficult to genre-classify, containing elements of mystery, thriller, horror, sci-fi, and perhaps even fantasy. This book really gets the overall series story arc going, letting us in on "the otherness" and whatever that might exactly be. Couching the secret behind-the-scenes mystery in the middle of a convention of conspiracy theorists is masterful and Mr Wilson pulls this off brilliantly. We are just as skeptical as Jack is when confronted with the very real happenings taking place all around him and, apparently, with himself in the center of it all. And just like Jack, we're not sure who is the good guys and who is the bad. I found this book marvelous and I very much look forward to further adventures by Repairman Jack as I get to experience more revelations of the supernatural aspects of the story. And to top it all off, it's a very good mystery novel as well!

I did also complete another short story in Jeffery Deaver's More Twisted collection. "Surveillance" is like a chessgame between a highly intelligent robber and the master detective who is convinced of his guilt. I enjoyed this story but once again, the "twist" was known very early on and so the reader is left to watch how it unfolds. Next up is The Jade Dragon, number 2 in Naomi Novik's fine series.