Rameau's Revie Archive: Taxes and TARDIS by N. R. Walker

Rameau's ramblings: Apparently according to Goodreads this edition is no longer available. Hmm. I wonder why. Originally posted on Goodreads on December 19th 2012. 

Synopsis:
Brent Kelly is a laid-back tradesman whose only concerns are drinks with friends and which man to bed next. In need of a new accountant to sort out his nightmarish shoebox of tax receipts, he's referred to Logan Willis. He doesn't expect to be intrigued by the science fiction-loving, geeky guy with dark-rimmed glasses and a TARDIS-blue shirt. So his fascination with the soft-spoken Englishman surprises him, and their mutual attraction is completely unexpected. He most certainly never expects to fall in love. One a jock and the other a geek, both men know the differences between them are vast and could cause problems. But in this opposites-attract erotic drama, maybe it's the differences between them that make staying together worth the fight.

Taxes and TARDIS by N.R. Walker

I liked the Tardis coloured shirt and nothing else. Even the occasional witty lines were depressing because, obviously, everything else had been sacrificed for them.

Brent and Logan meet, they have sex—a lot—and they apparently fall in love. The only reason I know this is because they say so at the end. I couldn’t detect any sort of character development or sketching in between every single romantic cliché imaginable and the fanfiction-like writing.

What’s it called when a porn-without-a-plot story tries to introduce and is ruined by brief plot-like scenes? Whatever it is, this book suffers from it. And to add insult to injury the smut isn’t even that good.

I’ve read my share of original romantic stories revolving around Doctor Who fandom, and some of them were even good. This wasn’t.

Review: Soul Meaning (Seventeen) by A.D. Starrling

Book info:

Form: pdf format

Genre: paranormal thriller

Target audience: everybody interested in the genre I suppose

Synopsis:

Lucas Soul…an immortal like no other. He’s been hunted and despised for centuries just because he is a ‘half-breed’ – born of a Bastian mother and a Crovir father, apparently a major boo-boo among both immortal factions. He’s been shunned and forgotten – mostly. His seventeen shots at death have been serving him well enough to keep him alive and kicking unitl modern times. Now the years of relative peace and quiet are coming to an end.

All of a sudden Lucas finds herself mercilessly chased by the Hunters – elite Crovir killers- and dies twice during one week, kind of grim record for him. Being on your last life is no fun – Lucas and his completely human partner, Reid Hasley, must find out why the Crovir decided to change their policy so abruptly and discover many other secrets while touring Europe in a truly extreme style.

My impressions:

It was one of those stories you can enjoy while being in an appropriate set of mind. It reminded me of Indiana Jones movies – full of action, with a dash of info about this or that, a whiff of romance and a lot of running, shooting, killing and escaping while the characters were trying to save the world and their hides. Don’t take them too seriously and you’ll be fine – entertained, amused, even distracted from the ugly reality for an hour or so. Did this book managed to work its magic? Partially.

My first general remark – the author knows a lot about different machines and she loves describing them. Cars, motorcycles, helicopters, guns, computers and such seemed to play an important role in the adventures of Lucas & co. Apart from that she knows biology, chemistry and human anatomy quite well (yes, her background shows).

My second remark: there were many historical events and figures mentioned in this one, among them Miyamoto Musashi, one of the most famous samurai of Japan and Jan Sobieski, a Polish hetman and then the king of Poland who saved Vienna from the Turks in the 17th century. Despite the fact that those tidbits were sometimes presented in the form of small infodumps I was more than ready to forgive it just because they existed. I also liked the fact that the majority the book were set in different European countries.

Of course there were things I didn’t like.

What made Indiana Jones movies so popular and watchable? After all they were pretty stupid productions which you could easily accuse of different transgressions against the laws of physics, common logic and history. However one thing made them stand out – the fact that the protagonist and also some supportive characters, e.g. Indiana’s father, were as three-dimensional and funny as it was only possible in such films. What about Lucas Soul? 

I do hope deep down he is one nice guy but I think in this book he simply didn’t have time to present his colourful personality. In other words for me it was too much action too little character development. I liked Reid and Lucas' banter, they added the much needed comic relief between all the fighting and dying that was going on but it was too little. Our poor immortal had to slash and duck and shoot and run and give chase with little or no respite from the beginning to the very end - I felt tired just reading about it. A HALO jump? No problem. Shooting grenade launchers in the middle of a university campus in broad daylight ? What fun! Jumping from burning helicopters onto skyscraper roofs? A piece of cake! Slaughtering a bunch of Hunters? Give me a minute or two and it is done...

I understand it is an action-driven novel but still I think a bit more balance in the narration would make it better. What’s more, Agatha Vellacrus and Felix Thorne, the two main baddies, were as thin as cardboard – you could count their lines using only your fingers and they existed solely to be vanquished. Ok, it is just the first installment, perhaps it will be better. To tell you the truth I prefer a weaker first part and stronger rest than the other way round – it is really painful to watch a series going downwards.

My other carpings?

Let me start with a direct quote:

“I left the car, crossed the shallow fore garden and knocked on the front door. It was opened by an elderly gentleman.‘Je peux vous aider?’ said the man in a frail voice, blinking in the porch light.”

‘Je peux vous aider?” Hmm…very informal bordering incorrect. I think in the context (an old man inquiring a complete stranger of the purpose of his visit) it was a mistake. It should be „Puis-je vous aider?” Or if you wanted to avoid a bit dated and stiff verb form (but hey, it was un vielliard speaking!) he could say: “Pourrais-je/ Est-ce que je peux vous aider ?“or simply “Que’est-ce que vous souhetez ici, Monsieur?”

It would be also nice if different characters, Lucas among them, could restrain themselves from saying or commenting something ‘drily’ or ‘wryly’ throughout the narration – if I drank a shot every time they did it I would get completely sozzled after the first half of the book.

One more thing and a serious spoiler, highlight to read or skip:

Anna Godard and Lucas Soul are each other’s love interest. They also happen to be close cousins – as close as you can get. Their mothers were sisters and their fathers were brothers. I know they are immortals and soul mates so perhaps different rules apply here but…ick.

Final verdict:

Not bad for a debut novel, a high-octane paranormal thriller to boot. The epilogue really made me curious about the whole immortal business but the lack of proper character building kind of ruined this one for me. I do hope the next installment will be slower and better. Because it can be slower and better. I think the author has a lot of potential for that. :)

Rameau's Review Archive: Galley Proof by Eric Arvin

Rameau's ramblings: Originally posted on Goodreads on March 21st 2012. 

Synopsis:
Fiction writer Logan Brandish is perfectly happy in his peaceful small-town routine with his best friend, his cat, and his boyfriend—until he meets the editor of his next book, the handsome Brock Kimble, and the lazy quiet of everyday living goes flying out the window. Faced with real passion for the first time, Logan becomes restless and agitated, and soon his life and his new manuscript—a work in progress he’d always thought would be completed—are in a shambles.

But as Logan is learning, you can’t always get what you want… at least not right away. To take his mind off the mess, he takes a trip, but even the beautiful Italian, um, scenery can’t keep his thoughts from his erstwhile editor for long. Logan just might have to admit there are some things you can’t run from.

Galley Proof by Eric Arvin

Everybody has read those books–usually they come with horrendous cover art–that start with an apparent self-ironic scene that tries to justify using a cliché. It's some trope that has been beaten, hit, struck, battered, hammered, trashed, pummelled, and flattened to the ground ages ago. And for a while it works.

The author works his ass off and makes the first person past tense voice of his character sound like something hilarious, something new, refreshing, and witty. Then he crosses the line from a fine comedy to unadulterated spoof and ruins the effect. If you, the reader, are very lucky the narrative still sounds entertaining enough to carry through to the end and lets you finish a book instead of feeding your DNF pile.

If you're very, extremely, exceptionally, not-that-uncommonly-at-all unfortunate, you'll end up with a WTF face and whole lot of wasted hours. Hours of your life that you'll never be able to reclaim. At which point you either decide to move on and give this author a wide berth in the future, or you decide to give something back to the reading community and write a longwinded review that starts with a handful of meta-paragraphs sure to annoy innocent review readers.



Welcome to my life.

This book reads like an autobiography trying to be self-ironic and falling short by miles. It's like the author decided to skip coming up with anything original or fictional and instead document his day-to-day life in the publishing world. Maybe his editor told him to throw in a few outrageous characters and give them the kind of urban legend lives you only hear around the water cooler or wherever the workers go to smoke illicitly. Maybe the author was bored and decided to imitate a handful of his idols–in one book.

Whatever led to the creation and publication of this book, is everything that's wrong with the publishing industry today. This book is unbalanced, tactless, and inane. If it had to be published, why couldn't it be an in-house newsletter to amuse the people who are able to recognise and appreciate the publishing jokes. If it had to be published as a gay romance novel or erotica wannabe, why not write one. If this had to be published at all, why not just do it and NOT market it as something it's not.

This book is mislabelled as a gay romance. It's mislabelled as a romance. There's no romance here. There is simply a string of sex scenes and fuckbuddies without anything resembling a plot.

Also, Arvin went there. He had the ex-editor-fuckbuddy-friend attack-comment on a one star rating-review. How is this any better than the author–still talking about the book characters, just want to make it clear for Goodreads staff–himself commenting on a negative review? Just having it in the book is like condoning bad behaviour and I've had my limit. I would have given this book one star regardless, this just removed any guilt I might have felt.

Had Galley Proof been shelved under general fiction I might be more forgiving to the abrupt style changes and the utter lack of the thin red line that connects it all, but it wasn't and I'm not. If only Arvin had said what he made his character say:

"I have decided it's not worth my time to write nor is it worth her time to read."

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

You can also read this review on Sandra's My Fiction Nook-blog.

Review: Shaedes of Gray (Shaede Assassin 01) by Amanda Bonilla

Book info:
Form: pdf, e-book
Genre: paranormal romance, urban fantasy
Target audience: adults

 Synopsis (from Goodreads):

"I'd learned the hard way that love is nothing more than the sharpest blade, and it can easily be turned against you. I refused to let anyone have that kind of power over me ever again."

Darian has lived alone for almost a century in the shadows of the night. Made and abandoned by her former love, Darian is the last of her kind—an immortal Shaede who can slip into darkness as easily as breathing. With no one else to rely on, she has taught herself how to survive, using her unique skills to become a deadly assassin.

Darian finds herself struggling to keep her employer, Tyler, at arm's length, especially since his seductive smile makes her want to break her rules about love. The work he offers is necessary to protect the innocent—and a welcome distraction. But when Darian's next mark turns out to be Xander Peck, King of the Shaede Nation, her whole worldview is thrown into question. Darian begins to wonder if she has taken on more than her conscience will allow, but a good assassin never leaves a job unfinished.

My impressions or rather...a list of sins with the appropriate quotes to illustrate my points better :

1.
"I wore my signature black—tight pants, low on my waist; long-sleeved black nylon turtleneck that clung to every curve of my body; black boots (of course); and, to top it off, a long black duster. I admit, the coat was a little over the top, but I love dramatics."

Dear Darian- are you an assassin or a fashionista ? Who cares what you wear to work? A tip – not me. Wardrobe descriptions are so boring, especially in fantasy action books, that they should be banned unless they actually contribute to the plot. Not your case, I presume.

2.
"God, he smelled good. Comforting, like fresh-baked cinnamon bread or something equally delicious and loaded with rich spices. His unique scent swirled around in my head, and I wanted nothing more than to lean into him, feel the weight of his arms around me as I breathed him in. But then my common sense gave me a swift kick in the ass."

Olfactory overload alert – honestly, Darian, I don’t need and I don’t want to know how you think Tyler smells. I wish your common sense kicked your ass much earlier – if a guy smells so much his personal grooming level must be abysmal.

3.
"Ty never overdid it in the clothing department. He was a jeans and T-shirt guy all the way, but he knew how to make the simple garments complement his lean, muscular body. Tyler’s not even a notch below Calvin Klein underwear-model physique, and has a tousled mop of goldand-bronze-streaked hair and strange hazel eyes—green with a brownish star surrounding the pupil. A garbage bag would’ve looked like an Armani suit on him."

No, not fashion again, please, I promise, I will be good from now on, I’ll tell you everything, just don’t torture me with fashion…by the way that’s the best characterization of Tyler you can get. He is like a paper cut, heavily photoshoped male model who can’t exist because the evolution wouldn’t be so dumb to allow him to – it would be a complete waste of oxygen.

4.
"He needed to forget about me and find himself a pretty human woman to grow old and die with. And then I’d be truly alone. Wouldn’t I? 
Rain pattered against the round toes of my thick-soled boots, and I watched the drops splatter like the tears I refused to shed."

There is nothing worse than an assassin talking fashion – unless you can find an emo assassin talking alternately fashion and self-pitying rubbish chapter after chapter. Darian, I am looking at you right now.

5.
"I looked like a Goth kid’s wet dream, sitting in my black sex-kitten outfit, sipping a rum and Coke, exuding little to no emotion on the outside while my insides writhed like angry vipers."

My first general remark: your ego, dear girl, needs some pruning asap or one day you will die under it, literally crushed by its weight. My second general remark: if you wear a black sex-kitten outfit to work then you are not an assassin, you are a prostitute. My third general remark: you seem to be having diarrhoea and you aren’t aware of it– my commiserations.

6.
"Even from across the apartment, his eyes held me captive. Melted caramel flecked with gold, possessing the bright glow that I knew mine had, though his were more brilliant. The smell of him permeated the air, filling my studio with a sweetness that would put a field of wildflowers to shame. His lips curled up at the corners, hinting at an arrogant smile."

Meet Xander Peck, an overripe hottie Darian failed to murder; another jerk who will invade and foul clean air around you like an unpleasant air freshener in a dirty car. Put on your gas mask, quick!

7.
"Abandoning my signature black, I was decked out in white from head to toe. My white-on-white striped blouse buttoned up to the swell of my breasts, with my white bra visible underneath. I’d tucked the shirt into a white pencil skirt that reached to my white satin heels and hugged my hips perfectly. Business attire, to an extent."

Business attire? With a visible bra and satin heels? Unless, once again, you mean THAT kind of business…with an additional wedding-themed kink.

8.
"Despite his outrage, Tyler knew I was no delicate flower. In fact, once he’d said that I could probably take on an entire company of Navy SEALs and kill them before they knew I was there. He was right, of course."

*rolleyes* And who is a shameless, stupid braggart again? Darian of course. Honestly if your main character says such things about herself you can't help despising her.

9.
"But I kept my standards high, refusing to take any job that involved an innocent. The men who paid me eventually met their ends. Once or twice at my hand. I’d worked for a Russian mob boss for years, and just like the others, his luck had run out. That’s when I met Tyler."

Who do you think you’re fooling, Darian? High standards, no innocents involved, and a Russian mob? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on. By the way who died and made you God to distinguish between innocents and guilty?

10.

All the sins have been taken from the first part only, mind you. Add to those: an insufferable love triangle, insta-lust, nonexistent female characters other than the heroine, a very awkward, 1st person limited narration which can be put to shame by many fanfic authors, woody dialogues, infodumps galore, a freakin’ katana and you get something I mistook for a novel and is, in fact, a collection of dumbest, most obnoxious cliches. 

Final verdict:

An unintelligent being with an overinflated opinion of herself gets beat up by anything not human, still never learns, and is annoyingly vulnerable to masculine good looks. And forget about the Bechdel test because who needs company of other women when there are GUYS around. Your life should completely revolve around guys even if you are that kick-ass assassin chick, right?

A DNF, nuff said.

Rameau's Review Archive: Gold Mountain by Sharon Cullars

Rameau's ramblings: I had high hopes for this book once. Originally posted on Goodreads November 21st 2012.

Synopsis:
In 1865, the hope for gold has spurred many to seek their fortunes in California, the place the Chinese call Gum San or "Gold Mountain." Amidst this backdrop, Quiang, a new Chinese immigrant, works the dangerous rails hoping to save enough money to send home to his parents. In town, Leah and Clara, two enterprising women from New York, have plans of their own to grow a restaurant and laundry business. However, both plans go awry when Quiang and Leah meet one fateful day. What starts as a budding attraction soon grows into tumultuous desire despite the cultural and language barriers between them.

Initially resistant, Leah succumbs to passion following a tragic loss that leaves her vulnerable and alone. With hopes for a future that now includes Leah, Quiang embarks on a perilous path as he leaves the railroad behind for a more profitable position as a courier for The Tong, henchmen for the dangerous Triad. Quiang soon finds that navigating the secretive life of a courier brings more danger than he has ever faced on the railroad, dangers that not only threaten to tear him and Leah apart, but may cost them their lives as well.

Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content and graphic language.

Gold Mountain by Sharon Cullars

This review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.

It’s been six months but I remember buying this book because I’d seen a semi-positive review on a blog—Dear Author probably—and because a romance of a mixed-race couple in the 1860’s Wild West sounded intriguing. Especially since neither character is white.

Unfortunately the story didn’t live up to its promise.

I did like the start of the book, although I did think it somewhat boring. The author spends a lot of time setting the scene and describing the life of a Chinese worker building the railroads for a pittance and the life of a black single woman trying to build a new life and a business for herself and her friend. Bias, racism, sexism, it’s all there and prevalent in the vernacular.

As if that’s not enough to create obstacles to the couple’s happiness, there’s also their inability to fully understand each other. Quiang speaks but a little English and he and Leah have to communicate through gestures, looks, and touches.

There’s all this, and what does the author do with it? Nothing. Cullars glosses over all the difficult—and rewarding—steps of a meaningful relationship building and focuses on the paper thin physical attraction instead. There’s a brief mention of how Leah and Quiang learn to communicate with the help of a dictionary, but they don’t really talk to each other. When they’re together they’re either taking their clothes of and having sex or putting their clothes on and thinking about having sex. And those sex scenes are bad. There’s creaming and there’s tumescence, there’s orbs and there’s the infamous “her sex” euphemism.

After all that, the story and my rating for it could have been saved had I bought Quiang’s interactions with the triad members. I can’t really pinpoint my problem with them, but something in the language used left me unconvinced. It wasn’t just Wao’s refusal to call an erection an erection, it was also how the revelation of the misappropriation was handled. Until then, I had liked Quiang’s willingness to engage in shady businesses for quick profit and that both characters had such defined lives outside each other, after it just felt anticlimactic.

I didn’t want a happily ever after epilogue, I wanted to read how they get there.

So what does the book have? Good historical description with nascent characterisations, but without any real character or relationship development, and a whiff of Wild West adventures. It simply wasn’t enough for me.

Review: The Island by Lisa Henry

Book info:
Form: pdf e-book
Genre: m/m romance, suspence/thriller
Target audience: adults only

Synopsis:

Adam Shaw is smuggling a stolen Cezanne, The Boy in the Red Vest, to a private tropical island somewhere in the Fiji archipelago. The island is owned by a rich drug warlord called Vornis who is also the buyer of the painting. Shaw hopes to earn a lot and to gain precious business contacts as well – happy Vornis has invited some of his buddies (read: high-profile criminals, filthy rich and influential) to celebrate the Cezanne acquisition . Shaw is also rewarded for his troubles with more than money– as a welcome gift he is lent a young man who is supposed to fulfill all his sexual fantasies. A fuck buddy. A live toy. A sex slave. All depends on your own definition of morality. Soon enough Shaw feels responsible for the fate of Lee although it is absolutely against his own best interest.

Stolen from Zurich, recovered in Serbia on April 12, 2012

The normal life for Lee Anderson ended when he was captured by Vornis men during a DEA raid in Colombia. All his team dead, he caught the eye of Vornis himself and was allowed to live. And suffer. First he was imprisoned, then transported to the private island while repeatedly beaten, raped, drugged, tortured, debased and humiliated by a very gifted sadist and anybody from his entourage who expressed such a wish. He was moulded into a thing, treated worse than an animal, reduced to a form of casual and very cruel entertainment.

When he is sent to Adam Shaw’s hut he expects nobody else but another monster who wants to take advantage of his helplessness and hurt him. To his surprise he meets with cunning kindness and compassion instead. He starts to hope against hope that somehow he will be saved before it is too late. But will he, really?

What I liked:

I am not a fan of m/m romance but this novel was really good and I can appreciate a good story when I read one. The character of Shaw was really ambiguous enough to make me forget his constant repetitions which after a while, could be construed as whining. Well, they were not. They bordered philosophy. I am a sucker for philosophy in novels. Shaw fought hard and long to manage his position with grace, not to succumb to the charm of Lee’s innocence. He fought and lost because he was not a monster. Still he felt really uncomfortable being where he was – on an indecently beautiful island, dined and wined by Vornis, a real monster BDSM sadist who had to be deceived and cajoled because he could turn vicious and murder his guest any time. Only near the end you find out why Shaw was so willing to play his role to the bitter end. I wish he was reading Nietzsche.

The ordeal of Lee was horrible but I really loved the fact that the author didn’t stop half-way and didn’t end her narration right after the successful rescue (as it often happens in such a books). The fact that she showed Lee’s struggle afterwards was the most compelling part of the book in my view because being rescued is one thing and learning to live with your burden of experiences is quite another, sometimes even more daunting task. It is not a coincidence that some Holocaust survivors committed suicide years after being rescued from Nazi death camps.

I also loved how the romance between Lee and Shaw was developed – slowly, steadily, without the unnecessary rush (mind you I mean here romance, not sex, which is not the same). It made the final much more real and gripping, especially that you didn’t know what to expect practically to the last page.

What I didn’t like:

In short: lack of research. I could stop here but I decided to give my darker side an opportunity to charm you. :)

I admit I wondered how come Shaw, being on an inhabited tropical island in the middle of Pacific with just a laptop enjoyed a decent Internet connection (small wonder, taking into account the fact that my own Internet was shaky at that very moment I was simply jealous like hell) but I could write such a blunder off. I wondered how come Vornis didn’t attempt to hack into Shaw’s computer to check his mailbox but perhaps he wasn’t that curious and/or safety-crazy. I admit I smiled with indulgence while reading that a certain woman called Irina (a nice Russian name) said ‘ukochany’ (a Polish word) twice but still it was just a fluff, who can distinguish between all those Slavic people and their strange languages (certainly not an Aussie). But after a while I reached a major slip-up. Really major and completely Anglo-Saxon if not straightforwardly American. Let me present my case properly.

One of the main characters, the hapless and much abused Lee Anderson, just 22, is a simple boy, apparently without any university degree or/and experience. His dad and mum own a small, local hardware store somewhere in the Midwest so they are neither influential nor rich. According to the author Lee wanted to join the police force but somehow he happened to find a job with the DEA; he was even taken on one of their foreign special missions which actually was the beginning of the whole ordeal. You might start thinking now that the DEA is something like a soft option for those who don’t qualify as cops but aren’t completely hopeless either. And here everything goes down crashing, at least for me.

I am aware that Ms. Henry is Australian but hey, I am not an American as well. Still even a very perfunctory and basic Google search (I made it really short and sweet) allowed me to gather plenty of ammunition for this section of my review. Yes, call me anal, call me anything you want; still the facts remain as follows (I am quoting here the Wikipedia and the official DEA website, both sources easy to find and completely accessible to the wider audience):

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States. WITHIN mind you, not abroad (more about it later).

Yes, they can employ you but not without a training and, according to their website, the average age of the students is 30 years. 30, not 20. Why? Approximately 60 percent of all trainees arrive with prior law enforcement experience, while 30 percent come from a military background. In addition, the majority of the students possess a bachelor’s degree and nearly 20 percent have some post-graduate educational experience. After receiving a conditional offer of employment, recruits must make it through a 19-week rigorous training which consist of firearms proficiency including basic marksmanship, weapons safety, tactical shooting, and deadly force decision training. As you see they don’t offer entry positions for barely adult wannabe cops and you don’t have to be a genius to realize that in real world somebody like Lee would never stand a chance of employment.

Could he go abroad with them? Yes, he could – but once again only theoretically. You see, DEA has a section called Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams (FAST – isn’t it a nice acronym by the way?). Still the selection for FAST is extremely difficult; attrition rates are usually above 50%. Selection is rumored to last 8 weeks where events such as timed runs, timed ruck sack marches, land navigation and many others are conducted daily. Once selection is complete, advanced training begins with emphasis in small unit tactics, and close quarters battle. Only after such a training the FAST agents are sent abroad. It definitely sounds more like SEAL or SAS than a job opportunity for young, undereducated police hopefuls without any skills. Now tell me, can you imagine Lee as one of FAST agents? I have to admit that I can’t – not with the characterization he was given.

I really do understand why Ms Henry needed Lee to be a bit gullible and as young as possible. She had to present him as a puppy-cute youth, vulnerable, impressionable, mentally fragile but also full of the desire to live, with his whole adulthood before him. Shaw, the older and more experienced guy, was sometimes literally hurt just imagining the wasted potential Lee represented. Still making him a DEA agent ruined the whole premise for me because such an individual would be noticeably older, more devious, definitely better trained and not so innocent and defenseless as the fictional Lee was, even facing such a monster as Vornis. Perhaps such a hardened version of Lee would make the whole story better, who knows. It would certainly made me a happier reader.

BTW I am not a fan of the cover art either. Just a torso with artificial abs ? Not impressed. Give me the island instead!

Final verdict:

A surprisingly good story, flawless when it comes to the psychology, told in an interesting way, with some nice characters. As long as you don’t explore the DEA angle too closely you’ll be fine even if you don’t like m/m romance.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

Rameau's ramblings: Blodeuedd and I had a little discussion about this book and you can find it on her blog later today. 

Synopsis: 
It began with rumors from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginnings of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse. Faced with a future of mindless, man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality.

Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the 10-year fight-back against the horde, World War Z brings the very finest traditions of American journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of civilisation.

Max Brooks lives in New York City but is ready to move to a more remote and defensible location at a moment's notice. His Zombie Survival Guidewas adopted as a required text by all of the world's basic military training programs during the recent global conflict.



Zombies are not my thing. I don’t squee every time I find a decent novel about them nor do I queue to see the horror films about them. Slow-moving rotting flesh in a romance plot is definitely not my thing either.

So it’s a good thing that this book isn’t about zombies at all.

Excuse me what? You splutter.

Yes, you read that right, World War Z isn’t really about zombies. It’s about the world and people in it, namely Americans. No, the citizens of the United States of America would be more accurate. This is an American novel about Americans today, or rather about U.S. and its inhabitants seven or ten years ago. Things don’t change that much in a decade though, so it still applies.

The slow-moving rotting flesh is just an ugly mirror that produces a surprisingly clear image. It allows the characters to look back and explain in gory detail who they were before the Great Panic and how they’ve changed for the better. It allows a suburban mom to explain how she viewed some latinos clean and rational opposed to all the rest. It allows a child who grew up during the ten year zombie war to explain how her materialistic priorities have changed. It allows a jaded young man to explain how he learned to appreciate an outdated institution or how another like him found value in real life as opposed to the cyber reality he’d been hiding in. It allows the foot soldiers to explore in depth how rigid command structures can be a hindrance before they learn to adapt and become a strength.

And that same distorted mirror allows the reader see what the characters themselves fail to understand: How a victory and change can make some things worse even when it fixes other problems. It allows the author to outsource his and the nations greatest fears to other faraway places that they’ve always been afraid of. Or how else do you interpret what Russia becomes after the war?

Brooks takes the reader around world, China, South Africa, a few places in Europe, Australia, Canada, and allows those countries to take responsibility for some of the atrocities and failures that end up dooming and saving the world. Setting it all up in the U.S. would have ignored the realities of travel in the modern world and it would have made the story near claustrophobic. It’s a funny word to use in this context but it applies. The bigger the picture Brooks paints the more specific the message and the intended audience are.

Usually, I detest first person voice storytelling and a step below that are the stories with multiple first person voices mixed in together. Usually. But here it works. Brooks couldn’t possibly make each and every voice distinct enough to stand on their own, but he litters just enough specialised vocabulary to make it palatable. The format does the rest. Because each and every character is telling their part in a larger story, their voices can’t stand out too much. The story needs to be cohesive for the message to get through:

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Even through a zombie apocalypse.