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thewayneIn this edition, Lionel Fenn, William Goldman, Carlotta Monti, John Moore, Michael Moore.
Fenn, Lionel: Kent Montana and the Really Ugly Thing From Mars, Once Upon A Time in the East, By The Time I Get To Nashville, Time: The Semi-Final Frontier This is actually two book series. Kent Montana is a minor Scottish Lord in the US trying to make it as an actor without a heck of a lot of success. In the first book of the series, a Really Ugly Thing From Mars lands outside of town and you're basically doing War of the Worlds with a single alien. Kind of interesting, I look forward to seeing some of the other Montana books (The Reasonably Invisible Man and The Once And Future Thing).
The other three books are a series, I'm not really sure if it has a formal name. I call it the Diego series. It opens in the 1870's in Santa Fe, Diego is basically an enforcer, brought in as needed to take out gangs of bad guys for pay, he's never killed an innocent person. He's fighting a gang and not getting the upper hand when a train crashes through, he takes refuge in it, only to find that it is in fact a time machine. Diego finds himself taken to contemporary New York where various adventures take place. In the second book, the operators of the time train, not knowing that it was damaged, end up in the not distant future in Nashville where a religion has been formed around the mythos of Diego. And finally, with the time train still not completely right, they end up in the further future in sort of a Star Trek universe.
I don't know if I'd say they're kind of formulaic, but they're fun. Diego is a very cool character and the other main characters have some neat stuff going for them also.
Fenn has a couple of other books that I'd love to see: The Mark of the Moderately Vicious Vampire and 668: The Neighbor of the Beast.
Goldman, William: The Princess Bride An absolute classic. It had been quite a while since I'd read it, and Russet knew where her copy was, so I got to re-indulge it. For those who have only seen the movie, the book is a little different, but not remarkably so as Goldman had major input into the making of the movie.
Monti, Carlotta: W.C. Fields and Me Carlotta was a long-time companion and lover of Fields and wrote this memoir of her time with the great comedian. It was the basis for a movie in the 70's which I haven't seen. It was interesting if you like Fields.
Moore, John: Heroics For Beginners, The Unhandsome Prince I believe Heroics was his first book, it's sort of a novel version of the Evil Overlord web site. Very nicely done, perhaps a bit wry which is what I like. Unhandsome Prince explores what happens when the girl kisses the frog and Prince therein isn't quite up to specification for handsomeness. Fun stuff. Wikipedia also lists a book called Slay and Rescue, I haven't seen it yet but I'll have to start looking for it.
Moore, Michael: Will They Ever Trust Us Again? A very sober book. After Moore's performance at the Academy Awards after winning the Oscar for Bowling for Columbine and the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 and before the 2004 elections, he started collecting letters and emails sent to his web site from military personnel and their families who were, shall we say, not exactly in line with the Administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq. The entire book is unedited, these are the original emails in their entirety, with no commentary by Moore outside of the introduction of the book. Some letters are anonymous, many are not, all were included with the permission of the writer. Not only sober, also chilling. The book also includes emails from Vietnam vets and the children of veterans.
Fenn, Lionel: Kent Montana and the Really Ugly Thing From Mars, Once Upon A Time in the East, By The Time I Get To Nashville, Time: The Semi-Final Frontier This is actually two book series. Kent Montana is a minor Scottish Lord in the US trying to make it as an actor without a heck of a lot of success. In the first book of the series, a Really Ugly Thing From Mars lands outside of town and you're basically doing War of the Worlds with a single alien. Kind of interesting, I look forward to seeing some of the other Montana books (The Reasonably Invisible Man and The Once And Future Thing).
The other three books are a series, I'm not really sure if it has a formal name. I call it the Diego series. It opens in the 1870's in Santa Fe, Diego is basically an enforcer, brought in as needed to take out gangs of bad guys for pay, he's never killed an innocent person. He's fighting a gang and not getting the upper hand when a train crashes through, he takes refuge in it, only to find that it is in fact a time machine. Diego finds himself taken to contemporary New York where various adventures take place. In the second book, the operators of the time train, not knowing that it was damaged, end up in the not distant future in Nashville where a religion has been formed around the mythos of Diego. And finally, with the time train still not completely right, they end up in the further future in sort of a Star Trek universe.
I don't know if I'd say they're kind of formulaic, but they're fun. Diego is a very cool character and the other main characters have some neat stuff going for them also.
Fenn has a couple of other books that I'd love to see: The Mark of the Moderately Vicious Vampire and 668: The Neighbor of the Beast.
Goldman, William: The Princess Bride An absolute classic. It had been quite a while since I'd read it, and Russet knew where her copy was, so I got to re-indulge it. For those who have only seen the movie, the book is a little different, but not remarkably so as Goldman had major input into the making of the movie.
Monti, Carlotta: W.C. Fields and Me Carlotta was a long-time companion and lover of Fields and wrote this memoir of her time with the great comedian. It was the basis for a movie in the 70's which I haven't seen. It was interesting if you like Fields.
Moore, John: Heroics For Beginners, The Unhandsome Prince I believe Heroics was his first book, it's sort of a novel version of the Evil Overlord web site. Very nicely done, perhaps a bit wry which is what I like. Unhandsome Prince explores what happens when the girl kisses the frog and Prince therein isn't quite up to specification for handsomeness. Fun stuff. Wikipedia also lists a book called Slay and Rescue, I haven't seen it yet but I'll have to start looking for it.
Moore, Michael: Will They Ever Trust Us Again? A very sober book. After Moore's performance at the Academy Awards after winning the Oscar for Bowling for Columbine and the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 and before the 2004 elections, he started collecting letters and emails sent to his web site from military personnel and their families who were, shall we say, not exactly in line with the Administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq. The entire book is unedited, these are the original emails in their entirety, with no commentary by Moore outside of the introduction of the book. Some letters are anonymous, many are not, all were included with the permission of the writer. Not only sober, also chilling. The book also includes emails from Vietnam vets and the children of veterans.
