Jean-Paul’s rating: 2/5 stars

“Stranger Things Happen” is a collection of short stories of an indescribable genre.  They are not quite ghost stories, but you get the feeling that they’re all supposed to be ghost stories or dreams or something else equally gossamer and fleeting.  I say this because most of the characters behave more like you’d expect ghosts to behave than real people.  Their minds flit about from one subject to the other without much resolution of anything.  All the stories read as a slightly structured stream of consciousness.  And then they end.  Next story.

The short story is the most difficult form of writing.  You need to be pithy while at the same time being verbose.  You need characters that readers are instantly invested in while not really saying much about the character.  It is a great balancing act that, when done right, produces the best fiction imaginable.  “Stranger Things Happen” doesn’t do that.  It’s one of those books where you recognize the talents of the author but the execution just doesn’t click.

All this could just be me.  I might not get it.  Kelly Link has won a few awards, including for some of the stories in “Stranger Things Happen”.  Take “Louise’s Ghost” for instance.  It won an Nebula Award for best novelette in 2001.  It was certainly the most story-y of the short stories.  This is more so because the two main characters were named Louise.  Much of the time is spent trying to figure out which Louise is being talked about in any given sentence.  It’s clever as a writing device, but that’s about all it is.  The story itself doesn’t accomplish anything, however.  There are the Louises and a hairy ghost and a girl who thinks she was once a dog and a bunch of cellists.  There are descriptions of the Louises’ love lives and attempts to get rid of the ghost and a death and then a flashback and the end.

It’s as if all the short stories are half finished ideas.  Or maybe half started ideas.  They are beginnings without ends or ends without beginnings or maybe meat without bread or style without substance.  “Stranger Things Happen” is certainly some sort of accomplishment but I can not for the life of me say what it accomplishes.  Maybe that’s the point.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

How many of you knew that “The Jungle Book” is more than a story about Mowgli a la Disney?  I didn’t.  I had heard of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in relation to “The Jungle Book” before, but I always assumed that he was just a character from the Mowgli tale that was left out of the Disney version.

That said, “The Jungle Book” is a series of short stories, only the first two of which tells the tale of Mowgli.  Everyone of a certain age knows the tale of Mowgli thanks to Disney.  It should come as no surprise that the version in the book is much more enjoyable and much darker.  It focuses much more on the enmity between Sher Khan and Mowgli.  It also focuses much more on the Laws of the Jungle which were all about honoring and caring for others and how to behave with other species.

Another of the tales well worth mentioning is the aforementioned and very delightful Rikki-Tikki-Tavi which is about a young mongoose that protects a British family from some cobras.  I don’t know if I read into the story what I know about mongooses or if Kipling just writes well, but the whole story exudes the playfulness that a mongoose seems to have.

There are also stories about a white fur seal that leads his people to the promised land, a bunch of war animals and the roles they play in war, and a group of elephants that decide to break free and dance for a night.  As with many children’s books, they all tell a moral.  Besides being a bit more PG-13ish than most parents would feel comfortable with, they’re all worth reading to your kids.  “The Jungle Book” is one of those rare books that can appeal to the adults as well as the kids.  Even some of the poetry/songs interspersed throughout is fun.

I got the feeling when reading this book that Rudyard Kipling doesn’t think much of humans.  There are also some undercurrents of racism with the White Man being portrayed as noble while the Indians being portrayed in a less flattering light.  This can be forgiven because of the times in which it was written and it’s really quite subtle.  I suspect most wouldn’t even recognize it as racist unless it was pointed out to them.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

It has been a long time since I’ve found a science fiction book that was outside my normal list of authors that I read that I would highly recommend to others.  Finally, there is “Old Man’s War”.  It combines a fascinating storyline with a realistic vision of a futuristic Earth and is full of more sciencey goodness than you can shake a stick at.

I got the book because it was part of one of those Humble Bundle packages where you get a bunch of ebooks and pay what you want and some of it goes to charity and such.  If they keep getting quality books like “Old Man’s War” in the bundles, this Humble Bundle project will be a roaring success.

The story starts on an Earth far into the future.  Humans have advanced far beyond our little Sun, but people on Earth are mostly oblivious to that fact and to the technologies that make interstellar travel possible.  People from the poorer countries get shipped off to colonize other planets, but the rest of the world carries on their lives much like we do ours.  With one exception.  When you turn 75, you get an opportunity to join the Colonial Defense Force (CDF) and protect Earth colonies from the dangers of the universe.

Why would anyone want a bunch of 75 year olds for war and why would a bunch of 75 year olds want to go to war?  Good question.  The CDF controls all higher technology.  They don’t allow most of it to be used on Earth and Earth doesn’t even know what technologies exist.  The assumption is that the CDF has technology to make you younger and they will use it on you if you join up.  When you’re 75, the lure of being in a 20-something body is pretty strong.

One of the people that is drawn in by that lure is John Perry.  He and his wife were going to join the CDF together but she had the misfortune of dying before her 75th birthday so John must go it alone. The rest of the book follows John as he explores this strange new universe.  I won’t go into details, but the aliens are cool, the technology is cooler, and the political landscape of the CDF is coolest.

The only reason why I didn’t give the book five  stars is because the ending was a little off in my mind.  It just sort of ends abruptly.  There is resolution to the immediate storyline, but a feeling of “That’s it?” that goes along with it.  Luckily, there are sequels to the book and I will definitely be reading them.  I hope there are questions answered like why is Earth kept so primitive?  I am looking forward to further explorations of the “Old Man’s War” multiverse.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 2/5 stars

And I’m done with The Dresden Files (both the books and the TV show).  Jim Butcher is lucky that fanboys (and fangirls) are so easy to please.  That is the only reason I can offer for how popular this series of books is.  With “Fool Moon”, the trick is to throw as many different types of werewolves at the reader as possible to cover up the fact that every single character behaves stupidly and changes motives on a whim just to advance the story.

And, oh look, another murdered naked woman!  Why is she naked?  Either female wizards are required to get naked to perform ritual ceremonies and male wizards are not or Butcher just wanted to add another pointlessly sexualized murder victim to titillate the fanboys.

Let’s see what other stupidities we have going on in this book.  There’s the scene where Dresden is trying to cast a spell at a werewolf that is charging at him only to have Murphy jump between him and the werewolf and points a gun at Dresden and tells him to get down on the ground.  She, a supposedly trained detective, doesn’t hear the werewolf?  Nope.  She, a supposedly trained detective, doesn’t think to just take a step or two to the side and shoot the man running at Dresden from behind?  Nope.  Instead, she shoots right at Dresden.

Oh, and then there’s the FBI agent who actually attempts to shoot Murphy while they are both at a crime scene.  The agent, completely unprovoked and breaking about a billion laws, pulls her gun and shoots at an officer of the law.  That agent is certainly going to jail for a long time, right?  Wrong.  Murphy refuses to even file a report because she doesn’t want there to be bad blood between her and the FBI.  Seriously?

There is also this scene where Marcone is tied up and strung up over a pit as bait for a werewolf while Dresden and his crew are stuck in the pit.  Somehow, defying all physics, Marcone is able to pull a knife from his person (even though he was searched) and cut some magical rope that then falls into the pit and allows Dresden and his crew to climb out of the pit.  Someone please explain to me how that is physically possible?

Of course, the worse thing, as in the first book, is every single interaction between the main characters, Harry Dresden and Karrin Murphy.  For example, Harry and Karrin have a conversation about how Karrin is pissed at Harry for hiding things from her in “Stormfront”.  She makes him promise her that he’ll never lie to her or hide anything from her like that again.  THE VERY NEXT THING Harry does is hide things from her.  In fact, he is hiding things from her as he’s promising her to not hide things from her.  Harry Dresden is either a complete asshole or Jim Butcher is a horrible writer.

Then there’s also the whole thing with Murphy using Harry to investigate every paranormal happening and always coming to the conclusion that Harry must be involved somehow.  Every freaking time two books in a row!  You either don’t trust him or you do.  Pick one.

I did give it two stars and not one so now I’ll say something nice about the book.  Much like the first one, all of the magic and werewolves and ideas are legitimately interesting.  It is fun to read about loupe-garou and Hexenwolves and what the differences are.  Jim Butcher would likely have had a fine career writing a Monster Manual.  Unfortunately, he decided to try to tell a story.  Jim Butcher can not tell a story.