GENGHIS KHAN: BIRTH OF AN EMPIRE by Conn Iggulden

Genghis Khan is one of those names that, when uttered, triggers an immediate response on part of a listener. Some think about some half-remembered history lesson, or a historical movie, or a hero or villain in some pseudo-fantasy story.

He was the leader of the Mongols, a group of tribes he united that raided and sacked China and Asia, and caused the ruination of several cities and cultures. I’d never thought of him being a boy or a young man, the precursor to this indomitable warrior known for his fierceness and skill.

Conn Iggulden has written an exciting book about Temujin (the name Genghis Khan was born with) in his early years. The beginning few pages didn’t quite pull me in, but once Temujin became the center of action, I was hooked. He and his father didn’t quite see eye to eye, and I think that’s one of the reasons the novel was selected as a National Library Association Alex award winner, which is an award given to adult level books written that might prove interesting to teenagers.

Birth of an Empire is exactly that kind of book. As a teen, I would have devoured this novel, then looked for the next two in the trilogy. I already have those on my shelves as well and look forward to reading them.

Iggulden presents a sweeping epic chock full of action and emotion. Temujin’s is a hard one, filled with the setbacks and challenges that make a man a warrior. Once I finished the novel, a look back over biographical notes about Genghis Khan and was surprised to find most of the events I was certain were fictional to be true. I’d thought that Temujin’s necessity of killing his older brother to preserve his family to be a fictional device, that such a thing couldn’t be true. I was surprised to find that it is one of the primary facts historians know about him.

The author has a great knack of making the world and the people real. I felt the cold harshness of the land as well as the despair Temujin experienced when he lost his father. I also saw how hard it was for him to give up so much of himself to become a leader. Iggulden does a great job of showing how a leader’s life is stripped bare by the responsibilities that are thrust upon him. Temujin first dealt with this as a boy while working to keep his family alive after being kicked out of their tribe. He fell from an almost position of royalty to an outcast, and barely survived

Throughout the many battles featured in the novel, Iggulden delivers unique experiences that put the reader on the front lines. I enjoyed how he explained the intricacies of the campaigns as well as the individual fighting. The lessons on warcraft, weapons, and technique were interesting yet never overpowered the drama unfolding at the time.

Another plus in the trilogy is that each book is complete. I want to read the next two books in the series, but I got a complete tale in this one. I was satisfied with everything I read and look forward to the others, but I don’t have to dig right in. In case you don’t have time to sit down and read the trilogy straight through, this is a wonderful bonus. But these are books that fans of Bernard Cornwell and Horatio Hornblower will find fascinating and compelling.

A PRINCESS OF MARS by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Today’s romance market offers a lot in the way of otherworldly love. From vampires and werewolves, to fairies and even other worlds entirely, readers thrill to the unknown and the unexplored.

But to me there will only be one true into interplanetary romance, and that will be John Carter’s love for Dejah Thoris in A Princess of Mars. I first read that novel when I was 13 or 14, a very impressionable age. Even then, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s first novel was 60 years old. Now it’s 97, but interest remains in the story because Disney is going to release a movie based on the novel in 2012.

I read a lot to my son, but we’ve been reading the YA fantasy novels featuring young protagonists that don’t usually mix too much violence into the story. I’ve noticed that his interest in television and movies have acquired a more grown up taste regarding physical combat. So I thought I would try to introduce him to John Carter and the dying planet of Mars.

It was interesting reading the book as an adult while remembering it so vividly from my childhood. When I first read the book, the archaic language sounded cool and courtly. Reading it now, I realize that Burroughs was – at times – incredibly verbose. In fact, some of the sentences required a second breath to finish.

As I read through the first chapter, I was certain I was going to lose my son’s patient attention. Instead, I needn’t have worried. As soon as John Carter reached Mars and Burroughs’s natural storytelling ability kicked in, my son was captured, adrift on the dying seas of the red planet.

The story seems relatively plain and unadorned by today’s standards, but it still had the raw power to draw my son’s imagination and wish for adventure into an iconic event. There simply nothing quite like being an adventuring Earthman braving the swords and spears of the malicious Tharks across deserts and saving the life of a beautiful princess. Especially when she doesn’t think you’re good enough to clean the teeth of her grandmother’s cat!

For his day and age, Burroughs invented a lot of things for this novel. He blended science fiction and his grasp of anthropology into a new concoction, threw in a few “scientific” premises, created bits and pieces of an otherworldly language, and made it all seem real. Sure, no one today will ever say that the Mars Burroughs describes ever existed, but every reader will be will left wondering what if it did?

The Martian novels Burroughs wrote, as well as his Tarzan novels, has inspired generations of fantasy and science fiction writers. When the new movie comes out, it will be interesting to see how many new converts flip over to these types of stories.

My son loved the sense of heroism and bravado that lies so keenly in these pages. He loved the fact that enemies could find a common respect and forge bonds of friendship despite their differences. After all, that’s what heroes do.

I was moved to read the book to my son because one of my college students recently discovered the Burroughs Mars books and fell in love with them. I was surprised to find that despite the 30 year gap between myself and my student there was a commonality. I was even more surprised to find that my son, inured by years of Harry Potter movies and video games, could be so taken with the world and a book almost 100 years old.

There something about heroes that will never fade away. My son’s enjoyment of the novel reminded me of all the heroes I grew up on in television, comics, and books. Thankfully, we’re going to get to share some of them. I’m glad it I got to share this one.

USER UNFRIENDLY by Vivian Vande Velde

My son has developed a keen interest in Dungeons and Dragons role playing games and virtual reality gaming. The former is problematic in that takes a lot of other players and a lot of time. The latter will probably exist in his lifetime. But he’s impatient because he wants it now. He asked me lots of questions of what it would be like to be inside a game.

I’d read the Vivian Vande Velde’s YA novel, Heir Apparent, and really enjoyed it. It was about a young girl they got trapped in a video game. So I decided to order it for him. While looking at the author’s titles, I also spotted User Unfriendly. The cover is cool, showcasing a young elven boy in a dungeon with other people behind him. I could tell at a glance that this book was about a dungeon crawl, one of those role playing game adventures chock full of action. So I purchased it as well.

When the books arrived, I’d intended to read Heir Apparent. But when my son saw the cover to User Unfriendly, he wanted to read that one first. So we dug in.

The book is 244 pages long. That we read it in four days is testimony to my son’s interest as well as my voice. Two nights we read for over 2 hours. I have to admit, I was looking for places to put the book down for the evening, but the author simply doesn’t give the reader a break in this one. There are action and mysteries and puzzles all the way through. I was just as caught up in events as my son, thinking I’d read just one more chapter.

The book falls short on character development because the reader doesn’t get a clear sense of who the characters are in the real world. They’re delineated in the fiction just enough to distinguish them and give a sense of purpose, but you don’t get much more than that. Of course, you don’t really need much more in a book like this. I wasn’t overly concerned about who they were the real world because I was having a blast in the RPG one.

Velde writes young characters well. The dialogue feels real, brimming with humor and sarcasm at times. There are even a couple of character twists that I didn’t expect that were fun.

Since the game is a pirated copy and the players are illegally in the virtual realm, there is some tension regarding whether or not they will get caught and kicked out. The game also has some problems that creates further conflict for them.

Their main goal is to rescue a captured princess, but the driving pressure for Arvin and his friends is his mother’s steadily increasing illness. After a bit they figure out that she must have something wrong with her in the real world that’s causing her problems in the virtual one. This added element of desperation is really cool and compounds all mysteries they encounter while in the game.

User Unfriendly is a great book for reluctant young, male readers. If you can get a boy to read even the first chapter, I bet you’ll have him hooked till the end.

QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins

Max Allan Collins’s cool and deadly professional hit man, Quarry, is back for another serving of mayhem and murder – and this time he’s taking a cut right out of the middle. As the title suggests, Quarry In The Middle takes place in the middle of Quarry’s career, somewhere in the 1980s. Quarry has left the employment of the Broker, the man who first hired him to be a paid assassin. Quarry didn’t leave without a retirement plan, though. He took the Broker’s files and is currently making a living tracking down other hit man and killing them – provided their targets pay for his services.

Once in Haydee’s Port, Illinois, Quarry discovers the small town is divided between two criminal enterprises. Richard Cornell, the owner of the Paddlewheel Casino, is a marked man. As Quarry observes the setup, he believes Jerry G., the owner of the Lucky Devil, has hired the other hitmen in town. Quarry kills both hitmen and goes into business for himself against the odds.

As usual, Collins deals out lethal violence, raw sex, and wisecracks at a blistering pace. Although written in the 21st century, Quarry In The Middle feels like one of the old Gold Medal novels I devoured as a kid. There aren’t many good people in this novel, and the few that are there are trapped by bad circumstance. The atmosphere the whole tale is gritty and harsh. Quarry is only a hero because he’s better than everyone else in the book, which is what I want in my crime fiction.

Collins also plays fair with the 1980s. As I read along, I picked up on all the songs the author laid down. It’s funny, but the music he mentions tied me into that time frame even more than the story. When Collins mentioned a particular song, the scenes filled up with the memories I had of that time and similar places like the casinos he writes about. The 1980s weren’t as volatile as the 1970s, at least for me, but there were a lot of touchstones anchored by music.

The novel plays out small to a degree, bouncing back and forth between a small cast of characters. It’s like a tight B movie that shows you just enough to keep everything moving and doesn’t hesitate about kicking you in the teeth when you least expect it. I finished the book in a couple of hours, never once had to stop and figure out what was going on, and had a blast tooling around riding shotgun to Quarry.

I don’t know where Collins is going to take Quarry next, and there haven’t been any announcements concerning future books, but I hope this isn’t the end of the series. I enjoy the character and the unrestrained violence, as well as the dark world where Quarry lives.

CROMWELL DIXON’S SKY-CYCLE by John Abbott Nez

John Abbott Nez’s latest illustrated book for young readers is an obvious labor of love. The paintings are sheer splendor to look at and young fans will pore over the pages again and again. I lost myself in the images and the action several times, thinking about the worlds Nez so effortlessly opened up with bright colors and intricate pieces.

I hadn’t ever heard of Cromwell Dixon, although I’d heard of the Wright Brothers and others, and I couldn’t help wondering how I’d missed the story of a fourteen year old who managed to build a working sky-cycle in 1907. I mean, come on. Building a sky-cycle is something I would have tried when I was a kid. If I’d heard of it.

I’m glad I got to the story now. This book is a treat for parents to read to youngsters, and you can spend a lot of time gazing at the weird flying machines Nez draws so enticingly on the page. The narrative structure is simple and easy to read. More than that, it’s a lot of fun.

And most of all, the story is true. There really was a Cromwell Dixon. He really did build a sky-cycle that flew during the 1907 St. Louis Airship Carnival.

The story details the setback Cromwell had when constructing the first sky-cycle and the mishap that struck while he was airborne during the race. It would have been fun to imagine what it must have felt like to fly the sky-cycle if this had just been a work of fiction, but knowing it is based on fact, don’t be surprised if your young audience has lots of questions about how the trip must have been for young Cromwell. My suggestion would be to read this one to your young dreamers, then break out paper and Crayons and get busy designing airships and think about what’s possible.

YOU ARE THE FIRST KID ON MARS by Patrick O’Brien

Growing up during the heyday of the Space Race, my mind was constantly filled with stars and other solar systems. Back in the 1970s, we were told that we’d be working on Mars. We were supposed to put a man on the Red Planet by 1985. There were ship models and suits and geographical mockups of what we’d find there. It was so cool.

Then somewhere in the 1990s, all of those plans and dreams seemed to fade away. Ben Bova still writes great science fiction and I still enjoy his novels because they make me feel like I’m in space.

But Patrick O’Brien brings that same feeling of space travel to life in his photo-realistic images in You Are The First Kid On Mars. When I finished the book for young readers, I immediately went back through it again, and this time I lingered over the pages. Since the book is written for the juvenile crowd, reading it twice in a single sitting didn’t take long, and it was a pleasure, not a hardship. In fact, as I’m writing this review I can’t help but go back through the book and marvel at what the author has accomplished.

I love the hardware in the book. The space elevator definitely intrigues me. I’ve read about them before, but O’Brien’s illustrations of how they work and his young voyager traveling through it is awesome. Then there are the ships, the drones, the robots, and the living quarters.

Mars remains center stage throughout the pictures. The red color stands out boldly on the page, or bleeds in from a corner, letting you know the Red Planet is just off to one side. The two-page spread of the landing on Mars and the young voyager’s first steps planetside is fantastic. You can lose yourself in that image alone.

If you’re looking for a book for your young astronomer or hopeful space pioneer, You Are The First Kid On Mars is a great gift. Although it’s designed to deliver a lot of information, including a two-page info piece, I’ll bet the kids who pick this one up will start dreaming of possibilities. Maybe they’ll be the ones to reach the stars.

DRACULA THE UN-DEAD by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt

I can remember reading Bram Stoker’s original Dracula. I was twelve or thirteen and had gotten a copy from the Science Fiction Book Club as part of my joining bonus. The book was thick and fat, and the cover was decidedly creepy. I started on it and got drawn into Jonathan Harker’s mission to save his lovely bride-to-be, Mina. I finished the book while in the bathroom (it was the only place in the house with three younger brothers at the time that I could call my own) at four in the morning (my mom was freaked when she found out I’d stayed up so late).

But I can still remember that last desperate chase the heroes went on to intercept Dracula. Quincey Morris died during that battle, and I was saddened. I don’t think I’d ever read a book before about someone dying that I really cared about. Except maybe Old Yeller.

So now, nearly forty years later, I was surprised to find that there was an honest-to-God sequel that had been written – by someone from Stoker’s family no less. I saw that blood red cover and knew I had to read it. Despite all the Hammer films and Fred Saberhagen pastiches of the character, and the wonderful run of comics from Marvel written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by Gene Colan, I wanted that book.

Dracula the Un-Dead is a blistering read for the most part. I was disappointed when I saw that the tradition of telling the stories through journals, letters, and newspapers had been pushed aside for the more modern narrative style, but I don’t know how many of today’s readers would have tolerated that antiquated form. So perhaps the writers and editors made a good call in that respect.

There is more action in this novel than in the original, but storytelling has changed in the last 110 years. Readers demand more physical conflict these days, and Stoker and Holt provide it in spades. They also use the fast-cut narrative technique and short chapters that plunge the pacing into overdrive.

I was hypnotized at first by the novel. Jack Seward and Jonathan Harker had changed a lot in the intervening twenty-five years that had passed since the last novel. I was disheartened to see what had happened to them, but I’m also old enough at this point to know that they couldn’t have gone through everything they had in their battle against Dracula and emerged unscathed. Both of them are emotionally scarred and broken in many ways.

When I learned of Mina’s continued youthfulness, I knew what had caused it even before the authors revealed it. Sadly, that also tipped their hands as to what they were going to do with the rest of the novel. I even knew who Dracula was before the mystery was revealed.

The authors have a lot of fun twisting the old Dracula story into something new. The mixture of familiar story, history, and the personal life of Bram Stoker lends itself to a fanciful tale, but the juxtaposition of the Jack the Ripper angle gets spread a little thin and feels forced. That twist is only fun to think about for a short time.

The violence isn’t the only thing that that gets pushed higher in Dracula the Un-Dead. There’s a sex scene with Mina that stands out, and it has a twist to it as well that’s really unexpected.

The last third of the novel is a pure adrenaline rush, but it lasts too long. I was worn out by the time I turned the last few pages. And when I reached the end, I’d already guessed most of the secrets and knew that the book’s climax was being set up for a sequel. Even with that, though, the last line of the novel is a real hook, and I want to read the sequel – if it materializes – just to see how that particular problem gets worked out.

Dracula the Un-Dead is a good sequel and worth reading if you’re a fan because it does offer you a different sort of experience. However, most fans will be able to put the pieces on this one together too quickly, and perhaps be a little dismayed at the ending.

THE PROFESSIONAL by Robert B. Parker

I look forward to fall these days because it means the weather will finally cool down again – and there will be a new Robert B. Parker Spenser novel on the shelves. This year’s offering is The Professional, and I instantly fell in love with the cover when it finally popped up on various websites.

I bought the book on a Tuesday and knew I wanted to save it for a time when I could sit back and read it in a single sitting or two. Thanks to a dental appointment the following Thursday, I didn’t have to wait for the weekend. I kicked back in a chair in the waiting room, flipped open the book, and didn’t notice at all when dental emergencies ahead of me put my appointment an hour and a half behind. I was with my favorite Boston sleuth and we were hot on the case from page one.

The novel concentrates on the vagaries of relationships between men and women, which seems to be a large part of Dr. Parker’s themes these days. Although the subject matter is interesting, I’d really like to take a break from it in his books.

The Professional focuses on a small group of women married to rich, older men. These women have been romanced and later blackmailed by a conniving Lothario named Gary Eisenhower. Spenser’s job is to back the blackmailer off without tipping off the husbands to their wives’ inconvenient trysts.

Fortunately for the reader, none of Spenser’s cases turn out to be easy, and this one starts getting wrinkled from the start. One of the husbands has suspicions about his young wife and Eisenhower, and he’s connected to mob muscle that comes calling on Spenser, instantly upping the ante. Another wrinkle is that some of the women are loathe to go cold turkey on Eisenhower’s charms. Even more complicated is the fact that Spenser kind of understands and likes Eisenhower, who’s something of a victim himself. Before long, Spenser ends up trying to keep Eisenhower alive.

This book actually turns out to be more of a mystery than many of Spenser’s previous cases, which were more noir and violent, and which I enjoyed immensely. The mystery is rooted in social structures and psychological drama, and that’s fairly intriguing, but I really missed the shootouts, fights, and threats that usually sail through the Spenser novels. Spenser isn’t really fighting for anyone or anything in this one. He’s just working out his own curiosity and trying to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.

There’s an obvious ode to John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men in the novel that telegraphed a lot of the plot to me and took some of the edge off. As always, though, Dr. Parker lays down snappy dialogue, terse narrative, and close to the bone plotting that carries his readers through the novel in a well-oiled rush.

Fans will settle in and be comfortable, but I’d recommend Early Autumn or Looking For Rachel Wallace or Mortal Stakes for newcomers to the series.

TRUE DETECTIVES by Jonathan Kellerman

First seen in Jonathan Kellerman’s novel, Bones, Private Investigator Aaron Fox and LAPD Detective Moses Reed take center stage in this new book from the prolific novelist. Normally Kellerman writes about his series regulars, Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis, with occasional forays into standalone thrillers and other characters. In True Detectives, Kellerman manages to bring a little from all his worlds into a familiar concoction of murder and psychology.

I really liked the characters in this one and I hated to see them go when I was finished. Hopefully Kellerman will bring them back, because even he didn’t seem quite finished with them.

Aaron Fox is half-black. Moses Reed is white. They share the same mother, and that’s about all. Except for a keen interest in murder investigations. Fox makes six figures a year as a private investigator working for high roller clients on sensitive matters. He’d been an LAPD policeman and hadn’t cared for the restraint offered by the job. The pay also couldn’t afford the luxuries he want, designer clothing and style of living to which he’s become accustomed.

Moses Reed has always carried a chip on his shoulder, always never sure if he was quite good enough to get everything right. He struggles every day for perfection, in mind and body, and hangs on every word from Detective Milo Sturgis.

For years, the two brothers have managed to keep their worlds mostly apart, despite the attempts of their mother. Even though the murder investigations overlap conveniently, because of Fox’s best client and because of a cold case Reed works, I went along with it. Something needed to bring the brothers together, and the kinks in the two investigations really worked for me.

Overall, Kellerman keeps the pacing up and the scenes flowing. The characterization seemed a little thin at times as he worked back and forth between the brothers and the ancillary characters, but they serve the needs of the plot and kept things moving. The action also tended to be a little introverted instead of on the page, and I would have liked a smidgen more bang with the ending.

The dialogue is really good, and there’s a lot of it, which keeps the pages turning quickly. I also liked the way Kellerman worked in his series characters (Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis) and even brought in Petra Connor, who starred in a couple novels of her own. The mix is well done overall, and it reminds regular readers that Kellerman’s worlds all have their own internal logic.

However, the ending was so convoluted that it requires a long confession from the killer to put everything to rights. That was disappointing but I understood why it was necessary because the investigation sprawled all over the place before all the final truths were out.

True Detectives is a good beach read or suited for a rainy weekend, and Kellerman has created a couple of characters I’d really like to see again.

SOMETHING FROM THE NIGHTSIDE by Simon R. Green

Something From The Nightside took me three attempts before I finally got through it. The first time I was reading it, I was busy and couldn’t stay with it. The book is one of those slim volumes packed with energy and excitement that are meant to be devoured in no more than two or three sittings. I couldn’t meet that requirement the first time. So I put the book aside.

A couple of my college students read the book and told me I needed to finish it. I tried, but it was too soon and too much of the book was familiar to me. So I waited about a year, until I had time to sit down and thoroughly immerse myself in Simon R Green’s weird world, and I tackled it again. This time I slid through easily from beginning to end and enjoyed the read. Now there are seven other books for me to pick up and devour as well.

On the surface, this is one of those books that I should love. It’s a bombastic collision between fantasy and private eye noir with British overtones. John Taylor, Green’s interesting hero, has a mysterious tie to the Nightside, the quirky and dangerous city located in the shadows between worlds in downtown London.

Taylor has a cool power: he can find anything. Missing people. Missing weapons. Missing fortunes. Put him on the trail, and he can find it. Abstractly, the power can also be used to find the means to destroy individuals and places, which concerns the denizens of Nightside greatly. Many believe that John Taylor is a walking apocalypse with a short fuse.

Ironically, the one thing that Taylor can’t find is his mother. She left him at an early age and there are lots of mysteries concerning who and what she rarely was.

I really enjoyed Taylor’s laid back character, and his power fascinated me. Green brings him to life on the page almost effortlessly, delineating his likes and dislikes as a matter of course as the investigation proceeds. Initially, Taylor is hired to find the wayward daughter of Joanna Barrett, a rich society woman who shows up at his office. The case takes weird turns and leads Taylor through the more dangerous sides of the Nightside. He hasn’t been back in five years and things have only gotten stranger.

One of the best aspects of the book was the Nightside. I loved imagining a dark world where it’s always 3:00 AM, and the streets are filled with strange and unbelievable people and things. I want to know more about Taylor and his relationship to people in this world, especially Razor Eddie.

The first-person narrative makes the book immediately accessible, and the short length powers through the plot. This isn’t one of those doorstopper fantasies, but the series promises a lot of fun and wonderment to come.