Lana, "the loneliest dog in the world," Needs Our Help

Photo: Lana, from my blog entry in 2015, and from this week's article here.

Okay, let's help the underdog.

Lana, "the loneliest dog in the world," needs help. I've written about her before, so click here if you missed it. The bottom line now is that she's been returned to a shelter, and she only has until May 20th, or she may be put down.

Having read about her twice, and having now written about her twice, it seems to me that she suffers from excessive shyness and mistrust, and she may have been abused in her past. It sounds like she's been in a shelter for so long, so often, that being left alone in a house or apartment for a few hours may give her actual PTSD symptoms. My dog, a greyhound who was put in a cage for two years, gets like that around dog cages, so he can't ever go in one to wait for his turn at the groomer. One hallway at a building I used to work in must remind him of the track, or a shelter, because when he saw it, he reared up on his legs like a horse and actually came out of his harness. Dogs can have PTSD symptoms. Anyway, the article says that, when Lana's not around the people she trusts, she shuts down or becomes more hesitant. Well, hell, so do I. Who doesn't?

From the article:

Nearly two years after Lana the Labrador became known as "the saddest dog in the world," she's looking for a forever home again.

After an image of Lana cowering at an animal shelter went viral in 2015, thousands of applications poured in and she found a new owner.

But this week, animal rescue group "Rescue Dogs Match" shared an update: Lana is back up for adoption...She's now living at a boarding facility, but due to limited space, she only has until May 20 to find another home. After that, she may be euthanized.

The rescue organization says the best home for Lana, now 2, would be a farm where she can spend most of her time outside.

"The best family for her would be a mature couple or person that has the time, patience, determination and commitment to help her become more confident," the rescue group wrote on Facebook.

"She is sweet and silly, that is hard-wired into her character. She is timid, wary of strangers only at first. When she is not around the people she trusts, she has the tendency to shut down or become very hesitant."

If you’re interested in Lana, you can email info@rescuedogsmatch.com to foster or adopt her.

From "Rescue Dogs Match" on Facebook (click to go there):

May 14 is Lana's Birthday ( she will be 3 ) Please help find her a Foster or Forever home. Lana only has until May 20th

Name: Lana Turner
Breed: Lab mix
Gender: Female
Size: Medium
Age: 3 yrs
Cat: NO
Dogs: NO
Kids: None
Fenced in backyard if in the suburb

Lana Turner is looking for a foster or forever home. She has made some improvements but there is still work to be done. The best environment for her would be a horse or hobby farm where she can be outside most of the time “helping” her person with the chores around the property. She LOVES to be outside no matter what the weather. For cold winter days a quality winter coat would keep her cozy. Lana loves to be part of whatever is going on but not in “tight” quarters. The best family for her would be a mature couple or person that has the time, patience, determination and commitment to help her become more confident. A family that would arrange controlled play dates with other dogs, without food or toys around. A family that has a routine she can rely on, and an active lifestyle that would banish the thought of endless hours in concrete bunkers with nothing to do.

She is sweet and silly, that is hard-wired into her character. She is timid, wary of strangers only at first. When she is not around the people she trusts, she has the tendency to shut down or become very hesitant. It is important for her to be in a home where she will continue to be exposed to new situations with lots of positive reinforcement. She is loyal and loving to the people she trusts.

She very much likes to hang out with other dogs. However time, training and patience is required to continue to lessen her possessive issues around food . Every dog learns at their own pace, so best that she be the only pet in the home. No apartments and a fenced in yard is a must if living in a suburb. 

Her rescue team is committed to supporting her next, and hopefully final, adoptive family with training and time, as much as is needed to help her be truly forever home.

Help Lana by sharing her story. Please email info@rescuedogsmatch.com if you are interested in fostering or adopting.

(Me again.) Let's help Lana live beyond May 20th, and look more like the picture below. Please forward this blog, or copy and paste it, to your own blog, and to your friends. Let's pass the word and keep this dog alive. She'll be 3 on May 13th, and she hasn't had a chance to live. If I didn't already have a dog, I would've contacted them already.

Thank you.

A Very, Very Short Book Review -- The Sleep Room

Photo: from the Washington Post's review of the book

Very good, pleasant read that will make you feel you are there, and maybe make you feel a little smarter, without taking that much out of you. As usual with Tallis, he excels at place and time, is a little short on female characters, is heavy on the psychology and philosophy, maybe mentions Freud a little too much, and adds a wrinkle that you should see coming but that you appreciate nonetheless. Such has been the case with the Leibermann series set in Vienna--actually with Freud--and the two non-mysteries I've read. The end result is a pleasant excursion that leaves you with something to think about. Especially interesting is the Cartesian confusion of reality versus dreams. Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am, but how do you know you're not dreaming of thinking that? What if, in fact, what we think are our dreams are actually our reality, and our reality is nothing but slumber?

The book is set in a supposedly haunted mental health facility, which is run by a well-known and well-connected guy who believes in putting his patients to sleep for many months for therapuetic reasons. (This is all supposedly based on a real guy and a real place, according to Tallis's notes at the end.) But the discerning reader is a little wary right away, especially this one, who has seen The Others and such films, and is ready to be psychologically waylaid. When the patient reports start coming, and one of them refers to a report (one of two) that isn't presented with it, you should know what to expect at the end, in the last report.

When it comes, though, you're not dissatisfied, exactly. I think this is because Tallis doesn't seem to think that he's pulling a fast one on us. He knows we know what's coming, but it's in the getting there that matters. Tallis treats the reader intelligently, and writes intelligent stories that never become highbrow or condescending, so for that we're willing to go along for the ride, even if we know how the ride will end. It's a pleasant enough journey, and the ideas presented are interesting. It's not as depressing an ending as it could've been, either, because you saw it coming miles away.

For the record, I disagree with the "extreme paranoia" mentioned at the end, as I don't think the character's misgivings go too far, but that's perhaps the point in this made-up world of his. I think it would've perhaps been a little more interesting and convincing to have one of the other characters in that situation at the end, which would've led to more interesting world-building. But this could've also been messed-up big-time by Tallis, at which point the whole book would've perhaps felt like a waste, or maybe it would've seemed like it had a condescending tone, like it was over-reaching. Read it, and decide, and leave me a message if you'd like. Makes me want to write my own take on this whole thing in my own story or novel, and end it the way I say. We'll see.

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

Photo: First Edition front cover, from the book's Wikipedia page.

Quick note: I'm just the 27th to publish a review of this book on Goodreads, as of 10.10.2015.  Though I'm sure someone will have typed one up and posted it before I finish mine.  Mine, as you know, are long.

Very good short story collection, but then again they all are.  (Except maybe Everything's Eventual, which I dimly remember had more misses than hits for me.)  This one has more hits than misses--many, many more--and even the misses miss in just minor ways for me.  My biggest beef with them is that they were maybe insignificant to me.  They might not be to you.  To each his own.

The book begins with a disclaimer that most of the stories have, of course, been previously published.  There's some claptrap about how a story is never finished, but he's got to write something there, I guess.  The fact is, these stories have been published before, and only a couple have been extensively revised, and he's publishing them now because that's the cool thing about short stories: you get paid for them once, and then if you're a name that anyone cares about, you can collect them in a book and get paid for them again.  Much more this time for King, I assure you.  I wonder if he's still getting $10M per book, if he ever was.

In front of each story is a short comment about the genesis of each.  Entertainment Weekly said these were reason enough to read the book.  These are usually distracting for me, so I read them all at once, before I read any of the stories, and then I started reading the stories the next day.  Again, to each his own.  But he's written better intros than any of these.  (My fave's probably the one with The Bachman Books.)

Anyway, some quick thoughts about some (stop now if you don't want to know anything about a few of the stories):

"Mile 81" reads well, as all his stuff does.  You're maybe sick of reading the phrase "compulsively readable" in my reviews of King's stuff by now, but I'll continue typing it as long as it stays true.  Such is the case with this story, except that it's one of my "insignificant" ones in this book, which is not necessarily a terrible thing.  Who doesn't need a good, irrelevant story?  But I read this book (impulsively and compulsively) when I perhaps should have been doing something else, so I felt badly when I felt that tinge of "So what?"  In this one, an alien vehicle kills some better drawn-out characters than usual for this kind of story, and then flies away.  And that's what happens at creepy and abandoned rest areas.  A better story could be made of this.

"Premium Harmony" is a very effective story about a guy and his wife (who very much don't get along), and a dog that prefers her over him.  This one's very memorable and very well-written, and could actually happen.  Good voice and good ending--not always a King strong-suit.  I read this one before somewhere.  Maybe in Details?  Atlantic Monthly?  There's usually a Previously Published In... page, but not this time.

"Batman and Robin..." is okay, a good story that passes the time.  Won't stick in my noggin' but it may in yours.

"The Dune" is a very good story about a judge who sees names in a sand dune, and when he does, that person drops dead soon.  Clever little ending, reminiscent of King's Night Shift days.

"Bad Little Kid" was okay.  The kid in question is sort of representative of all evil, in a ghostly kind of way.  Stands in for Death itself, too.  This is actually a common theme in this collection.

"A Death" is an extremely successful little story that'll leave you guessing until the end.  Written in a different style and tone for King, and he pulls it off.  Very good detail, and it'll make you question your belief system--even if you know how far people will go to deny, and to save their own skin, even from themselves.  I've seen way too much of that, and I was still surprised.  Created a long conversation between myself and my better half.  I read this one somewhere before, and was still impressed when I re-read it again here.  Very memorable.

"Morality" is an effective, nasty long story.  Sort of like a more shrill take on Indecent Proposal.  I read this, and "Blockade Billy," in the limited-release book that had just those two stories, and something originally written for his son, if I remember right.  Anyway, this one says something about the human condition, though I'm not sure what.  Maybe that you can't run away from your own guilt, but he's done that better elsewhere.  What was that short story about the farmer who killed his wife and tried to run away from it but kept seeing and hearing the rats?

"Afterlife" was entertaining and okay.  Probably not memorable for me.

"Ur" was also good, and a welcome back to the men in yellow coats and a bit of the Tower.  Good.  No surprises.  One of the longest in here.

I'd read "Herman Wouk Is Still Alive" somewhere before and just skimmed it here.  Very good story.  A bit of a head-scratcher about life, about depression, about poverty.  About how some find peace and some don't.  Memorable.

"Under the Weather" is probably the most effective and memorable for me.  What does one do when someone you've placed your heart and soul to dies?  So effective because I can imagine this actually happening, in exactly the way that it does here.  And I think you will, too.

For "Blockade Billy," see "Morality" comment.  This is a good story that maybe baseball fans--especially those who like the game from the early 1900s like I do--will better appreciate.

"Mister Yummy" is a bittersweet take on the same themes as the bad kid story.  This one worked better for me, but again it's about getting old and dying, and about what might come next.  There's a lot of that in this collection.

"The Little Green God of Agony" didn't work for me.  Not a bad story, exactly.  A shoulder-shrugger.

"That Bus Is Another World" could have been titled "Kitty Genovese."  I liked it's point more than I liked the story, and it doesn't go with King's intro for it at all.

"Obits" worked for me, but the love-interest tie-in didn't, and it sort of peters out at the end.  Good idea; bad follow-through.  Okay story.

"Drunken Fireworks" was the clunker of the collection for me.  Skip it.

"Summer Thunder" is the bummer of the collection, but still a very good story and very memorable, though the ending is never in doubt, and there really wasn't any other ending King could've given it.  Because of all this, it's a huge victory that this story is still so readable and memorable and sad.  It tries for a strong human will ending that was just more sad for me, though it may register a little better for you.

All in all, this is a great short story collection that shows some of King's best writing in years.  Worth your money and time.  Get it.

My Newest Short Story Is Up!!!

If you're looking for a very, very short story about a private detective profiling and following a possible rapist, then my newest short story, "Pink Lemonade," is for you.  It's free right now at OverMyDeadBody.com.  (It's also about letting people be; see: the last sentence and the title.)

And if you have a moment, please take a look at another Brad Foster story, "Everything's Connected," published last year at OMDB!, which the publisher was nice enough to link to this story.

I'm interested in what you think about "Pink Lemonade," so please send me an email or a comment and opine!

Thanks again for reading my stuff.  It means a lot to me.

BTW, I can log onto the website directly from my Microsoft Edge (Explorer) but not from my Google Chrome.  Can anyone explain this?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!!

A Few Things

Just a few things I need to point out.  Minor things that have accumulated over time:

--A hearty THANK YOU (that's right, I shouted that out) to all 10 of my beta-readers.  You guys rock!  I owe you, big-time.  I won't forget the kindness that you've been showing me the last week +.

--If you like a blog entry, or if you just want to help me out, please mention it on your media, or like it, or comment, or something.  Any of that is supremely appreciated!

--I cannot accept comments from Anonymous.  I have very good reasons for this.  Commenting is really, really appreciated, but please leave your name or avatar (preferably, both), or I'll have to press DELETE when I go over the submitted comments.

--Please comment anytime, on any blog entry, even if it's not a contest.  Your comments are very important to me, for many reasons!

--If you don't want to leave a comment, but want to say something or enter a contest, please feel free to email me--but not anonymously!  (A surprising number prefer doing this.)

--Please remember that I have many blogs, the most important (to me, anyway) being this one and my published works blog.  Please visit them!  All of the tabs are above.

--I should read the blogs more of people who follow mine, read mine, add me to Google +, etc.  When you comment, it's okay if you remind me of this.  I'll get there, I promise.  And I comment on anything I can for my friends / followers / readers, etc. because I know how important that is.

Beta-readers

A quick message:

I have 7 beta-readers lined up, and I would love 10, and I haven't asked any of my e-friends yet.  I mean, haven't we all been buried by people asking us to read their books and manuscripts?  And I especially feel bad because I haven't had the time to read and comment on too many of anyone else's work lately.

But if you're an e-friend of mine, and you wouldn't mind being a beta-reader, please let me know by Wednesday the 27th.  My email is on this blog page somewhere.

Please and thank-you!

Post A Book-Selfie and Support Schools and Libraries

 

 

Photo: Kami Garcia, and a good book.

 

Dear Blog Readers:

 

Below is an email sent to me from Kami Garcia, author of the Dangerous Creatures series.  Rather than using her publisher's marketing budget to, well, market her book, she has nicely asked for that money to be used to buy books for schools and libraries in need.  (This is an unbelievably nice thing to do, considering the book market today.)  Unfortunately, I don't Tweet, and I don't have a Twitter account, so I'm hoping my readers will take part in this worthy campaign, in place of my un-technologically advanced self.  Please and thanks!

 

[Now that I went to the website, I see that this is something I can do because it's not a Twitter page.  Or is it?  This sort of proves my point about my tech savvy, but whatever.  I'll post a book-selfie--but you should also do the same!]

 

Here's her email to me:

 

_____

 

Hi guys! 

Reminder: The #booksarentdangerous campaign kicks off today at 9 AM PST / 12 EST. 

Short explanation: Dangerous Deception comes out in a week, and instead of a traditional campaign, we got our publisher (LBBYR) to donate our marketing budget to buying books for underfunded schools and libraries.

You are all invited to join in the fun & help get books onto the hands of needy kids!

Attached is the campaign graphic, in case you wanted to share it anywhere, and/or point people to booksarentdangerous.com which is where we will be posting campaign details as well as resources for book donations in the days to come. (Feel free to share yours as well!)

 

But also hopefully this: donate a book and encourage your readers to put up a pic and do the same!

Remember to use the hashtag #BooksArentDangerous. It can be any book that you loved, that mattered to you, or that you recommend.

LBBYR will take each picture as your pledge to donate a book to an underfunded school or library and will match these donations throughout the next two weeks.

Let's get some books into the hands of kids in our local school libraries! Pass it on!

Again, questions to shanepangburn@gmail.com. 

And this concludes our spam. Love to all!

XOXO Kami & Margie

History's Lost Treasures by Eric Chaline

Photo: The book's cover, from its Amazon page.

The second-to-last book I read in 2014 was this extremely interesting and informative book probably best read on The Throne, especially since each chapter is two pages long, max.  But the articles can teach the reader quite a bit about history, which the author, who I've never heard of, clearly knows thoroughly.  He writes about people, events and things very casually, as if he's so familiar with them that he forgets others may not be.
 
This could've led to pedantic and professorial prose, but it never does.  In fact, Chaline clearly took great pains to make this as conversational as possible, sometimes to a fault.  At points it becomes too author-intrusion opinionated.  At others, it becomes a bit pedestrian, like the authors' bios at the back of YA books that try too hard to connect to the YA reader.  The kids are much more sophisticated than that, I assure you; similarly, the author here at times forgets that his audience might be a little more sophisticated than he thinks.
 
I bought this in the remainder bin (for less than seven bucks), and I had to list this title manually on Goodreads (where you'll find my reviews for dozens of books), so take those for what they're worth.
 
All that notwithstanding, this is, as I mentioned, a very interesting and informative book that reads like it was written by scholarly-type on a scholarly-type website, and it probably is somewhere.  I'll guess you can find it on Amazon for a few pennies. (Not that I'm in favor of the public doing that, as the author generally loses out.)
 
Lost treasures (some found, some not) include:

Wondrous burial goods: Tutankhamun's death mask • A real crock of gold: The treasure of Villena • Sunken plunder: The Nuestra Señora de Atocha • Religious rarities: The unique Jain bronzes of Chausa • Stolen artworks: The missing van Gogh paintings • Dazzling gems: The La Peregrina Pearl

No matter how you get a copy, you should do so, even if you read it in small doses, in the room I mentioned above.  There's no sin in that.

Cheap Shot--Book Review

Photo: The book's hardcover...cover?  From its Goodreads page.

Another good, compulsively-readable entry into the series by Atkins.

There's not much here you haven't seen before if you've read the others by Parker and Atkins.  But this one still stands apart from the others because of its purposely scattered structure.  Spenser's all over the place, from Boston to NYC and back again.  He speaks to old characters (Gerry Broz runs a fish store?!?), only some of whom are actually useful for this case.

This is the one startling aspect of this book.  Old, non-regular characters either come up (Broz; Tony Marcus; Ty-Bop) or are brought up (Rachel Wallace; April Kyle) simply to stir them up in the readers' minds.  Doing this could've led to disaster, almost like name-dropping, but Atkins handles it well.  It doesn't distract.  It adds.

This one reads a little more gritty, a little more true-to-life.  This is also different than many, but not all, of Parker's.  His often tended to get wrapped up neatly.  The better ones, now that I think about it, didn't end that way: Looking for Rachel Wallace and April Kyle's second (and last) come to mind.

Who-dun-it is not a surprise, exactly, although I was a little surprised about how it suddenly came to a head.  I mean this in a good way.  It makes sense, and the reader and Spenser were kind of heading there, but it all gets sidetracked, as did Spenser, as does the reader.  So when the ending happens, it all makes sense, and isn't really surprising, and yet it was a nice, little twist at the same time.

In a gritty, realistic kind of way.  Would it really happen that way?  The motel room?  The trunk?  Yes, I believe it really could happen that way.  But in the trunk?  Yes, because he just didn't care.  (I won't reveal the end, so you'll just have to read it to fully grasp what I'm talking about.)  Would it have ended that way in Parker's hands?  Nope.  But that's okay.

It works.  That's all that matters.  Things change.  People change.

And, often, they don't change.  The bad ones, when they get really pissed, tend to stay that way.  And then they do bad things.  And then everything sort of goes to hell.

Sometimes that kind of thing ends well.  Other times--I'm thinking Cormac McCarthy here--they don't.  As it is in real life as well.

The Walking Dead

Photos: from The Walking Dead's website via AMC.

My blog for The Walking Dead, Season Five, is now up.  Below is an excerpt of the latest blog entry.  To read the whole thing, click here or click the Walking Dead tab above.

_______________________________

The obliteration of peoples in the future might go something like this.

Actually, no.  Let me re-phrase.  This institutional evil has already happened in real history.

When Gareth strolls in with his clipboard and demands an account of bullets fired at Rick's group, he immediately stops the action--which, in this case, was some guy about to slaughter Glen with a hefty-looking aluminum bat, and then cut his throat over a trough.

He asks for the number of bullets fired at Rick's group.  He's got a clipboard and a checklist.  With more time and fewer commercial breaks, might he have asked about the weapons taken from them, or other valuable items?  I think so.  Three swords?  Check.  Six guns?  Check.  No where's that bag?

In World War II Germany, "valuable items" would've been defined as paintings, gold (including gold teeth, or haven't you seen the same documentaries I have?), silver, china, art.  Any metal to be melted down to use as bullets, tanks, etc. for the German war effort.  In a Zombie Apocalypse, "valuable items" would be defined as weapons and bullets.

Did a Jew at Auschwitz live a few seconds longer as a soldier answered a superior's similar question?  Did this soldier keep the gun pressed against a prisoner's head as he said, "Five gold teeth and two works of art taken from this prisoner, sir," in German, to his superior officer, who was standing over him at the time with clipboard and pencil in hand?

Yes.  Yes, I believe that could have happened.

But real life isn't TV.  So then the gun would've fired.

Systematically.  Impersonally.  Just taking inventory.

Institutional evil.  I wish I could take credit for that phrase, but I heard it on Talking Dead later.  Probably it's been a phrase widely used, at least since World War II.

I write this because some have already remarked that the people in Sanctuary got more than they deserved.  That Sanctuary Mary (Denise Crosby, from Pet Sematary and other 80s movies, if you're as old as I am) didn't deserve what she got.  This was, in fact, a poll question during Talking Dead.

So this blog entry is written to those 25% to 30% of the viewers who texted in with a "Yes, the Sanctuary People got more than they deserved.  After all, they were a group like Rick's, and they got raped and beaten and killed.  They were just trying to stay alive.  You're either the butcher or you're the cattle, right?"

Because this is exactly what the Germans thought at the end of World War I.  They'd been bombed and obliterated.  Berliners were starving.  Diseased.  Dying.  And a few of them were really pissed off.  They were just trying to stay alive.  They were tired of being the cattle.  Better to be butchers.

___________________

To read the rest of this blog entry, or to read a few entries from The Walking Dead's previous season, please click here.  Or click on the Walking Dead Season 5 tab above.  Thanks.

As always, please feel free to comment.

Free Contest! My Story, "Everything's Connected," Now Free at Overmydeadbody.com

Photo: The icon of Overmydeadbody.com.

Hello, readers from overmydeadbody.com--or: Hello, my loyal blog readers!

Another story purchased and published!

If you haven't already read it, please, for free, read my newest story, "Everything's Connected" at Overmydeadbody.com.  (Story's description below.)  Just click the address above.  (Firefox is having trouble with it, so please use another.  I'm using Google Chrome.)  You don't even have to download it--it just appears on the screen.  Thanks!  And I'm holding a free contest about it--so if you've already read the story, please see the bottom of this post.

If you haven't, just click this link or the one above and click on the story.  And enjoy.  The story is very short.

What it's about (feel free to skip this if you've already read it):

"Everything's Connected," is about a detective who catches a cheating spouse in the act (sort of), solves a kid's disappearance, and proves a little theoretical quantum physics--all in just a few minutes!

Reading it won't take more than a few minutes, and I'd be greatly appreciative of any comments about it that you can give.  For example, you could consider:

--Do you believe that "Everything's Connected" like Foster does?  Or that they're not, like Colleen does?

--Do you believe that the story shows that "Everything's Connected?"  Or that it shows they're not?

--Consider: If Colleen hadn't been having problems with the virus software, would Foster have figured out where his landlady's kid was?

--Was that connection, or just plain luck?

--Overall comments about Foster, Colleen, or anyone else in the story.

--Overall comments about the story itself.

--Anything else you had in mind.  I've already had a comment conversation about Chaos Theory and String Theory (and Jurassic Park), for example.

Anyway, getting this story published is very cool because Brad Foster, the main character of this short piece, is also the main character of my soon-to-be-finished novel manuscript.  He's in a different psychological space in this story than he is in the novel--this story is supposed to take place after the novel--but he's clearly the same guy.

Colleen, his assistant, makes an appearance in both as well.  She's as feisty as usual.

And now the contest.

If you haven't already, just read the story via the links in this blog, and click the blog link at the end of the story (or just come back here) and leave a comment about what you thought of the story.  Good or bad, just be pleasant and appropriate!  Everyone who leaves a comment is entered into a contest to win a free copy of Space and Time Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction, Spring 2012, Issue #116.  This issue contains many fine stories, plus my short story "Hide the Weird."  (Here's a link so you can see what it looks like.)  A description of "Hide the Weird":

A young man has the ability to see short-term into the future--just enough to see that the woman he loves is about to die in a horrible fire.  How does he save her, without letting her know that he has this curse / ability?

A number / comment will be drawn at random.  I'll contact that person (or create a blog entry announcing the winner, so check back to this blog on September 1st, especially if you didn't leave any contact info.), who needs to send me an email with a mailing address to send the magazine.  And that's it! The contest ends August 31st at midnight, EST. 

Foreign entries are welcome!  No previous winners allowed--but please comment anyway!  :-)

And please let me know if I can read a short story for you, or comment for you, or enter a contest--or all 3!

So please and thank you.  As always, readers, I appreciate you reading my stuff.

The Road Less Traveled and Tough Choices

 Photo: It's got a long address, and I'm lazy, so I'll link it here.

Despite the high rating I'd give to this book, it's time to let it go.  By this, I mean it's off to the box for my yard sale, or the box to my used bookstore for credit, or yet to the box for donations to my local Salvation Army.  Probably in that order.

Why am I letting it go after all these years?  Why, if I'd rate it so highly?

Well, first, why I like(d) it.

It's got one of the all-time great opening lines for any self-help book: Life is difficult.

It is, indeed.  I also believe that life is often (though not always) supposed to be hard.  To not accept or expect this is to live a life of frustration and an inability to adapt.  That's me saying that, by the way, not Peck.  But he'd agree with me.

Peck was amongst the first of the popular self-help guys to really preach self-responsibility.  Or, at least to the point that he did so with popularity.

This is huge for me, philosophically and psychologically.  I've tired of the nature vs. nurture debate because it seems that many are trying to explain away self-responsibility.  It's not my fault, I have ADHD.  It's not my fault, I was raised that way.  It's not my fault, that's what I was taught to believe in.

He was the first to say that, no, everything was actually your responsibility after all.  Especially after a certain age.

I'm all for that.  I embrace that.  I live it and breathe it.  Nobody's more hyper and hyperactive than I am.  Yet I focus, accomplish much, balance my finances, control my emotions and treat others with respect.

But...

Here's why I don't really like it anymore.  It's not just because Peck turned out to be an addict, a sex addict, and a very frequent cheater on his wife.  But keep those things in mind as we continue--and remember the phrase "traditional values" in his title.

I didn't realize before, when I read this in my teens, how actually preachy it is.  I don't mind, now, that it's religious.  But I do mind that a trained psychiatrist would use religion and God as self-help.  Is that belief, or is that maybe a little too self-serving?  Dubya bought into this sort of self-help religion, as many recovering addicts do.  Which is fine and good, but...for a psychiatrist to preach this so heavily in a self-help book?  That's blasphemy, in my opinion, but blasphemy for practicing psychiatrists and self-help professionals and religious leaders alike.

Is religion supposed to be so self-serving?  Can one get better psychologically if one doesn't believe in the Christian God? According to Peck, in this book...Well, no.  Kind of.

And don't even get me started on the phrase "traditional values" in his title.  A psychiatrist should really, really know better.

What if you, and your problems, aren't traditional?  Can you still benefit from psychotherapy?  Well, yes, but according to this book?  No...kind of.

He hedges a lot when it comes to this kind of thing, like his psychiatrist self and his televangelist self were warring for control.  When his psychiatrist self wins, this book is almost ingenious. When he writes about accepting responsibility, delaying self-gratification, the difference between neurotics and personality-disordered people, and overall personal self-responsibility, this book is a winner and deserving of the 10+ million copies it's sold, and its place for a number of years on the best-seller list.

Ultimately, for me it's time for it to go.  I have literally hundreds of books, and it's time to make some tough choices.  This is actually a tough decision for me, but many books simply must go, so...

In terms of a book review, I reiterate that I do recommend this book because of its heavy reliance on self-responsibility.  It made a huge impression on me when I was a teenager, and this book was partially responsible for my decision to also major in Philosophy, and to focus on Existentialism, if I could.  I could and I did.

So this was an important book for me, and it may also be for you.  Read it and learn from it, if you wish.  But don't feel badly if you don't keep it in your bookshelf.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

Photo: Title Card from the Series, from its Wikipedia page.

Book 1 of the long series was not a disappointment.  This is a helluva achievement in of itself, considering its 807 pages.  But it's even more impressive considering that I, like much of the known cable-connected world, have seen every episode of the HBO series.  Still, despite how incredible the series is (so much so that I am considering starting a blog about it, so look for that if you read my blogs), this book matches the series' awesomeness.

I started reading it because I wanted to see how close the series followed it.  I've also listened to every commentary available on the DVDs thus far (because I'm nerdy like that) and so I know how devoted the series' creators are.  Knowing that, how faithful to the book were they?  Answer: Very.  As in, basically page by page, and often verbatim.

But if you've seen every episode, you might say, wouldn't you be wasting your time if it's so close to the book?  Answer: No, as it turns out.  I thought the answer would be Yes, especially considering that the monumental struggle I had with the Lord of the Rings books.  (Much easier to read if you've seen the movies.)  But reading this was a breeze, despite the length.  Seeing it in words was different than seeing it on HBO.  I didn't see the characters from the series as I read the book.  (Well, except for Tyrion, played wondrously well by Peter Dinklage, who caught every single nuance of movement and voice from the character on the page.)  The book's characters were their own.

Martin is a very good writer; so much so that his turn of phrase was often surprisingly good even though I knew what was coming.  His words often summed up a scene better than the actual image did from the series.  I'm thinking specifically of the very last scene of the book and of one of the seasons, when Dany sat naked amongst the ashes of her dead husband, the woman who helped kill him, his horse, and three live dragons.  The book visualized this very well, even better than the actual visual image did.  (This is aided by the book's inclusion of the dragons breastfeeding with her, which the series did not show.)

The biggest difference: Tyrion and Jon Snow get along extremely well, and are almost good friends in the book.  The series does not show this.

So this is a rollicking good read.  If you were thinking about reading it, but holding off because you've seen the show, delay no longer.

Pick it up.

Killer by Jonathan Kellerman--Book Review

Photo, from Kellerman's Facebook page
 
Another step in the right direction from Kellerman, whose last book, Guilt, was also very good.  Both novels are more readable and much less judgmental than were his previous 8 to 10 works, perhaps more.  The last two books are also much less vicious and violent.

By now, if you've read Kellerman's twenty-nine Alex Delaware novels as I have, you've figured out his formula: The first 10%-20% of the work sets up the very large cast of characters, their backgrounds, and any of the many conflicts that may--but often, not--have anything to do with the book's major crime.

Then the vast majority of the book is Q & A between Delaware and Milo and the large population of characters in the victim's lives.  There's a ton of supposition, a lot of maybe this and perhaps that, by Delaware and Milo and many of the supporting cast.  The vast majority of the time, none of it pans out.

About 80% to 85% of the way through, we meet a seemingly-minor character who rings Delaware's alarms.  That starts the unraveling.  The rest of the book is a slippery slide to the ending, which neatly wraps things up.

This has always been Kellerman's M.O., though a few times in the past, the seemingly-irrelevant character would come completely out of left field.  As a consequence, the reader (well, at least this reader) would feel cheated and more than a little aggravated.  In this genre, you have to give the reader at least a chance--however small--to be able to figure it out (or at least to suspect) who the killer might be, and what might have happened.

That's what happens here, with Killer.  (A ridiculous title, as it could have been the name of any of his novels, and there's more than one killer here, anyway.)

The unraveling happened when and how I figured, and I honed in on the seemingly-irrelevant character right away.  The character appears when I suspected, as per the blueprint above.  This was aided because I wasn't buying all of the suppositions Delaware and Kellerman were selling.

Ultimately, this was a very quick and satisfying read, done just right.

Book Review--Robert B. Parker's Wonderland, by Ace Atkins

Photo: Book's hardback cover, from robertbparker.net

I've gone on before about titles that contain the name of an artist as its main selling point, so I won't do so again here--except to say that book titles that contain the name of a deceased writer is even worse.  At least when John Carpenter used to title his movies with his name in it, he was still alive, directing them.  But when the publishing house (or perhaps it's Parker's estate) does so, it comes across as a bit gauche to me.  Especially when the real author, Ace Atkins, is doing such a credible job since taking it over.  How about giving him a little credit now?  Or does someone think that Spenser's loyal fans will forget that Robert B. Parker gave birth to him?

Having said that, Wonderland is a good book that could have been better if Atkins hadn't tried so hard to make Spenser so witty.  Even Parker didn't make his narrator this much of a wiseass.  Here Spenser drops something sarcastic, or witty, or banal (depends on your appreciation for what he says, I guess) in his dialogue and in his narration, a double-whammy here that makes it seem that Spenser is a little verbally out of control.  One minor character even says that he comes across as immature to people who don't think he's funny.  (Nobody ever dared call Parker's Spenser immature, except maybe Susan.)  There's way too much here, and it comes across as Atkins trying too hard, and not, surprisingly, like Spenser trying too hard.  Some of it is funny, but occasionally one sounds forced.

Another distraction here is that every now and then a piece of Spenser's dialogue simply doesn't sound authentic.  I've read every single Spenser, since the first--The Godwulf Manuscript--and I'm telling you that every now and then Spenser says something that sounds inauthentic, and it clunks.  A major tell-tale is that Atkins makes him speak on occasion too grammatically correct: he doesn't use contractions when anyone--especially Spenser--would.  One example of many is on page 273.  Henry Cimoli and Spenser are talking about how bad Spenser's psyche got when he got shot up by The Gray Man.  Henry calls it, "The really bad time."  Spenser responds: "They are all bad times when you are shot."  It's just too stiff.  Spenser, one of the more comfortable conversationalists in all of detective fiction (if not fiction in general), simple would not have sounded so formal, especially to Henry.  He would've deadpanned: "When you're shot, they're all bad."  Or something like that.

But, of course, this is a very quick read.  I might read faster than some, but I'll bet a Spenser fan will read this in a couple of days.  There are no great surprises here; the supporting characters are all users and being used.  The main characters go back and forth guessing who the guilty parties are, but the reader shouldn't.  Truth be told, the family-relation reveal towards the end shouldn't have been a surprise to Spenser, Healey, or Belson.  It is, though, and it's handled well.  I didn't consider the oddity of it until I'd finished reading, so that's good enough.  Your suspension-of-disbelief won't be ruined.  The writing is good, but Atkins has done better with Spenser.  I like the way that Atkins says a lot with very little, as Parker had.  Atkins might actually say more with his little.  Spenser fans won't be disappointed.  New readers to the series won't be blown out of their socks, but they shouldn't throw it away with great force, either.  It's a good read.

One caveat: Atkins shows his hand a little bit with the dating.  As Parker had, he throws in a sentence or two to let us know Spenser is narrating from some future date.  Something like, "The winter was especially cold that year..."  In Wonderland, Spenser frequently mentions how very, very bad the Sox are with overpaid stars and a manager that has won with them in the past.  So it's got to be 2011.  They were disappointing under Francona in 2005, 2006, 2008-2010, but they still won more than they lost, and they made the playoffs--or almost did--pretty consistently.  But the book says they were very, very bad, so it's got to be 2011.  Spenser has always gone out of his way to remind us that he exists in our real universe, during our real time--just an indiscriminate year in the past.  Here, he seems to have almost caught up to us.  This was a little jarring to me, though it may not be to anyone else.  I'm just putting it out there.  Feel free to politely disagree.

Blog News

Dear Readers,

In the next few days, I will try a massive (in terms of time, anyway) undertaking: two new blogs, maybe three.  So in addition to this site and my sports blog (where I babble mostly about baseball, baseball cards, and the sports world at large), please look at my American Horror Story: Coven blog, and my Walking Dead 4 blog, both via Blogger.  If they're not up when you check, please come back.  I'll put up the American Horror Story: Coven blog first, since the season's first episode has already aired.  Walking Dead 4's blog will go up tonight, or tomorrow--most likely tomorrow.

I may also start a blog, tentatively titled Steve's Sales, that will contain photos, descriptions and prices of things I want to sell.  This would be via Blogger as well.  So take a peek at that, when it's up, and let me know what strikes your fancy.  Just send me an email at the address on the top of any of my blogs, and I'll get back to you ASAP. 

As always, thanks for taking the time to peruse my meager scribblings.  I hope my readers, friends and followers like what is to come.

Sincerely,

Steven E. Belanger

Full Dark, No Stars--Stephen King

photo: book cover, from its Wikipedia site

"1922," the first one, was very good, far outshining the other three stories here, but slightly disappointing in the final paragraphs, which felt comicbook-like.  The writing is King's best in a long time, even if the theme and unreliable narrator are things we've seen before.  You almost feel sorry for the guy--but not quite. King has visited the rat motif many times before, most notably in some stories in Night Shift, and does so again here in a psychological fashion--though perhaps realistically, as well, at least in the eyes of the narrator.  This story is disappointing in the sense that King essentially has nowhere to go with it, leaving the author, the writing, the main character and the reader meandering through most of the story.  But, strangely, agreeably, because of the excessively smooth storytelling.  Perhaps one of the better examples yet of how King is a master storyteller--as he's been called literally a million times--even if he is somewhat lacking, sometimes (see: Rose Madder and Cell), as a writer.  Writing and storytelling are non-exclusive.  See James and Joyce for writing; see King for a story.

"Big Driver," the second story, was okay, in its own way, but severely disturbing no matter what you think about its gender-specific overtones.  I thin of this one as what Jodie Foster's character in The Accused would have done if she'd had the chance--though that character was of a far different background and constitution than the one here.  A disturbingly good read is the best way to describe this one, though, again, it's predictable with only one avenue to travel.  You'll feel compelled to travel it, too, and watch the carnage unfold, perhaps with your hands over your readers' eyes, trucking that written road through partly-opened fingers.

"Fair Extension," the third, was...hard to describe.  Slightly amusing in an "I'm a bad person for feeling this way" kind of way.  The Book of Job in a comic book format, I guess.  A reversal of the "bad things happen to good people" thought, combined with the Book of Job, this story is hard to like and yet also hard to put down.  Taps into the fact that most people are so dissatisfied with their own lives that they will watch with glee as constantly terrible things happen to someone else.  "As long as it isn't me" taken to the Nth degree.  An unlikable, but true, aspect of most people.  Right up there with King's often-stated metaphor of drivers and passersby rubber-necking for a glimpse of the corpse under the sheet at the accident scene.  One of the worst aspects of human nature, something I've always hated.  King's constant metaphor has led me to steadfastly NEVER peer at traffic accidents--literally, I don't ever look at the actual accident because of Stephen King.  Having been in one myself--and my blanket-covered body was videotaped by a guy as it was put into the back of the ambulance, so I speak from experience--I can tell you that this is a truly repulsive, Let's All Watch the Fight in the Hallway and Not Try to Stop It aspect of human nature that I detest in others.  Others' misfortunes are not my entertainment. (But, hey, I read this stuff, so maybe who am I to say after all?)  I would argue here that this story points out all of what I've just said, and does so with a disagreeable look.  (King acknowledges that he has made millions of dollars, thanks to this base aspect of human nature.)  

The last story, "A Good Marriage," was good.  Compulsively readable; very quick and easy; though, again, there's nowhere to go down this one-way street.  But, also again, the reader is compelled to follow the story down that one road, knowing full well where it's going, and not caring that he knows.  This is ostensibly King's greatest genius, it now occurs to me: he's able to tap into an innate segment of our psyche--no matter how base it is--and he shows it to us as a mirror into our own possible subconscious.  We compulsively follow it, and his stories, for just that reason: it could be us doing those things.  Based on the BTK killer--and his wife, who apparently really didn't know that she was married for 25+ years to a guy who tortured and killed a ton of women and children over all those years (Sandusky's wife is now saying the same)--this was a welcome break in between all the grad. class short story reading, which I also have to admit were very good, but much more serious and often intense.