Elsewhere Dean Koontz

I love the early works of Dean Koontz, especially the books he penned under different names, like, K. R. Dwyer. However in the past few dozen years I haven't found a book of his that I can finish, apart from, The Husband--which was bitching and reviewed somewhere on this site. 

Elsewhere by Dean Koontz is another book I cannot finish. I listened to the audio format and I think the female voice for the girl's scenes wasn't the right choice. Normally, I like it when they have more than one reader, but as an audio play more than reading section by section. 

I got half way through the 10 hour file when I called it quits. 

Dean Koontz is a master at characters. The three main characters jump of the page. The book moves at a good pace for the first handful of chapters, then slow the fuck down after the encounter with a deformed or deranged monkey-boy. I got bored of listening. 

Sorry. Not sorry.

No rating. 

  

A Town Called Discovery -- R.R. Haywood

 Audio Book Version. 

This is an amazing book. The opening must be a prologue. I don't like them so much. Many don't seem to have any relation to the book. As this one didn't. 

A man regains consciousness as he is falling to an ocean. He has no memory. Doesn't know who he is or why he is falling. He hits the water and dies. (reset) Then he is falling again. He dies. (reset) This happens many times until he works out a way to hit the water and survive. There is a woman edging him on. He dies (resets?) many, many times attempting to complete each task. He kills many people, they kill him, he masters how to kill them all. He is pushed past breaking and is rebuilt. With every death, he learns more. Learns from his mistakes. Completing one task, he is faced with another, more brutal than the last. He has a goal to reach a town called Discovery.  

High impact action. Tight, taunt writing, and a storyline that keeps one engaged.

One more thing: it's a time travel story. And a brilliant one.

And it has many one liners, placed perfectly. 

This is my first R. R. Haywood book and it was brilliant. I will check out the Undead and Extraction series. 

Discovery is a town run by an AI called, The Old Lady. Humanity is extinct and The Old Lady believes it wasn't one event, it was many small events throughout time. She built an army. All new recruits are brought in for training. 

The man is named, Bear. His trainer, is Roshi. There's an Australian Doctor Lucy and a Diner owner,  also there is Zara and James. This rounds out the main characters and Mr. Haywood does a brilliant job of making us care about them. Each character has a skill, Zara is smart and logical, James is American and has the gift of the gab. 

Zara, James and Bear. There was a forth, Thomas, but he couldn't cope with a harrowing task and was reassigned.

Get this book. You'll love it. 

95%

 

The Vacation (aka: The Holiday)

The Vacation

T. M. Logan

St. Martians Press.

I discovered this new author when his second book came out. I was introduced to him on the book, 29 seconds, and became a fan of T. M. Logan and signed up to his newsletter. Then I bought his national bestseller. The first book he wrote. I didn't like it. It didn't seem to have direction and wandered around a lot. 

Next up was The Holiday aka The Vacation. It opened well and then went directly into character development and the worry the MC felt after discovering some disturbing emails on her husband's phone. I didn't mind this. Sometimes we need big set ups. 

But, there was a lot of unbelievable over reactions to minor incidents and there wasn't a lot of tension in many scenes. I'd say, no tension. The book fell flat and by chapter 14, I tossed the book away. Sorry. 

It was well written and most of the characters are written well. But where is the plot, murder and mayhem? Tense action??? 

I always give "new to me" writers a few chances to hook me with their books. For example, Lee Child's first Reacher book, how the heck did that get published? But from tripwire and up, most of the books are awesome. There are some truly awful first books out there, mine included (Blood of the Wolf -- out of print). 

So I will give T. M. Logan, one more chance. He has another book coming out soon. 

No Rating. 

PS: I just went over to read some reviews. All 5 stars. WTF??? Don't believe them, folks. They get free copies. I pay for my books. 

Flesh and Steel

Flesh and Steel -- a Warhammer novel 

https://warhammer40000.com/

This is the first ever Warhammer novel I've read. I have never played the game (I'm generally not a gamer). It took me a short while to understand the concepts and the universe this book is set in. The language also took a few listening's to get it. Those who play the game might feel right at home with this world. 

I also liked it. The story is basically a detective novel with two story lines that twist into one. One has reprogrammed Servitor-bots that kill, and the other is a missing girl from a wealthy family. The detective is called Probator Symeon Noctis, he is from the wealthy community that he shunned. Guilt, understanding how the others live and the manner in which he treated others in his youth. 

When a bisected corpse is discovered in the neutral zone, Symeon walks into his most difficult case yet. He is joined by tech-priest Rho-1 Lux of the Collegiate Extremis (mostly called Lux). She is partially augmented with ports that can connect to machines in an attempt to "see" in machine code, the final few moments of a servitor. 

All up, this is a pretty good mystery. Seemed to drag a bit near the end, however, I didn't guess the 'whodunit' part. That's a change. 

75%