Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars

The Mercury series was a really good idea.  Take heaven, make it a giant bureaucracy run by angels who are as far removed from the idea of god as we are and have them meddle in human affairs.  Robert Kroese should have just kept it one book, though.  The books went from fun and engaging to blah with some good parts to why am I even reading this.  Kroese had one good book in him and he should have stopped there.

“Mercury Rests” has only a few mildly amusing moments in it.  Most of its “comedy” revolves around people named after musicians having the lyrics to their songs thrown at them and characters snickering at other characters using the titles of movies in mundane conversations.  There is nothing clever about it at all.

The lack of humor could be forgiven if the story were at all engaging, but it is not.  We again have the apocalypse about to happen but this time it’s with a capital ‘A’.  Yay.  The story is fairly directionless, which worked in the first one because it was funny.  In this one, it feels more like someone trying to eke out one more book to fulfill a contract.  It might have been somewhat interesting if we hadn’t felt like we’ve been through it all before.  As it is, it’s part freshman philosophy at the end of the world, part Bible study, and part action-adventure movie with various random scenes thrown in to try to tie everything together.  There were times where I felt like I was being preached at more than I was reading a work of fiction.

Still, kudos to Kroese for producing a fascinating fictional character in Mercury with an intriguing view into the mechanisms of heaven even if it’s all only fascinating for one book.  Mercury will stay with me forever despite the fact that the books will not.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 Stars

“Mercury Rises” is book two of the Mercury trilogy by Robert Kroese.  The first book, “Mercury Falls”, was a fun book that kept me smiling and chuckling to myself from start to finish.  Unfortunately, the second book fell pretty flat.  It is still an enjoyable read, but it is lacking the pacing and comedic timing of the first.  This may be an expectations thing since I had none going into the first and was pleasantly surprised and so had higher expectations for the second as a result, but the wit just didn’t seem nearly as witty.

I think the biggest problem may be pacing.  The first two-thirds of the book spends time bouncing back and forth between 2,000 BC and present day.  While the 2,000 BC events are amusing and debatably necessary, I think it would have been a better idea for Kroese to just go in chronological order.  Things would likely have flowed much better than they do with the time tripping.

The last third of the book does have some of the magic that the first book had.  The climatic scene had me guffawing in delight.  It’s just a shame that it took so long to get there.  As Kroese is wrapping up the book, there are hints that he is somewhat aware of the lack of awesomeness that occurred in the first book. Kroese, through one of the characters, gives a little exposition about being asked to write a trilogy when the first book which was supposed to be a stand-alone takes off.  It’s much appreciated self-deprecating humor.

Book three is next for me and I hope Kroese finds his voice again.  If “Mercury Rises” were the first book in the series, I don’t think I’d have gone on to book two, but the power of book one gives me all the impetus I need to give Kroese a mulligan.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Imagine if Heaven were managed, not by God, but by a bureaucratic quagmire of Angels and committees only slightly more effective than the U.S. Senate.  It certainly would explain a lot.  Welcome to “Mercury Falls”.

The Apocalypse is nigh.  Again.  Poor Christine.  She is assigned to cover cult after cult that thinks they have identified the End of Days and the disillusionment that follows on End of Days + 1.  This time, though, it’s actually happening and Christine is an unwitting major player in the unfolding Apocalyptic events.  Through her travails, she runs into Mercury, a disillusioned angel who is not terribly keen on his assignment in the Angelic bureaucracy.  He tries to fight this by very actively doing nothing.  But no matter how hard he tries to do nothing, something keeps getting done.  Oh well, might as well team up with Christine and save the world and the dickweed Antichrist from destruction.

I had never heard of “Mercury Falls” or it author, Robert Kroese, before my (favorite) aunt mentioned it to me.  She said that reading it made her think of me and that I would enjoy the humor and irony in the book.  It’s hard to pass up a glowing recommendation like that.  I am happy say that she was quite right.

This book was incredibly charming.  Good humorous fiction is hard to come by and “Mercury Falls” is certainly up near the top.  Robert Kroese has an acerbic¹ wit and a talent for ironic writing.  Kroese’s humor is such that a comparison to Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is almost obligatory.  I was unsurprised to learn that Douglas Adams was one Kroese’s inspirations for writing.  Kroese has a knack for capturing wryness as well as Adams did.  The context of the story also reminded me slightly of “Good Omens” by Terry Prachett Neil Gaiman which is another comedic must read.

If you like angelic incompetence, if you delight in demonic misdeeds, if you have ever lost a loved one due to having to wait in line at the Department of Miracular Vouchsafing, “Mercury Falls” is the book for you.  “Mercury Falls” is also the first book in a trilogy and you’ll be able to read about the next books soon as I’ve already picked up the other two².

¹ Little known fact.  No one really knows what acerbic means.  It is, however, a requirement that wit be described as acerbic.

² These footnote jokes are even funnier if you’ve read the book.

Jean-Paul’s Review: 5/5 stars

Continuing my effort to read children’s books I somehow missed as a child, now comes “Peter Pan”.  Sadly, most children’s experience with Peter Pan is from the Disney movie.  I don’t remember much about the movie, but I do know one thing for sure:  Peter Pan was not a complete ass in it.  In the book?  Peter Pan is a complete ass.  This was both shocking and delightful.

There is a mantra that gets repeated in the book that only people who are “gay and innocent and heartless” can see Peter Pan.  In otherwords, children.  That was another big surprise about the book.  Barrie describes children as sociopaths.  It’s beautiful.  There is a line in the book that I can’t remember exactly, but it basically says that as long as there are mothers to come rescue their children, the children will take advantage of that and be complete dicks about it.

As is becoming a theme with the old children’s books that I read, “Peter Pan” is both racist and sexist.  Gender stereotypes are strictly enforced throughout.  The sole purpose of both Wendy and Tinker Bell is to be mother and/or pining female.  Wendy doesn’t take part in the fighting and the killing and adventures like the Lost Boys do, she just takes care of them.  Oh, and you read that right, the killing.  Peter and the Lost Boys do quite a bit of killing of pirates and Indians and, though it’s not explicit in the book, it is implied that the Lost Boys suffer quite a few deaths as well and Peter just refills the ranks.  The racism is mostly in the description of the Indians.  Yeah, Indians.  It’s funny how bad that sounds when I read it now.  It’s your usual stereotypical nonsense about them being savages, etc.  It should be pointed out that Tiger Lily, the daughter of a chieftan, despite pining over Peter the way every female in the book does, is the person in charge of the Indians.  I’m not sure if that was progressive of Barrie or just a recognition of the different roles that women played in Indian culture.

Another delightful thing about the book that I have not seen repeated elsewhere is the use of vocabulary.  Barrie is not against using more complex words, but when he does so he then brackets an easier synonym of the word immediately after it.  He also does this with idioms.  What a wonderful way to expand children’s vocabularies.  How has this not caught on in every children’s book known to man?  I almost want to start doing it in my blog posts just for giggles.

Once you get past how much Barrie thinks children are horrible little monster, he captures the sense of freedom and wonder that is being a child like very few people ever have.  Dare I compare him to Bill Waterson and “Calvin and Hobbes”?  Yes, yes I dare.  I would not be at all surprised if Watterson’s inspiration for Calvin was in part due to Peter Pan.

In conclusion, “Peter Pan” should be required to be read to every parent’s sociopathic gay and innocent and heartless children.  It should also be read by non-spawning adults so they can relive the wonderment that was being a child.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

A quick note about typography.  I read “Hard Times” in ebook form.  By the amount of typographical mistakes, it was obvious that minimal effort was put into converting it from book form to ebook form.  It’s as if they simply scanned it and never edited the ebook version for errors.  There were so many mistakes it was actually distracting.  So many misspelled words and 1’s in place of I’s.  Ugh.  I greatly appreciate the effort of The New Press for bringing old books deemed insufficiently profitable back in print, but please put just a little more effort into your ebooks.

The premise of this book is quite simple.  Find a whole bunch of people who lived through the Great Depression or are children of those who lived through the Great Depression and ask them their thoughts on the time.  All walks of life are represented from those hit hardest to those who barely even recognized the Great Depression was even happening.  This method of history keeping is both informative and eye opening.

There is the old expression that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it and boy, howdy are we repeating much of the Great Depression now in the Great Recession.  The same people who were blind to the bread lines of the Great Depression are blind to the necessity of Food Stamps now.  The banks who are robo-signing foreclosure notices illegally taking away people’s houses without due process were doing so during the Great Depression.  And the beat goes on.

What I found most intriguing about reading “Hard Times” was how completely the Great Depression shaped the American identity for generations to come.  Families came out of it determined for their children never to “have not” again.  Our present day overconsumerism can likely be tied to the “never again” attitude that was installed in many individuals as a result of living through the Great Depression.  And who can blame them?

It also should be noted that politics hasn’t changed much since then either.  Much of Roosevelt’s plans for getting the country out of the Great Depression were fought with just as much ferocity by Republicans then as the present day Republicans are fighting now against Obama’s Great Recession agenda.  The only difference is today Republicans are resorting to drastic measures to fight against Obama whereas then Roosevelt resorted to drastic measures to fight against Republicans.

Another surprising similarity between present day and the Great Depression is the amount of people that are simply unwilling to see that things are wrong with society.  A few of the people Studs Terkel interviewed got through the Great Depression without even recognizing that things like bread lines even existed.  How do you do that?  That these same people are the ones that also tend to have a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality is hardly surprising.  Such is the life of those who live with blinders on.

This is one of those books that should be required reading for everyone.  It gives first and second hand accounts of the most economically devastating time in our history.  It is unbiased and straight forward in its presentation.  I sincerely hope someone is working on a similar book for the Great Recession.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Forty years into my life and I have finally tackled a James Joyce book.  Sadly, I picked the worst time to do so.  My mind being occupied with disparate thoughts, I found it very hard to concentrate on what I was reading.  The rating reflects my state of mind more than the lack of talent of the author methinks.  That’s too bad because even with my severe lack of concentration I caught moments of brilliance like this: “She respected her husband in the same way as she respected the General Post Office, as something large, secure and fixed; and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract value as a male.”  And this: “She was tempted to see a curious appropriateness in his accident and, but that she did not wish to seem bloody-minded, would have told the gentelmen that Mr. Kernan’s tongue would not suffer by being shortened.”  And this: “Her faith was bounded by her kitchen, but, if she was put to it, she could believe also in the banshee and in the Holy Ghost.”  Brilliant stuff, that.

“Dubliners” is a series of short stories that follow various characters in and around Dublin.  I found this to be quite clever and wondered if Joyce had ruined the titles of many a collection of short stories by being so popular.  That is the only reason I can think of for there not to be a plethora of other similarly titled books: “Chicagoans” and “New Yorkers” and “Parisians” and “Lake Titicacans”.  I’m sure there are notebooks and hard drives full of similarly themed short stories in the filing cabinets and computers of many an English major just longing for a non-Joycian title.

I very distinctly remember really liking some of the short stories but cannot for the life of me remember which they were.  Everything just blended together in my mind like word salad.  Joyce is certainly not the easiest of authors to read and should certainly not be read by an individual who lacks the necessary concentration.  At some point I will have to reread the book and give it the review it deserves, but until then on to lighter fare.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 Stars

“The Last Colony” is another excellent book in an excellent trilogy.  The others being “Old Man’s War” and “The Ghost Brigades”.  This book is the least hard science fictiony of the three.  There are still cool new technological gadgets and such, but the book mostly draws on the science from the previous books for the most part.  It is missed because John Scalzi describes cool science gadgets really well, but it also gives Scalzi ample room to shine in his other writing talent, sarcasm and biting rejoinders.  This first half of the book is packed with them.  I found myself chuckling more than a few times and smiling throughout.

This book also delves into the internal politics of the Colonial Union much more than the other two.  Much of the plot surrounds the way the Colonial Union manages its colonies and uses them as pawns in a six dimensional chess game against the other colonizing races.  With each book, it becomes harder and harder to excuse the actions of the Colonial Union and this book actually had me rooting for the Conclave.

Like the other two books in this series, I thought the first half was quite strong, but the second half was missing something.  I think my issue is that, with each book, John Scalzi creates this complex series of events and then the solutions just seem to work themselves out in a simplistic way.  Unlike the other two books, I found the ending to this book quite satisfying, if a little far fetched.

And the “Old Man’s War” trilogy comes to an end.  There are other books set in the universe, but these three apparently stand alone.  Though I will read the other books, I will sorely miss John Perry and Jane Sagan.  I wish John Scalzi had spent more ink talking about their relationship.  It is an interesting and complicated one.  There are hints of love and hints of problems.  Neither are well explored.  None of this takes away from the story, but it’s one of those road not traveled things.  I wonder how much John Perry/Jane Sagan romance fan fiction is out there.  Not enough to actually look, but just wonder.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

“The Ghost Brigades” is the second book by John Scalzi set in the “Old Man’s War” universe.  It is a very fun read, but parts of the story just didn’t connect with me.  While “Old Man’s War” was a very high four stars, “The Ghost Brigades” rates a very low four stars.  There are plenty of scenes of the Scalzian brilliance that made “Old Man’s War” so memorable, but they are muted somewhat by a plot that seems forced.

The biggest problem for me was the motivations of Charles Boutin.  John Scalzi is usually very good at describing characters in such a way that makes them both unique and believable.  Aliens seem alien yet still relatable.  Special Forces soldiers seem like kids in grown peoples’ bodies.  Charles Boutin seems like a paper cutout character who, despite being a brilliant scientist, makes very hard to understand choices which just happen to further the plot.  I imagine John Scalzi had a bunch of great ideas that could be thrown into a story about the Ghost Brigades but then struggled mightily to tie all the great ideas together.  The result being a great book with a passable plot.

Those bunches of great ideas are pretty great, though.  The Ghost Brigades are infinitely interesting.  Reading how they are created and trained, how they relate to each other and to others, the ethical and practical implications of their existence is some fascinating material.  You are not going to find much better sci-fi out there than the inner workings of the Colonial Defense Force and the aliens that they fight.

I am definitely hooked on the “Old Man’s War” universe.  I’ve already started reading the next in the series, “The Last Colony”, and am already enjoying it immensely.  If John Scalzi put the “Old Man’s War” tag on a coloring book, I’d probably read it.  Heck, I’m likely to read everything Scalzian in existence at this point.  Not only does he write incredibly well, he also seems like a pretty cool cat.  Check out his Whatever blog if you get a chance.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

My guess is that Paolo Bacigalupi does not hold out much hope for the human race.  “Pump Six and Other Stories” contains a series of stories that share many themes, none of them very pretty.  Water shortages, oil shortages, corporate control of resources, fiefdoms run by celebrities, humans devolving into morons, humans filled with environmental chemicals; all can be found in this book.  And it is all beautifully done.

A few of the short stories end a bit suddenly, but endings are the bane of the short story writer.  That a few of the short stories obviously take place in the same “world” helps this, though.  Even thought one story may leave you wanting more, another picks up and introduces more of the same world to you leaving you sated.

Another thing that makes these stories work so well is that Paolo Bacigalupi is obviously one twisted individual.  I mean that with the utmost respect.  Some of the concepts he invents and the images he evokes left me awed by their sheer audacity and imagination.

Short stories are my favorite literary form.  It is good to have another author whose short stories I love after a many years drought of good short stories.  I highly recommend you pick this one up and despair for humanity.

One thing that I thought strange is why Paolo Bacigalupi chose “Pump Six” as the titular story for this collection.  There is no doubt that it was enjoyable, but I found it one of the weaker stories in the collection.  I can only assume that it was his breakthrough story that more people would recognize.

This book was another from the Humble Bundle package that I purchased.  I think that makes it about 50-50 between great books and meh books.  Not a bad record.