Mailbox Monday

A new author for me

Not much in the way of acquisitions this week.

Book Blogger Hop - March 18 to 21

It's time for the Book Blogger Hop again, hosted by Jennifer at Crazy for Books.



Today's question:
"Do you read only one book at a time, or do you have several going at once?"

I nearly always have multiple books going. I narrowed it down to one for the last couple of weeks, as I was taking some pain killers that made it difficult to focus, but things are looking up again, and I'm currently reading House of Cards by C.E. Murphy and River Marked by Patricia Briggs, plus a short story by Poul Anderson on my Nook.

Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein

I was fact-checking on some names in Farnham's Freehold when I was writing a review of another book, and I thought it would be a good idea to give it the old R-cubed...re-read and review. I don't think anyone who didn't live throught the sixties and seventies can fully appreciate the (totally valid) paranoia we all had about global thermonuclear war, but this novel by Heinlein from 1964 may give you an approximate flavor.

Hugh Farnham and his family are enjoying a nice weekend evening together playing bridge. His daughter, Karen, has brought a friend, Barbara, home from college to visit her dad and mom, Grace. Their son, Duke, is a lawyer who lives on his own, and he's stopped by for the family gathering. Rounding out the cast of characters is Joseph, their negro houseboy, and Doctor Livingston I Presume, their cat.

The Kremlin has been making threatening noises, and Hugh keeps an earbug live to be ready in case an attack is launched. Their home is very close to Colorado Springs, which would become a high value military target if war breaks out. Sure enough, the missiles are launched, and Hugh and the others scramble to get into his bomb shelter, which he has very thoroughly equipped for surviving the fallout and aftermath of a nuclear war.

The bombs fall. First strike, second strike, and then a Grand Slam. After the third strike, things get strangely quiet, and Hugh and the others decide to poke their heads out of the shelter to see what has happened. At this point, we get the twist that separates this from your usual post-apocalyptic novel of the time, in that the entire bomb shelter turns out to have been twisted through some sort of warp in space time caused by being at ground zero in a nuclear explosion, and they are cast about 2000 years into the future, to a time and place where it appears that nature has been unspoiled by humans.

They begin to use their survival skills to eke out a life and a place to live for themselves, when the second big story twist occurs - they are not alone! It appears that after the superpowers wiped out most of the people from the northern hemisphere, the folks in the southern part of the globe, mostly blacks or dark-skinned races, took over the world, and have ruled it ever since. Their shelter actually landed in the middle of a game preserve belonging to the ruler of North America. They are taken captive and forced to live as servants, mostly, although they acquire a special status as curiosities, having come from the long-dead past.

After having read Patterson's Heinlein bio recently, I had a bit more insight into the things Hugh had to say about his wife, Grace's alcoholism. Heinlein was at that point either still dealing with his first wife's addiction, or had recently been divorced from her. Heinlein, as usual, delivers his lectures on leadership, freedom, love, genetics, and other topics fairly smoothly in the course of the story. He's pretty well adopted the ever-present alpha male that permeates most of his stories, and Hugh Farnham is alpha in spades. This is a great, quick read that provides a window into both Heinlein and his era.

For you fellow bibliophiles, as Hugh is contemplating the books he included  for TEOTWAWKI,
"Books had always been his best friends. In a hundred public libraries they had taught him. From a thousand newsstands they had warmed his loneliness. He suddenly felt that if he had not been able to save some books, it would hardly be worthwhile to live."

In Small Measures by Lynn Burke

I'm sorry that it's taken me this long to get a review (of sorts) out here about Small Measures. Ms. Burke sent me a letter when I first requested it saying that she was awaiting a second batch of review copies, and then it had to come from Australia, and so there was a long delay before I received it. Then, I started reading it and realized that it is completely out of genre for me. It's basically a historical romance about the Vietnam War era, and I just couldn't get very interested in it, though it seemed to be tightly written and might be an interesting story for someone who likes romance/drama types of books. If you're a reader of such things, and write reviews, be the first to let me know in the comments and maybe we can work out a guest review deal for this one.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

So, I happened to catch about the last 30 minutes of The Princess Bride on TV the other night. This movie ranks right up there as one of my all-time favorites. I happened to have finished up the book I'd been reading that afternoon, so I decided to take a trip up the stairs to my personal library and re-read Goldman's version. This book is an abridgement of the original by S. Morgenstern, and I have the author's word that it contains far less endless political and class satire than the original.

However, it is filled with plenty of satire, just of the sort that modern audiences will probably appreciate more. All of the places where Goldman has removed large sections of the original are "footnoted" with his description of what actually filled the gap before, and most of them would only appeal to the odd European scholar or historian.

The witty dialog that I loved in the movie is there in its entirety, plus a bit more thrown in for good measure. There's also a great deal of additional material about the personal histories of Fezzik and Inigo. One of the bits that puzzled me in the movie, how Fezzik comes up with a Holocaust Cloak, is also explained in one of Goldman's sidebars. The Zoo of Death is described in greater detail, and there's a stunning amount of information on exactly how beautiful Buttercup is.

Loved the movie, love the book. Pick up a copy and enjoy.

Worth Dying For by Lee Child

When last I saw Jack Reacher, he was in a race against time, rushing up an escape ladder from the bottom of an exploding missile silo. Fortunately for my peace of mind, I had seen that the next novel, Worth Dying For, was already in publication, so I rested easy in the knowledge that Reacher would survive. Phew! The theme for the last couple of books, however, has left me wondering if a heart of malignant evil beats in the center of every rural community, as Reacher finds a nest of venomous vipers...er...truckers? in Nowhere Nebraska.

Hitchhiking his way across country, Reacher pauses for the night at the Apollo Inn, with space race themed decor. While enjoying a cup of coffee in the lounge, he gets involved in a doctor's house call which leads him to what would seem a simple case of wife-beating. Since Reacher is well known for sticking his nose in where it doesn't really belong, it's not surprising that he takes the time to track down the errant husband at a local steak house, takes out his bodyguard efficiently in the parking lot, and administers a single blow broken nose to the man.

The man is Seth Duncan, member of a local family that has parlayed a trucking company into dominating and terrifying the whole community. Nobody crosses the Duncans, or they pay for it with beatings, intimidation, or loss of their livelihood - if you can't get your crops hauled to market, there's no point in farming. The Duncan clan figures that Reacher is just your average troublemaker, and so they send a couple of their goons, recruited from Nebraska Cornhusker ex-football players, to make sure he doesn't cause any more trouble. Reacher's past training and experience allow him to put them both in the hospital without breaking a sweat, and the war is on.

The Duncans have something going on, above and beyond their local trucking monopoly, smuggling some sort of high value goods into the country, and they're connected to some criminal enterprises in Las Vegas and beyond. Their associates are concerned about a delay in the shipment, and the Duncans manage to convince them that Reacher is the reason for the delay, so the Vegas bosses also send some killers to Nebraska to deal with the problem.

Just some good, rousing entertainment once again from Lee Child. If you've been wondering how Jack Reacher survived the blast at the missile silo, this question is answered for you, too. Hope he keeps on crusading for many more books.

The Paths of the Dead by Steven Brust

Review written 2003

I've enjoyed most of what Mr. Brust has written over the years, and I'd hoped that this was another novel in the Vlad Taltos series, but it turned out to be set in an earlier period of the Dragaeran Empire. Ah, well. A few years ago, he wrote The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After. This one could have been called 150 Years After, as it takes place that much past FHYA.

In this novel, we get to learn a lot of things about the characters we came to love in The Phoenix Guards and also some things about characters from the Taltos series. We find out how Morrolan got his name, came to study eastern sorcery, and met the Lady Teldra. We also learn more about the Empress Zerika, and how she came into possession of the Orb (the artifact that holds the empire together).

Sethra Lavode, Sethra the Younger, and the Sorceress in Green figure prominently, as do Tazendra, Aerich, Pel and Khaavren.

It's a bit slow in spots, and Brust writes in the mildly irritating conversation style of Parfi the historian, as he did in his earlier works about these characters. I much prefer the style he used in the Taltos novels, but it was still a good read.

As the story begins, the empire is in ruins after Adron's Disaster, and we follow about a half dozen different plot threads, as people try to put things back in order. Some are trying to put things back together by force, while others use subterfuge.

This book is just part one of the series subtitled The Viscount of Adrilanka, and I eagerly await the sequel(s).

Mailbox Monday

Got a very nice free copy for my Nook

I enjoyed Hines Goblin Quest, so...

Another one by Hines

Alleged to be as good as the Dresden Files

Looks like the sequel to Freehold

Labyrinth by Kat Richardson

In Labyrinth, Harper Blaine returns from her harrowing ordeal in London to find that Edward, the vampire who sent her to England, has gone missing. What happens in London evidently doesn't stay in London, and the Pharaon of the asetem egyptian vampires, Wygan, is once again manipulating people and events for his unknown, but probably not beneficent, purposes.

Harper and her geeky boyfriend, Quinton, from the moment she arrives, are under attack from the asetem, and they can't remain at his bolthole or her condo, so they move in with Ben and Mara, hoping that the witch's wards and the new location will keep their enemies at bay. They are determined to find out what Wygan is really up to, and that trail will lead Harper, in and out of the Grey, to some odd places.

The tone of this book continues to be quite dark. Harper has come to realize that she may not survive her conflict with Wygan. Wygan has manipulated things so that she has been forced to become more and more a part of the weft and weave of the Grey, so that he can use her at some point to bring his plans to fruition. Harper's loyalty to her friends, such as Edward and Will, and even her father's ghost, may be her greatest weakness, but conversely her greatest strength.

One thing that was a bit distracting to me was the level of detail and descriptive writing about Harper's perceptions of the Grey. A necessary distraction, perhaps, but it did slow down the pace a bit more than I liked. Richardson sounds like she's going to continue this series, and I wonder what direction it will go after the conflict with her arch-nemesis has been resolved. Will she confront lesser monsters for a time, or will even Wygan turn out to have been manipulated by a deeper, darker evil?

Book Blogger Hop - February 11 to 14

It's time for the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Jennifer at Crazy for Books, again.

This week's question:
"If I gave you £50 (or $80) and sent you into a bookshop right now, what would be in your basket when you finally staggered to the till?"

The answer to that depends on what type of bookshop I was going to. If it was one of the big chains, like Barnes & Noble, or Borders, or Hastings, I'd probably grab about ten paperbacks that I need to fill in the gaps in some series, such as:

• Rosemary and Rue, An Artificial Night, and Late Eclipses from the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire.
• Blood Cross and Mercy Blade from the Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter
• Cast in Fury, Cast in Shadow, Cast in Silence and Cast in Chaos by Michelle Sagara
• Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

If it was a wonderful used bookshop, such as Powell's in Portland, I'd probably just go crazy filling in odd bits and pieces. I've been trying to find the Retrieval Artist novels by Kristine Katherine Rusch for a while, for example. I'd also like to pick up most of the Imager series by L.E. Modesitt, the last couple of books in the Safehold series by Weber, a replacement copy of Azazel by Asimov, a replacement copy (I used to own two copies!!) of The Dracula Tapes by Saberhagen. You get the idea, it would be a well-mixed bag.

If I had to do the dirty deed online, I'd probably pick up some Nook editions of classic Heinlein and Zelazny, whom I never tire of re-reading. Or maybe the entire Sten series, by Cole and Bunch.

$80 isn't but a drop in the bucket, when it comes to my wish list, I'm afraid. If you start talkin' $800 or $8000, then we can really have some fun.

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

The Hero of Ages really wraps up this trilogy quite nicely. The books begins with Vin and Elend attempting to track down a series of caches that the Lord Ruler left behind, containing supplies to help the people survive through the cataclysmic events that were triggered when Vin killed him. The power that she released at the Well of Ascension is growing stronger, and is able to control the Inquisitors and vast armies of koloss, as well as whisper influences into the brains of others, under certain circumstances. In order to use some of these storage caverns, they need to conquer the cities that contain them, and add them to Elend's empire.

Spook is in one such city, spying for Elend. In Urteau, the revolutionaries who took over after the fall of the Lord Ruler have created a very egalitarian society. They still resent how the nobels oppressed them, so their leader, The Citizen, has started a hunt for all those with a trace of noble blood. When they are found, they are burned to death.

In another city, a former Obligator has taken over, and seems to have created a society based on "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die". Yomen doesn't believe that the Lord Ruler is actually dead, and expects him to return any day. The skaa here continue to serve, as is traditional.

Across the world, the ash is falling heavily, ruining crops, and the mists come out during the day, killing many people, and leaving others sickened for a time. Sazed has been sent out as Elend's ambassador to try to gather as many into the empire as he can, so that if Elend and Vin are successful in capturing the caches, more may survive the coming winter.

The other thing that's in each of the caches is a clue to the location of the next cache, and a message from the Lord Ruler which explains a bit more of what's really happening. Add these little revelations to the extras at the beginning of each chapter, and the complete picture of what's been happening and what is to come emerges slowly, step by step, as the novel goes along.

The revelations that come by the end of the book, in my opinion, are absolutely incredible. Questions are answered, mysteries solved, motivations explained. In most cases, I thought, "I never saw that coming, but it makes perfect sense!" This book completes things very well, and really makes the series.

The Misplaced Legion by Harry Turtledove

Review written January, 2000

Well, this is the first book I've read by Turtledove, and it seems to me that it has some promise. This is the first in a series called the Videssos Cycle, and I'm hoping that as I continue to read through the cycle, things will continue to improve. If not, I'll let you know.
 
The book begins with a legion of Roman soldiers who have invaded Gaul being sucked into some sort of interdimensional portal because of the clash of two druidic swords weilded by their leader and the leader of the Gauls. They arrive in the land of Videssos, where magic works, and the Videssians are involved in a titanic conflict with the barbarians who worship the evil god of darkness and cold - while they, of course, worship the god of light and warmth.
 
The empire of Videssos has some wonderfully scheming courtiers and bureaucrats, and while the Romans rapidly hire on as mercenaries for the current emperor, it's not automatically apparent that they've made the right choice. Turtledove has chosen to use some Greek-sounding names for most of the Videssians, and sometimes it's a little tough identifying the players without a scorecard, but the plotting keeps things interesting during the first two-thirds of the book, which would otherwise be seriously lacking in action.
 
We really don't get a taste of battle till the very end of this novel, but I've got to assume there's a lot more in store in the rest of the series. Turtledove seems to shy away from graphic depictions of either violence or sex, so these books make the "G" rating for younger readers.
 
Bottom line - not awesome, but amusing, so if you can pick up a copy at the used bookstore, it'd probably be best for all concerned.

Jed the Dead by Alan Dean Foster

Alan Dean Foster has always written some "different" SF and Fantasy. Perhaps best known for his Pip and Flynx books, he also had the Spellsong series and then went through a phase reminiscent of Tom Robbins for a while. I think this book was written during that time period. My friend, Law, saw it at a used book store we were browsing one day, and we just couldn't resist adding the title to the library.

Ross Ed Hager is a redneck roughneck from Texas who decides that he wants to visit the Pacific Ocean before he turns thirty, so he sets out in his Cadillac on a road trip. While lunching at a roadside rest stop, he discovers the body of an alien in a cave, and strange things begin to happen. People whom he encounters see strange visions after they touch the alien, and while he's working in an airport bar to make some gas money, he begins to pretend that the Alien, whom he names Jed, is a ventriloquist's dummy. His routine is a little more inspired than he thinks, and he attracts the unwanted attention of Army Intelligence when somehow the dead alien (maybe he's only mostly dead), inspires him to reel off the chemical formula for a very efficient high explosive.

Ross Ed decides it's time to move on, and the rest of the book sees him pursued by the Army, bounty hunters, UFO nuts, L.A. producers, a couple of alien races, some revolutionaries, and a drug lord. Everyone wants a piece of Jed, and our hero from Texas ain't giving him up. Quirky entertainment, but nothing deep or especially new here.

The Fair Tax Book by Neal Boortz

Review written in 2005
This book is an explanation, or perhaps an apologetic for, the passage of HR-25, the Fair Tax Act of 2005 (which I assume didn't pass). Boortz and his co-author, Congressman John Linder, describe our current mess of a Federal Income Tax system and their proposed solution, its repeal and the institution of a national sales tax.

Unlike most people, I'm well aware of just how much money gets sucked out of my paycheck every month by withholding taxes. I've tracked my income and expenses with personal financial software for about ten years now, and I get to see a graphical representation of just how much the government is confiscating. So, their revelations were no great surprise to me. What was more interesting was their description of some of the hidden costs of taxation, such as how corporations merely pass on the cost of their income taxes to the consumer, thus resulting in higher prices, and the impact of tax considerations on everyday decisions made by American business, as well as the financial and productivity costs of tax compliance.

There was a short section on IRS horror stories. I'm sure one could find many more in other books or publications.

Most of the book, however, is spent discussing the details and merits of their proposal. I'm including here, from the FAQs on their organizations web site, http://www.fairtax.org/, a thumbnail sketch of the plan:
"The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a rebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar revenue neutrality, and the repeal of the 16th Amendment.

This nonpartisan legislation (HR 25/S 25) abolishes all federal personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes and replaces them all with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax - collected by existing state sales tax authorities. The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend, not on what we earn. It does not raise any more or less revenue; it is designed to be revenue neutral. So it is also cost neutral - the final cost for goods and services changes little under the FairTax. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system."

All in all, I think their proposal has some pretty strong merits. I did have some questions about the details of implementation, however. I also am somewhat pessimistic about the chances of ever enacting such a law, given the strong lobbying positions of the many special interests who feel that a "transparent" tax system is not in their favor.

If you want to do some serious thinking about taxes, read this book. I strongly suggest you visit the web site, too.

Undone by Rachel Caine

I hadn't previously read any of Rachel Caine's books, so I saw this was the first book in a new series, Outcast Season, and thought it would be a good place to start. Somewhat unfortunately, this series is tightly intertwined with her Weather Warden series, so I had to interpolate a bit in the mystery areas, and managed to get by without understanding any of the history.

Undone is the story of a djinn, Cassiel, who has disobeyed one of the djinn chieftains and is exiled to Earth in the body of a human being. She finds refuge, albeit grudgingly, among the Weather Wardens, and is dependent on them to provide her with power, without which she will die. She is assigned to an Earth Warden named Manny, and he finds her a place to live and gives her a job assisting him in his duties, which seem to be things like defusing earthquakes before they build to dangerous levels. If I had read the other series, I'd probably understand what all the versions of wardens do a little better, but I've placed the first book in that series on hold at the library, so I should be caught up in a couple of months.

As one might expect, there are evil forces in play, and Cassiel and Manny come under attack for no apparent reason. As they work together, and Cassiel comes to know Manny's wife, Angela, and his daughter, Isabel, and also comes to know something the djinn have never learned - love, though she doesn't recognize it as anything more than a strange annoying feeling at first. Sounds pretty human to me.

As the forces against them escalate, and the situation grows more dire, they are joined by Manny's brother, Luis. Cassiel feels a different sort of attraction for Luis, which we humans recognize quite reaadily, but which has her even more mystified. I'll give you three guesses.

So, this feels like a good start to the series to me, although I thought that the potency of the enemies they faced escalated awfully fast. Not sure what Caine will do to top things as she goes along. It's also got a bit of a shameless cliffhanger at the end, forcing us to forever wonder about a beloved character, or just go buy the darned second book. I think the third one has already been published, so I imagine we're in for the long haul, folks.

Mailbox Monday

Can't wait to sink my teeth into this one.

Book Blogger Hop - March 4 to 7

Time for another Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Jennifer at Crazy for Books.

Today's question:
"Who's your all-time favorite book villain?"

Saruman, from Lord of the Rings trilogy by Tolkien.

Just like most of the characters which Tolkien wrote, Saruman had a well thought out history. We glimpse bits and pieces of it through the trilogy, and in the LotR apocrypha. The wizards in Middle Earth were basically powerful angelic beings sent to oppose evil, and were very highly regarded by both elves and men. Saruman, like another famous semi-literary figure, fell victim to his pride, and eventually a lust for power. In his brief dialogs with Gandalf it becomes evident that his ego must be fed at all times, and one who was in the high councils of the mighty found himself craving more. More recognition, more power, more knowledge. He was the expert on the Palintiri, and looked deep into the heart of Sauron, who deceived him into believing that Saruman and Sauron could rule Middle Earth together. He's such a great villain because he just feels "real", not like some cardboard cutout thug placed in the story only as a foil for our hero.

A Deeper Blue by John Ringo

A Deeper Blue is the fifth and possibly final novel in this series. Mike, Kildar, Jenkins is in a self-induced drunken stupor at the start of this novel, emotionally incapacitated by the loss of a loved one in the previous book (spoiler?). Unfortunately, islamic terrorists have teamed up with drug runners in the Caribbean to attempt to import VX nerve gas to the continental US, and perpetrate a WMD attack. When the President calls, Mike won't answer, so his second in command, Adams, and some of the intel and combat teams head to Florida to work with the CIA, FBI, ATF, and all the alphabet soup you can eat to try to stop the terrorists.

When Adams and Vanner, the Kildar's intel chief, are shot in a raid that turns into a trap, Mike must rouse himself from his caravanserai and head for the States to avenge them and continue the operation. There's lots of great action on the high seas, as the Mountain Tigers take to cigarette boats to pursue the smugglers, others fast-rope onto a freighter to interrogate the crew, and Katya "Cottontail" impersonates a Girls Gone Wild coed to infiltrate the drug lord's yacht.

True to form, no surprises here. Action-packed fun for mature audiences only.

Pale Demon by Kim Harrison

I was so excited, waiting for this book, and it got to be the first actual purchase for my Xmas Nook! The purchase and download went far too smoothly to be believed, and I was reading it within minutes. This novel in The Hollows series gives us a chance to see a little more of Harrison's world than she has revealed before.

Rachel must travel to San Francisco to attend her brother's wedding, and to attend a Coven meeting where she hopes to get the sanctions and shunning brought against her by the witches removed. Rachel has been caught one too many times performing black magic, and the situation doesn't look good, except that she has been assured of some covert support at the meeting by a couple of the witches who have seen her in action, Oliver and Vivian. You know, this whole series has just a touch of that out-of-the-frying-pan flavor that I like so well, as Rachel has mostly been caught in reactive mode to the changes around her, and as she discovers more about herself, the world she's been born into, and the elves, witches, weres and demons around her, she has used that knowledge to survive the latest round of slings and arrows, figuratively speaking, grow up, and move on.

Trent also has business on the West Coast, it transpires, and needs to hire Rachel to be his bodyguard for the trip. She still has him bound to herself as a familiar, as a consequence of the last escapade in the series, but has agreed to remove the curse from him, and break the unnatural ties that bind them. Trent is being forced into a closer association with Rachel than either of them would apparently prefer - leaving deeper, less conscious feelings out of the situation - because Ceri is about to have her baby, and his real bodyguard and manservant, Quen, refuses to leave Cincinatti at this crucial time. Trent won't disclose the nature of his business to Rachel, except to say that it is very important, and personal, and as you might well imagine, this doesn't sit well with her. She just has to keep poking and prying at things.

When agents of the Coven conspire to block Rachel from getting on a direct flight to San Francisco (why don't any of these people use their brooms in the manner they're supposed to? I mean, if those teen upstarts from Hogwarts can do it, why not?), she, Ivy, Jenks and Trent are forced to travel by land, across the country. Road trip on steroids! Or maybe hemorrhoids. They start out in Trent's HumVee and ride in style for a while, but after an couple of attacks by either the Coven's goons or Trent's former in-laws, they are forced to abandon that vehicle in Saint Louis and proceed in Rachel's mom's battlestar of a car.

This is the first time, I think, that we've been given much of a glimpse at what lies outside of the big urban areas after The Turn. The badlands went really really bad. People generally try to stick to the interstates whenever possible, as you never know what sort of creatures are lurking in the shadowy byways of America these days. So, the road trip in Pale Demon isn't Kerouac, by any stretch of the imagination, but it serves as a pretty good plot...er...vehicle.

Lots of time in this book for Harrison to flesh out her major characters a bit further, and there are many lessons learned on the nature of loyalty, family, and love. Drat the wait, I want to see what happens next!

Choosers of the Slain by John Ringo

Possibly the best part of this book comes from the forward, "Any attempt to learn anything from these books is disrecommended by the author, the publisher and the author's mother who wishes to state that he was a very nice boy and she doesn't know what went wrong." Ringo cracks me up sometimes.

In the third book in the Paladin of Shadows series, Mike is pretty well settled in as the ruler, or Kildar, of his own private Idaho in Georgia (the country not the state). The training of his mountain militia is going well, and the training of his harem even better. The crops are coming in and the new brewery is almost built. What more can a man ask for?

Well, a normal man might not ask for anything much, but a senator sure will, and when Mike is called to Washington to meet with a powerful member of the President's opposition, he's not especially happy about it. It seems that one of the congressman's friends has lost his daughter in Eastern Europe somewhere, presumably kidnapped and sold into white slavery. Senator Traskel makes an offer the Kildar can't quite refuse, both because of the five million dollar reward and his nagging sense that something just doesn't smell quite right here.

So Mike takes some of his fighters and intel folks off into the hinterlands - actually, they start in the hinterlands and head to the big cities - to see what they can dig up. The problem of sexual slavery is huge in the ruins of ancient Samarkand, and Mike smells a great big rat living in the moral sewers.

Just another rapid-fire adventure, complete with the usual sex and blood and rock and roll. There is one amusing side plot going on, with the Keldaran lad Mike has designated to get the marketing started for Mountain Tiger beer booking a convention booth in Sin City. Mike and his troupe of lovelies and heavies take a break from the combat action to fly into town, wow the sales reps, and disrupt the smooth operations of a couple of governments, while they're at it.

Kildar by John Ringo

Kildar is the second book in the Paladin of Shadows series, which starts with Ghost. In this book, Mike wandering through Eastern Europe, looking for a place to lie low after foiling several terrorist plots in the last book. He's driving through a snowstorm in Georgia (the country, not the state) and gets stranded in a small town in the mountains. While getting to know the local constabulary a bit, he discovers an old caravanserai for sale for a cool million Euros, with ownership rights to a small valley with tenant farmers also thrown in, which turns out to be just what he needs.

The tenant farmers are called the Keldara, and in an amazingly convenient coincidence, all of the women turn out to be supermodel gorgeous and the men to be the descendents of ancient warriors. Mike sets out to modernize the valley and its subistence farming techniques to improve the lives of the Keldara, and hires a cadre of his old special forces pals to train up a mountain militia to defend his new digs, and incidentally to interdict Chechen terrorist movements through the area.

As one might expect from experience with Ghost, the story is filled with lots of military trivia, graphic battles, and gratuitous sex. The climax (if you'll forgive the expression) is reached when Mike's Keldaran forces defeat a light batallion of Chechen bad guys with five squads of half-trained farm boys, who catch on to soldiering like tigers in a sheep cot, and when they rescue a group of girls who were sold to the Chechens to be sex slaves and Mike diverts them to his own harem, for lack of any better ideas.

Oh, and most importantly, the women of the valley brew the best beer in the known universe.

Just a fun romp to while away the hours.