"Little Book" Review #2

You decide! Or decide here!

One never knows the sensitivities of a reviewer. In this case, my light-hearted book on a dispute over marketing copy between a New Age guru and a viagra salesman received a chilly reception. Last week fire, this week ice. Next week, hot water that's been left out a bit. Onward!

Story Du Jour #15

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small presentation in these trying times.

Welcome to the darker side of reality.

The Dark City Mystery Magazine

"How to Become a Successful 21st Century Cybercriminal in Five Easy Steps" - by James Blakey

4,115 words

Know your Dark Web as a man ventures out into the murky realm of larceny.

Here's a sample of the writing:

"The scent of Sichuan pepper filtering up from the Chinese restaurant filling Andrew’s apartment. He’d grown to hate that smell almost as much the constant yelling and bickering of the employees. Why couldn’t they a argue in English? Then he’d have the satisfaction of understanding their misery.

When he hit it big as a cybercriminal, he’d move to a condo by the beach. He’d always been partial to Nags Head. Or a country home with acreage in the mountains. Maybe both? Show off the place to his dad and sister. Prove to the old man that Andrew wasn’t a loser. And shut Margo up about her fancy college degree. 

Andrew slid open a window allowing the breeze to air out the room. On his laptop, he launched Tor and browsed the Dark Web. During a slow shift at Craig’s, a waitress had turned him onto the maze of websites inaccessible to ordinary internet users. He listened with fascination as she had detailed buying MDMA from an online drug den." 

Longer than most, but reads quickly. Another next week, I'm thinking.

"Little Book" Review

A tip of the pointed hat to Lillyana Shadowlyn over at The Faerie Review for her kind words on The Little Book of Big Enlightenment.

"In this lighthearted fictional look at New Age products and marketing, Tollhaus and his co-author snark, snipe, and leak each other's embarrassing personal information into the pages of a book alerting readers about a fantastic new method for reaching total consciousness in less than five minutes."

Lillyana awarded my metaphysical fiction novella 5 Faeries, stating, "In these crazy times this book has been a welcome break from the norm."

Available on Amazon.

Smashwords.

And coming soon in authentic little book softcover format!

Fear the corporate creep of Big Spirit!

Book Review: The Debut

The Debut by Anita Brookner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A middle-aged academic reflects back on her lonely youth, frustrated by family demands. Bittersweet and humorous, this novel follows French literature student Ruth Weiss as she comes of age and attempts to separate from selfish immature parents.

"...she was expected to grow up as fast as she could decently manage it, and to this end was supplied with sad but improving books."

Nurtured for a time by her fraternal grandmother, Ruth discovers competence in the French language. She sets out to pursue an academic career, specializing in the writings of Balzac. Author Brookner shows an acrobatic deftness, gliding from one point-of-view to the next, handing off between characters with a fluid grace.

The imagery is rich, displayed in such passages as where Ruth describes old furniture "in dark woods which looked as if they had absorbed the blood of horses." Or where Ruth interacts with her aging mother, Helen, who "surveyed her daughter with eyes as impassive as those of an animal long in captivity."

In attempting to shape her own life, Ruth suffers a rueful moment of self reflection, wondering if she would always "react in the same way to those who did not want her, trying ever more hopelessly to please, while others, better disposed, went off unregarded?"

Despite a vague sense of time, I thought the characters were well-drawn, the dialogue neatly crafted, and the ending sad and inevitable, but seeded with wit. A satisfying read for those with a love of language and an appreciation for a clever turn-of-phrase.

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A Most Solemn Memorial Day

As a kid, I remember attending a Memorial Day parade in Wisconsin. Featured were men who'd survived the Bataan Death March eighteen years earlier. Bands played, people cheered, and the veterans, most in their forties, strolled down the street and waved. God knows what they thought of the horrendous brutality and starvation they'd undergone, or the absent comrades bayonetted because they'd collapsed with exhaustion. Still, that sunny day, sacrifices were recalled. By their presence, the survivors called to mind the fallen.

Today in the Philippines, there exists the Manilla American Cemetery. Here sits the largest gathering of Americans slain in World War II—a popular war, as such things go—consisting mostly of men killed in New Guinea and the Philippines, including on the Bataan Death March. Interred are 17, 184 dead. Also listed are the names of the missing, to the tune of 36, 286. (Among the dead are a number of Filipino Scouts.)

Here's one name from the roles of the deceased: Private James L. Aaron, U.S. Army, Service Number 14047056. Private Aaron was from Tennessee and served in the 31st Infantry Regiment. The 31st was one of the units that fought for months before finally surrendering to the Japanese. He may well have fought along side some of the men who walked in that parade almost two decades later. Starving, racked with dysentry, Private Aaron may well have been among those force-marched 65 miles from the peninsula of Bataan to San Fernando. Private Aaron may've perished on the Bataan Death March.

Today, Memorial Day seems memorable for being a long weekend and the unofficial start of summer and barbecues. Parades are reserved for winning sports teams, or, perhaps, the 4th of July. ("The dead? You mean like The Walking Dead? Seriously, dude, the dead?')

So today, just for a moment, I elect to remember Private Aaron and all the other Private Aarons who stood in the gap for our country during dark times, in less popular wars, who continue dying today.

May Perpetual Light shine upon them all.

Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson

Story Du Jour #14

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small presentation in these trying times.

Brilliant Flash Fiction

"Michel" - by Cody Pease

677 words

Care and sorrow blend in a tale of the inevitable. 

Here's a sample of the writing:

"Days pass without warning, a monotonous routine. I lose myself in all of it. He sleeps past noon. Then I follow him as he ambles throughout the house, spraying the doorknobs and countertops, the stairway railing and armrests, wherever he lays his hands, wherever he breathes. I empty two bottles of cleaning spray within the first nine days since the hospital visit. I cook his meals: gluten-free, sugar-free, free of meat and eggs. I wash his clothes with scent-free detergent. I wash his body with only warm water, once in the morning and again at night. I buy a new bed, a firm bed to support his spine. Instead of wrapping myself around him and breathing in the nape of his neck, I keep two feet between us and hold his hand."

Soon more fiction.

Book Review: The Jack Vance Treasury

The Jack Vance Treasury by Jack Vance
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Grab you dictionary, it's Jack Vance! An old school master of sci-fi and fantasy, the author's Hugo and Nebula-award winning stories are included in this eighteen-tale anthology. Marvel at "The Dragon Masters," where an inquisitive Prince on a far-off world battles to hold his kingdom together in the face of a dragon war, the secretive politics of a powerful aloof race, and an alien invasion intent on enslaving humanity.

On another planet where everyone wears masks, a methodical official struggles to uncover the identify of a wanted assassin in "The Moon Moth." In "The Last Castle," a collection of spoiled sophisticates discovers the unpleasant truth that the lower orders have plans and goals that don't include the sophisticates.

In addition, several stories appear from Vance's Dying Earth canon. Set in a remote eon when our sun is a red giant, on the verge of guttering out, the selections feature picaresque protagonists afoot in a fragmented society of clannishness, bizarre customs, powerful magic, and sinister monstrosities capable of reason.

This book is best read on Kindle so as to take advantage of the dictionary function. Vance loved the English language, not to mention Old English, Latin and French. Prepare to encounter words such as "helminths," "nacre," and, a personal favorite, "nuncupatory" (obsolete.) Language and communication are themes in several Vance stories. And while the vocabulary can be vexing, it contributes to a depth and sense of place that enriches the author's unique works.

So sample the tales of Jack Vance. Enjoyment will eventuate.

View all my reviews

My Jack Vance obituary.