Audiobook Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Diper Överlöde by Jeff Kinney

Most of the entries in Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series are a lot like the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker movies of my younger days — throwing a lot of jokes and seeing what’s going to stick. This leads to some absolutely hilarious moments on the perils of growing up and to some mainly other forgettable moments. And I suppose I shouldn’t scoff at anything this is encouraging young people to crack the cover of a book.

But as I listened to the seventeenth installment, Diper Overlode, I couldn’t help but think that either the formula is wearing a bit thin or that maybe it’s time to have Greg grow up a bit.

Some of that may stem that instead of putting Greg front and center this time around, the focus is his older brother Rodrick and his dreams of having his garage band become the next big thing. Yes, Greg is there to relate most of the exploits that Rodrick and his band engage in while trying to win the upcoming Battle of the Bands, but I can’t help but feel like a lot of the story is happening without Greg being a vital character to things. Much of it is Greg relating things Rodrick has told hi or the story stretching to find ways to include Greg as part of Loaded Diaper.

Yes, there are so amusing moments including Greg and a band member stealing a drumstick from an animatronic gorilla at the local equivalent of Chuck E.. Cheese. But there are moments where Rodrick and the band get to meet their band heroes that ring a bit more hollow than usual because Greg has little or no investment in the band beyond his big brother being a fan. I can’t help but wonder if deviating from the formula by having Rodrick narrate things might have helped a bit here.

All this isn’t to say this is a terrible book. It’s just one that feels like a lackluster entry in what has been an enjoyable series — and one that I’m reliving with my daughter, who is fully enthralled with the exploits of Greg and company.

Review: Alas Babylon by Pat Frank

My consumption of sci-fi and fantasy dwindled a bit in 2022. Part of this stems from the ongoing feeling that many of the books hitting the shelves are part of some of a series. I’m either a book or two behind or because George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss burned me not delivering new installments after I got invested in a series and I’m scared to dip my toes into something new for fear of further abandonment.

For years, my real-world book club started off the year by dipping our toes into the past and reading an older science-fiction novel. This tied well into #VintageSciFiMonth when it started up a few years ago.

And while my real-world book club has gone dormant, as 2023 dawned, I found myself wanting to make a more concerted effort to sci-fi and fantasy and to check a few books off my to-be-read pile.

Enter Alas, Babylon, a novel that I picked up a few years ago for the #VintageSciFiMonth but never quite got around to reading. It’s been a while since I read a post-apocalyptic story and I felt like it was time for the “end of the world as we know it” to happen in the fictional world.

Published in 1959, Alas, Babylon recounts the days leading up to a nuclear war between the United States and the days, months, and years following said attack. Pat Frank spends the first quarter of the novel introducing us to Randy Bragg and the people in his Florida small-town world. Randy lives an aimless life in the small town until he receives a telegram from his brother with their secret code of “Alas, Babylon” which signifies a massive shift coming in the world. In this case, it’s the Soviet Union seizing an opportunity to strike the United States with tactical nuclear weapons.

The first quarter of the novel at times feels like a thriller by Tom Clancy, with tensions escalating due to moves made by each side until an accidental bombing of an ammunition depot in the Middle East by an American jet pilot sets off a chain reaction that leads to nuclear war.

Randy’s town is far enough from major population centers and military installations to not be bombed out of existence. However, it does face major changes in the world on The Day when the bombs fall and afterward.

At times, Alas, Babylon is chillingly effective, especially the chapter the details how the day the bombs fall becomes The Day and spends twenty-four hours detailing what happen — from the initial shockwaves to the run on supplies to the power finally and permanently failing. Hauntingly told, the chapter alone is one reason that this novel has survived and remained part of the literary consciousness all the years.

Frank also creates a haunting portrait of the world post-bombing and the impact is has on his characters. It’s probably strange that I’m reading the new Jack Reacher book as I finish this one because I feel like Randy and Jack are cut from the same literary cloth — the man who always has the answers and is rarely phased by much. Give Randy a travel toothbrush and he probably is a bit more like Reacher. Seeing how differently things are valued in the pre-and post-attack world is one of the more intriguing aspects of the story. It certainly made me wonder how long I might survive in the new world order described.

The parts that don’t work as well now are the blatant racism and sexism that exist. If you’re looking for a book with strong characters of color and strong females, you’re probably going to want to skip this one. (Though it is interesting that once the news starts filtering in about the world beyond the scope of Randy’s small town that the balance of power has shifted to Asia).

The other big drawback of the story is the ending feels a bit anti-climatic. Early on, Randy’s brother, Mark, sends his family to live with Randy to get them out of harm’s way. Mark is a high-ranking military official, so he’s near one of the areas that would be one of the first targets in the attacks. I kept getting a feeling that Mark would somehow magically survive the first wave of attacks and enter the story again in the later stages. Thankfully, Frank doesn’t allow this to happen though there is some drama centering on his wife coming on to Randy and later becoming romantically entangled with the town’s doctor.

All of this leads up to an ending that feels like it’s trying too hard to give us a bit of hope when the past hundred or so pages don’t really support it. Seeing the world struggle to put itself back together is compelling but the last chapter undermines it a bit. I wonder if Frank struggled to find a way to end the story and couldn’t quite find a way that satisfied him to stick the landing.

Stil, I can see why this one is among the more cited stories of the post-apocalyptic genre. When the novel is working, it’s firing on all cylinders. There are just a couple of speed bumps in there.

Review: Gideon Green in Black and White by Katie Henry

Before the lockdown for Covid-19 hit a couple of years ago, I went to the library and checked out a bunch of books that I thought might be interesting. Included in that pile was Katie Henry’s Heretics Anonymous. I was completely hooked on the story and quickly reserved her next novel, only to be equally enthralled by it.

And so it was that Katie Henry went onto the list of authors who I will read anything they publish.

With her fourth novel, Gideon Green in Black and White, Henry has hit a new high. Sixteen-year-old Gideon Green is a retired private detective, content to stay in his room watching noir films on his TV and occasionally coming out to go to school and interact with his dad. When his old friend, Lily, shows up at this door asking him to come out of retirement, Gideon is reluctantly pulled into an investigation that is bigger than either he or Lily imagined and that just might be a pivotal point for him.

Review: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Redshirts was John Scalzi’s homage and love-letter to all the tropes and cliches of the original (and still the best) Star Trek.

With his latest novel, The Kaiju Preservation Society, Scalzi brings the same level of love, homage, and poking fun to monster movies involving large creatures destroying large swaths of our world.

I’ll admit I’m not as steeped in the world of kaiju as I was Star Trek, so I probably missed a lot of the deeper nudges and easter eggs that Scalzi includes in this book. However, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy another great offering by one of my favorite writers.

As 2020 begins, Jamie Gray’s professional career is set. Heading into his performance review, Jamie sees great things ahead at his tech company that offers an alternative to UberEats or DoorDash. Jamie is blindsided when his boss not only demotes him but takes away his opportunity at a huge financial windfall that could see Jamie up for the foreseeable future. Instead, he’s offered the chance to be part of the team delivering meals to people.

At first, Jamie is dead-set against it. Then a real-world pandemic sets in and Jamie finds himself unable to find other work and so he begins delivering meals. While delivering one, he meets an old friend from college who needs a guy to “lift heavy stuff.” The pay is great and Jamie jumps at the chance — only to find himself on a plane to Greenland and a whole other universe that includes real-life kaiju creatures like the kind we’ve all seen in movies.

What follows is a fascinating, fun story that, like all good science fiction, brings up more than its fair share of big ideas and world-building. You can be forgiven if you don’t notice that as Scalzi is tickling your funny bone that he’s also engaging your thought processes along the way. In his afterword, Scalzi compares this book to a pop song–an entirely accurate description since a lot of the books will get stuck in your head and pop up when you’re least expecting it.

Overall, this is yet another winner by an author who’s been on a heck of a streak since Old Man’s War debuted all those years ago.

I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Audiobook Review: Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner

It’s been close to two decades since Star Trek: The Next Generation left the airwaves, so I’ve started to expect the “behind the scenes” confessional books from the cast to start hitting the shelves.

The closest we’ve got so far is Fan Fiction by the guy who brought Data to life, Brent Spiner. Billed as a story inspired by true events, I have to admit I spent more time trying to figure out which bits were taken from reality and which bits were taken from Spiner’s imagination than I did paying attention to the story.

Set at the height of Next Generation‘s popularity, Fan Fiction finds Spiner getting increasingly disturbing letters and mailings from an obsessive fan who only identities herself as Lal, the created daughter of his character on the show who expired at the end of her episode. Justifiably freaked out by these mailings and the missives of another female fan who is convinced she’s carrying on a steamy phone affair with the actor, Spiner turns to first to the L.A. PD’s department of obsessives and then the FBI for help.

It’s at the FBI that he meets agent Cindy Jones and her twin sister bodyguard Candy Jones. Spiner is immediately attracted to both and begins a romantic entanglement with Candy while pining for Cindy. It’s at this point, that I began to question just how much of this tale was from Spiner’s imagination and how much was from reality. I feel certain he got some interesting fan letters along the way as he played Data. But whether or not he met twin sisters who were both attracted to him — seems a bit far-fetched to this reader.

For a good bit of the story, I felt like Spiner was trying to do something clever with the twin sisters who never appear in the same room together — and I will give him credit that he does try a bit. It just never quite goes anywhere satisfying.

Indeed, the entire novel feels as if it wants to be more than it is. The noir aspect of the fem-Fatale and the threat to our hero feels well done and certain Spiner shares a love of older, lesser-known films over the course of the novel. But the ending doesn’t quite bring all the threads together in the most satisfying way possible and left me feeling a bit empty.

Listening to this one as an audiobook may add an extra layer of enjoyment for you if you’re a fan of TNG. Spiner gathers together his castmates to voice themselves in the novel. I do wonder how much of Spiner’s portrayal of his cast members is real and how much is tongue-in-cheek, but it certainly feels like everyone is having a good time here.

I wanted this one to be a bit more satisfying than it was. I wouldn’t say I regret reading it, but this one didn’t quite come together in the end.

Review: Much Ado About Barbecue by Sally Kilpatrick

Sally Kilpatrick’s latest novel, Much Ado About Barbecue should come with a warning label that you’re going to crave some good barbecue. This isn’t necessarily a terrible thing — unless you don’t have access to good barbecue, that is.

Emma Sutton and Ben Cates have been rivals all their lives. It started in kindergarten when Ben pulled the chair out from under Emma and continued throughout their educational history, including Emma’s underpants winding up on the school flag pole. So, when Emma returns to town after a series of disappointments in her life, she quickly finds the rivalry resuming thanks to Ellery’s barbecue competition. Both families own barbecue joints in town, each praised and respected for differing ways of cooking the meat. Ben has reluctantly embraced using a smoker, while Emma’s family still does whole-hog pit barbecue.

There is a bit more to the rivalry between Ben and Emma than the competition for who has the best barbecue and juvenile pranks. Emma has repressed large portions of junior high school due and she holds a deep secret about possibly raining on Ben’s dream of playing baseball at the next level. Needless to say, these two are probably the last two people you’d imagine ending up together.

And like the main dish of the book’s title, the potential romantic entanglement is one that roasts slowly, marinating in its own rub of family secrets, long-held resentments, and misunderstandings. Along the way, we meet a colorful cast of characters from Jeremiah, the long-time pitmaster as Emma’s family barbecue joint (and a character I’d love to see get his own novel) to Ben’s sister, Shero.

Between family secrets, the slow-simmering enemies-to-lovers story, and a colorful cast of characters (including several familiar faces from previous Ellery novels), Much Ado About Barbecue proves to be another winner from Kilpatrick. Filled with the types of characters you’d expect to me in a quirky small town, Much Ado works much like the barbecue does — as a satisfying, enjoayble meal that left me fully satisfied and yet somehow wishing I had just a bit more room for another bite or two.

Taking a page from Shakespeare (maybe you’ve heard of him), Kilpatrick gives us her spin on Much Ado About Nothing in her quirky creation of Ellery. As with her other novels, Much Ado About Barbecue is a delightful gem and most likely destined to end up on my list of favorite books I read this year.

Add this one to your to-be-read pile, folks. Just don’t do it on an empty stomach.

Highly recommended.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received an ARC of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. No bribing of barbecue was done or needed….

Audiobook Review: Prelude to Foundation by Issac Asimov

Prequels are difficult. Just ask George Lucas or Brannon Braga.

While there is a great opportunity to fill in the backstory for characters and do a bit of worldbuilding, it feels like the risks often outweigh the rewards. A prequel series can also be limiting in how many surprises or revelations an author or creative team can throw the fans way before fandom starts crying foul or screaming that this detail or that one has violated continuity or a long-held character belief.

But long before Star Trek and Star Wars were looking to their past, author Issac Asimov was taking the opportunity to fill in a few gaps in his Foundation novels. Asimov’s output of the ’80s seemed to be almost obsessed with finding ways to connect various threads across his novels and short stories. And so it was that we come to Prelude to Foundation, a prequel to his popular, award-winning series that explored the early days of Hari Seldon and some of the steps in the creation of psychohistory.

Less sweeping in scope than the other Foundation entries, Prelude to Foundation focuses on an early adventure of Seldon in the days after presented a paper on psychohistory. As the Galactic Empire begins to crumble, multiple parties see Seldon’s psychohistory as their opportunity to gain, keep, or consolidate power. Most of the original Foundation trilogy puts Seldon on a pedestal and gives us the image of a wise figure forecasting the fall of an Empire and doing his best to shorten humanity’s coming Dark Age.

Review: Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

Have you ever got to the end of a book and wondered — what the heck did I just read?!?

If not, then you might want to pick up Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes because it’s got one of the most WTF endings I’ve read in quite some time. In fact, the ending is so WTF, that any conversation about the book is going to naturally have to go into detail about it. You are suitably warned.

When single-mother Louise meets David in a bar, the chemistry between them is electric. But, he’s married, so Louise ends up not pursuing more than a semi-drunk flirtation with him. Things get a bit more awkward when it turns out that David is the new doctor at the counseling clinic where Louise is employed part-time. Despite a conversation in which both of them declare that seeing each other is a bad idea, the chemistry continues to be there.

Things get even more complicated with Louise runs into Adele, David’s wife. The two strike up a friendship, though Louise conveniently omits that she flirted with Adele’s husband and that she and David have started an affair (apparently behind Adele’s back, though the first-person chapters from Adele’s point of view make it clear that she not only knows about this, she’s also manipulating both sides for….well, more on that later).

If you’re thinking we’ve even reached the depths of the WTF, we aren’t even in the same zip code yet.

Through flashbacks, we find out that Adele has an interesting past — her parents died in a fire, she’s wealthy but she’s signed over all her money to David, and she spent time getting mental help while David was in college. It’s at the institution that she meets Rob, who she gets close to during her time. They get so close that Adele invites him to come to stay with her should Rob’s family kick him out if and when he backslides from his drug habit.

If you’re wondering who Rob is and why Behind Her Eyes keeps flashing back to him and turns over a good bit of the novel’s real estate to him, the answer becomes clear in the final pages. And it’s once the answer becomes clear that the question of whether or not you love the novel or want to throw it against the wall in frustration will be answered.

Some Quick Reviews: All Systems Red, The Thursday Murder Club, All Creatures Great and Small

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

I’ve been hearing a lot about the Murderbot Diaries from people I trust within the literary community, so I decided it might be finally time to get the series a try.

Murderbot is a half-human/half-cyborg creation that has hacked its own software to give itself freewill. Murderbot turns around and uses that free will to begin binge-watching daytime television. Quite frankly, Murderbot would rather watch TV than help the human survey team explore the planet they’ve been assigned.

Turns out that in the future, the government still goes with the lowest bidder and may not always be upfront about the dangers involved. So, the human team is facing some unusual dangers out there.

The premise of a killing machine gone rogue to binge-watch TV seems uncannily relevant as we continue to face the pandemic. Murderbot’s snarky sense of humor and first-person narration are well done. The novella suffers a bit when it comes to giving us a fully realized crew — there are only about two crew members who get any character development. And the novella is just long enough so the fun doesn’t wear off.

I’m intrigued enough to want to read the second installment and see what happens next.

Review: Trial and Error by Robert Whitlow

When I first read Robert Whitlow, I was impressed by the authenticity of his novels — not just the legal thriller aspect, but also the journeys and arcs he put his characters through. Over the last two decades, I’ve read just about everything Whitlow has written. While I’ve enjoyed watching him stretch himself as a writer, there’s still something comforting about him returning to his roots with his latest novel. Trial and Error.

Seventeen years ago, Buddy Smith became a father. He got to spend a few days with his daughter before she and her mother vanished. Buddy’s spent the last seventeen years trying to find his daughter, all while building a legal career in his home of Milton County. Buddy’s passion is renewed when he finds evidence his father was supporting the mother of his child financially for years but kept it a secret from Buddy and his mother.

Clerk of the court and local softball team coach, Gracie Blaylock is on her own journey. She’s been Buddy’s friend since high school and she’s been praying for Buddy and his family for years. With the introduction of a new sheriff’s deputy who specializes in missing persons, could Gracie’s prayers be finally answered in ways she does and doesn’t expect?

Whitlow’s early legal thrillers centered on good people who have to make difficult choices. The one thing that always stood out about Whitlow’s novels was the authentic journey his flawed characters go on during the course of the novel. Whitlow does feature the story of a person’s conversion, but it’s not presented as a moment in which all of that person’s problems are swept away. There may be a peace that comes over that person and a new perspective, but it’s not like waving a magic wand to make all the issues and problems go away. (I’m looking at you LeftBehind novels).

Of course, part of the secret is that Whitlow gets you to invest in his characters so when the pivotal moment comes, you feel it along with the character. Whitlow also doesn’t have everyone magically gets saved on the same timeline. There’s a character of a visiting judge who is challenged by Gracie and begins to examine his life, but we don’t see a conversion from him. (It may happen off-screen, but Whitlow doesn’t tell us one way or the other)

Whitlow’s characters shine through as do his legal storylines. There are multiple stories going on and Whitlow expertly weaves them together. I found myself turning the last page of this one feeling fully satisfied with Trial and Error as a stand-alone story but that I wouldn’t mind going back to the world of Buddy and Gracie again, should Whitlow be so inclined.

This is one of the best novels Whitlow has written in a long time. Highly recommended.

I received a digital ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.