Robin Marx's Writing Repository

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on May 29, 2012.

Meg: Origins

By Steve Alten – Gere Donovan Press – August 16, 2011

Review by Robin Marx

Many people would characterize the Meg series as a guilty pleasure. I think it's silly to get apologetic about one's choice in entertainment, but I'd certainly admit that Alten's books are goofy. The subject matter (giant prehistoric sharks!) is so appealing, however, that I have no trouble ignoring the creaky bits and enjoying the ride.

I've always liked sharks, and Alten focuses on one of the most interesting of all: Carcharodon megalodon, ancestor to the great white shark. Through some REALLY flimsy science and frantic “ignore the man behind the curtain” hand-waving Alten brings the megalodon up from the Mariana Trench to where it can snack on people for four books, with a fifth on the way.

Meg: Origins is an e-book prequel novella to his first story, Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror. The events in this prequel are referred to a number of times throughout the series, making this prequel fairly redundant and unnecessary. Still, I was lured in by the premise (giant prehistoric sharks!) and the $0.99 price tag. The story had all the familiar issues—stilted prose, paper-thin characters, chunks of scientific exposition that still manages to seem hinky—but as with the other books, the giant prehistoric shark action makes up for the weak spots. Did I mention this book has giant prehistoric sharks(!) in it?

Steve Alten is not an especially technically skilled author, but he is a very enthusiastic one. It's easy to imagine him at his computer thinking “Oh man, wouldn't it be cool if THIS happened?!” and then tapping away frantically. The 12-year-old inside me agrees: yes, it would be totally cool. Radical, in fact.

I doubt I'll pick up his non-Meg stories, but as long as he keeps writing more books about giant prehistoric sharks(!), he's got a customer in me.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Adventure #Horror #MegOrigins #TheMeg #SteveAlten

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on February 5, 2013.

Guardian of the Dawn

By William King – Self-Published – August 1, 2011

Review by Robin Marx

This atmospheric fantasy short introduces Kormak, a disreputable-looking stranger belonging to a semi-mythical order of monster hunters. Wounded and caught out on the night of the full moon, when hostile creatures roam, he takes shelter at an isolated house. Realizing his true identity, the house's residents use his code of honor to coerce him into defending them against one particularly menacing creature.

The premise is appealing, and while Kormak himself is only vaguely sketched out as a character, he seems interesting. I also liked the setting hinted at in the story, with a sort of uneasy detente between the human realm and the bestial “children of the moon” roaming just outside the borders. However, I was disappointed when the story name-checked elves, dwarves, and orcs. Those Tolkienian races are completely played out, and their seemingly automatic inclusion marred an otherwise original sword & sorcery setting. The ending was also a bit of let-down. I respect the author for taking a daring chance with the narrative, but I can't help feeling that it effectively invalidated much of the preceding excitement.

Still, this was a good read overall. While I wasn't quite moved to run out and buy the other Kormak books, this story put King on my radar, and I'll keep an eye out for his stories in the future.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #SwordAndSorcery #Fantasy #WilliamKing #GuardianOfTheDawn #TheKormakSaga

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on November 14, 2012.

The Punisher, Vol. 1: In the Beginning

By Garth Ennis (Writer), Lewis LaRosa (Artist) – Marvel Enterprises – January 1, 2006

Review by Robin Marx

I've been a Punisher fan since I was a kid, but I wasn't reading much in the way of mainstream comics when the MAX series was being published. I'm glad I got around to checking MAX out, however, as it (or at least this volume) is the purest Punisher I've ever read.

Although he was introduced in an issue of the Amazing Spider-Man, the Punisher has always occupied a sort of uneasy place in mainstream comics. After losing his family to the Mafia, Vietnam vet Frank Castle takes up his guns and decides to wage a one-man war on crime. It's a similar premise to DC's Batman, but there's always been more of an edge to the Punisher. Unlike most incarnations of the Bat, he has no particular compunction about killing, and he usually works closer to the street, squatting in warehouses and funding his war with money scavenged from dead drug dealers rather than living the billionaire playboy lifestyle. The Punisher was a Marvel comic, however, so Castle was invariably drawn into tedious, goofy conflicts with super heroes and villains, and censorship (both imposed and self-) kept the series from becoming too dark and violent.

Here, under Marvel's adult-oriented MAX imprint, Garth Ennis succeeds in portraying the Punisher in a way only coyly hinted at in previous comics. Frank Castle is a singularity of hate, a broken machine driven to kill mobsters and thugs. He has no friends, no social life, no secret identity, no James Bond gadgets. There are no costumed heroes and villains. He's trapped in an ugly, brutal never-ending war, with his own violent death as the only possible conclusion.

This volume centers upon a reunion with Microchip, a computer hacker and Castle's one-time ally. In earlier comics, Microchip used to act sort of like James Bond's Q, providing a variety of plausibility-stretching tools for the Punisher. In this story, however, Micro is clearly alienated from his former friend, pushed away by Castle's relentlessness and borderline psychosis. In his interactions with Castle he repeatedly attempts to analyze the reasons for why Castle acts as he does, attempting to push him into a more socially-acceptable path, hunting terrorists for the CIA rather than snuffing Mafia enforcers and pimps. This sounds exciting. It sounds healthier. But Ennis takes the story in the direction truest to the character. Castle vehemently rejects the attempt to put him on a leash, and denies Micro's pat psychoanalysis; Frank Castle is a machine powered by smoldering rage, he's not yearning to break free from a dysfunctional feedback loop.

Some reviewers dislike the explicit language and the graphic violence in the MAX series, but I felt it was appropriate. It's true that these elements were minimized in previous Punisher series. However, that always rang false with me, just as his encounters with other residents of the Marvel Universe seemed unconvincing. It's a comic about an ugly, hate-filled character in an ugly, hate-filled world. Why try to sanitize it?

This was an excellent start to the series. I look forward to subsequent volumes.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #ComicReview #CrimeFiction #MarvelComics #ThePunisher #ThePunisherMAX #GarthEnnis #LewisLaRosa

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on May 3, 2012.

Armageddon 2419 A.D.

By Philip Francis Nowlan – Amazing Stories – August 1928

Review by Robin Marx

Published in a 1928 issue of Amazing Stories, this novel is both a fun pulp adventure and the origin of the Buck Rogers character of comic strip and radio serial fame.

The premise is simple but intriguing. World War I veteran and scientist Anthony Rogers (he doesn't gain the “Buck” nickname until the comic adaptation) finds himself caught in a mine cave-in and immersed in radioactive gas. He awakes to find himself nearly 500 years in the future, where after a devastating second World War Mongolians have taken over the world, with Americans reduced to a semi-tribal existence hiding in forest camps. Although there's a tinge of the Yellow Peril themes prevalent of the time, the Mongolians aren't painted in too racist a light. They're decadent and soft, unlike the hard-living Americans, but they're also clever and technologically advanced. Given the period the book was written in, I was surprised by the egalitarian role of women in the story as well. Wilma Deering plays a strong, active role, working and fighting alongside the men.

The writing itself is workmanlike. There are some bits of info-dump style exposition, and none of the characters are very complex, but the action is engaging and the pace brisk. The technology presented in the story (anti-gravity belts, rocket pistols, levitating airships, etc.) is fun and exciting, even today. The main theme, of an outsider leading a group of underdogs to victory against technologically-advanced enemies, is pretty well-worn territory, but it may have been fresher at the time. It was interesting how Rogers serves as sort of a reversed example of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: he's from a primitive past, but his knowledge of WWI tactics—lore lost over the centuries—ends up playing an important role in the story's battles.

While this book didn't quite enthrall me as much as Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess of Mars, a thematically similar pulp yarn, I enjoyed this look at Buck Rogers's origins. I look forward to reading the sequel, The Airlords of Han.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #ScienceFiction #SwordAndPlanet #Armageddon2419AD #BuckRogers #PhilipFrancisNowlan

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on September 13, 2012.

Cadaver in Chief

By Steve Hockensmith – Self-Published – July 31, 2012

Review by Robin Marx

This novella is by the author of a prequel and sequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (but not that book itself, interestingly). While Cadaver in Chief continues to deal with zombies, this time the undead menace are blended with a satire of election year politics.

The story was brief but engaging, with many interesting implications. Retiring reporter Jan Woods comes across a blog post claiming that the President of the United States was attacked and killed by a zombie while on the campaign trail, and that the whole affair has been covered up by the government. Despite the unreliable source of the claims, she decides to investigate further, with hazardous results.

The setting was especially fascinating. While most zombie apocalypse stories take place after the sudden collapse of society, Cadaver in Chief depicts an invasion in progress, with an America that is slowly crumbling. Citizens are trying to cope: everyone is constantly armed and new social rules have cropped up. Those who damage a zombie (or “nasty”) are responsible for finishing it off, and pedestrians greet each other loudly to avoid being shot by wary neighbors. Gallows humor is everywhere. It'd be nice to see this setting revisited by the author. It could easily serve as the stage for a serious horror novel if some of the comedic elements were toned down.

Somewhat depressingly, I actually found the fictional Beltway pundits' diatribes to be less tone-deaf and absurd than the real-life political discourse going on in the US right now. Truth is stranger—and dumber—than fiction in this case.

Elements of comedy and horror are generally tricky to balance, but I think Hockensmith succeeded in walking that tightrope. The end result is a fast-paced story that spices its humor with some genuinely creepy moments. It's very important that a comedy story not outstay its welcome, but I wouldn't have minded spending more time exploring this world.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #Humor #CadaverInChief #SteveHockensmith

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on July 28, 2015.

Chapter and Verse – New Order, Joy Division and Me

By Bernard Sumner – Corgi Books – September 10, 2015

Review by Robin Marx

I read this book in parallel with Peter Hook's Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division, and the two books could not be more different.

Chapter and Verse is appealing in that it covers the history of New Order as well as Joy Division, but it felt like the narrower scope of Unknown Pleasures allowed a much more satisfying level of detail. Hooky really got into the nitty-gritty of Joy Division's history, full of juicy anecdotes. This book was still very interesting, but written in a brisk, breezy style that ended up feeling shallower than Hooky's book.

The portions about Sumner's childhood, the gradual failure of the Hacienda, and his falling out with Peter Hook were the most fleshed-out and, perhaps consequently, the most intriguing parts of the book to me. While Hooky's book was mostly dismissive of Sumner, Sumner seems genuinely hurt and puzzled about the reasons behind the deterioration in their three-decade friendship. Fans hoping for much insight into individual events in the band's history or the story behind many of New Order's most famous songs (apart from the rather dispensable World Cup theme “World in Motion”) are likely to be disappointed. That being said, I felt like I gained some insight into Sumner's life, and that was enough for me.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Nonfiction #Memoir #Music #NewOrder #JoyDivision #ChapterAndVerse #BernardSumner

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on March 12, 2018.

Some Fruits of Solitude

By William Penn – 1682

Review by Robin Marx

Part of the Harvard Classics reading list, like the Journal of John Woolman this is the work of a colonial era Quaker. Apart from founding Pennsylvania, William Penn was a principled and devout theologian and worked to spread religious tolerance in his community. (He was also the original face of the Quaker Oats brand, until they rebranded to a more generic figure later.)

The book itself is a collection of homilies and observations, generally having to do with personal improvement and faith. A lot of them are well trodden ground, but others remain good advice today. That being said, I found it a bit ironic that someone who extols the virtue of humility would write a book that aims to provide moral instruction. To me, that seems to be the epitome of “holier than thou.”

The passages about “servants” also didn't sit very well, as Penn was a slave owner. Those sections made me reflect fondly on fellow Harvard Classics member John Woolman's abolitionist fervor, but perhaps it's unfair to judge Penn by the merits of a Quaker who wasn't born until two years after Penn's death.

Overall this book was an interesting look at the values of Penn's time, but modern readers will find a lot of the advice either obvious, outdated, or too tied to specific aspects of religion.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Nonfiction #Philosophy #SomeFruitsOfSolitude #WilliamPenn

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on February 11, 2019.

The Phantom City (Doc Savage #10)

By Kenneth Robeson (House Name)/Lester Dent – Street & Smith – 1933

Review by Robin Marx

After what seems like too many America-bound stories (The Red Skull, The Czar of Fear, Quest of the Spider), this entry is a return to globe-trotting adventure. After being attacked by a group with high-tech weapons (basically rail guns, which was surprising to see in a story this old) Savage is approached by an Arab seeking to hire the Helldiver submarine (last seen in The Polar Treasure) for mysterious reasons.

Put simply, this is the sort of story I read Doc Savage for. It has a brisk pace, world travel, a lost civilization, subhuman savages, advanced technology, and an exotic beauty. It was nice to see the return of the Helldiver submarine, as it seems like gear, treasure, and vehicles acquired in pulp stories and comics all too often evaporates between episodes.

I was starting to lose interest in the series after bland installments like The Red Skull and The Czar of Fear, but this story was a return to form. It looks like the following volume is another story set in America, but hopefully it maintains this level of energy.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Adventure #PulpFiction #ThePhantomCity #DocSavage #KennethRobeson #LesterDent

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 15, 2020.

A Head Full of Ghosts

By Paul Tremblay – William Morrow – June 2, 2015

Review by Robin Marx

When psychiatric treatment fails to cure a 14-year-old girl’s bizarre outbursts, her desperate father turns to religion. And with the family’s finances in dire straits, he allows a film crew into their home to film a reality TV show about the apparent demonic possession and ensuing exorcism.

This book is told through the eyes of Merry, the 8-year-old sister of the troubled teenager. Tremblay’s handling of such a young viewpoint character is truly masterful. As the father of an 8-year-old girl, Merry felt authentically kid-like, not like the weirdly precocious miniature adults so often seen in entertainment. She’s stuck in a terrifying situation that she’s even less equipped to handle than her struggling parents, betrayed by and frightened of the older sister she used to idolize.

Unfortunately, despite a great viewpoint character, the story isn’t quite as fulfilling as it could have been. The possession and climactic exorcism are handled in a pretty traditional manner that’s been seen in fiction a dozen times. The reality show trappings and passages of the book featuring a horror blogger providing wry retrospective commentary upon the TV episodes add some originality to the proceedings, but in the end it felt more could have been done with those elements.

I enjoyed this book and raced through it pretty quickly, but despite moments of excellence it felt like there was some wasted potential.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #AHeadFullOfGhosts #PaulTremblay

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on May 14, 2012.

The Final Solution

By Michael Chabon – Fourth Estate – November 9, 2004

Review by Robin Marx

The Final Solution has a compelling premise, but the execution (perhaps a poor choice of words when dealing with a book that obliquely refers to the Holocaust) leaves a bit to be desired.

Although he's referred to solely as “the old man,” it's immediately apparent that the protagonist is intended to be Sherlock Holmes at 89. The idea of Holmes coming out of retirement during World War II to solve one more mystery is intriguing, but the reason why he becomes involved in this particular case (a murder and a bird-napping) seems a bit flimsy. While I'd hoped to see the master detective—even a Holmes diminished by age—there wasn't much in the way of brilliant deductions, just a few “Easter egg” references to past cases and an admittedly clever allusion to the title of what was intended to be Holmes' final case, “The Final Problem.”

The characters were too many in number, and too sketchily rendered to leave much an impression. This surprised me, since characterization was such a strong point in his previous novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

Another issue I had is that the viewpoint character for the climactic scene is a parrot. This isn't an unforgivable sin—it was an interesting portrayal—but it IS pretty goofy.

Finally, detective novels (even self-consciously literary ones) live and die on their mystery, but here Holmes solves the lesser one while ignoring the larger one. He nabs the murderer while failing to uncover the nature of the German numbers constantly recited by the parrot at the heart of the case. The reader will likely figure it out right away, but Holmes never does. I imagine this was intentional on the part of Chabon; he seems to want to say that even a master detective is incapable of realizing the scope and true horror of the Nazis' depravity. However, it didn't feel right or authentic that Sherlock Holmes would let this particular puzzle slide.

While I don't feel like my time was wasted reading this book, I do feel like the interesting premise was wasted on an undercooked story.

★★☆☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Literature #Mystery #TheFinalSolution #MichaelChabon