rhetorical excursions

I would like to start off by saying this rendition of Shakespeare’s “The Winter Tale” was by far the bravest thing ever written. Jeanette Winterson managed to take a timeless classic and smoother it in modern times, characters and situations. There’s also a very subtle nods to “Back to the Future” here as well. The book opens with the original “The Winter Tale” so the readers can become familiar with at least the basic backbone of the story and jumps right into what I believe to be a strangled and doomed relationship from the start between to childhood friends, Leo and Xeno and how that are in fact both in love with the same woman, MiMi. The jealousy between these 2 men nearly kills MiMi, results in the death of Leo and MiMi’s son, Milo and separates Leo and MiMi from each other and their Daughter Perdita for nearly 18 years. Perdita was taken away by a trusted friend of Leo to be taken to what he assumed was her father, by unfortunately was murdered along the way. Baby Perdita wa

This is a stark view our humankind's not so distant future. The world has been broken apart and separated into albeit smaller, more powerful forces. The United States of America's government has been reduce to several small fenced-in miles, hosting boring gray-stone official looking buildings that do an incredible amount of nothing to help govern their remaining citizen. Yet those still employed by the USA are subjected to the most rigorous, stress filled exams almost weekly, to obviously ensure that they are not giving away secrets. The only way to unwind and not succumb to complete and total insanity is to spend your every waking moment in a virtual reality known as, "The Meta Verse." With the downfall of any real organized government, naturally the Mafia is at an all time high in ownership, however crime is no longer their number 1 import/export, ironically enough, delivering pizza in less than 30 is Uncle Enzo's top priority, and at a 99.99% customer sat

This story deals with the chances of time travel through dreams. What would you change, what would you leave the same, what would you do to better your life and those around you? Brock Matthews has a chance to do all of this, however he doesn’t quite know how or what to change each time he goes back. This story wrestles quite a bit with mortality, religion and family. Brock and his brother Ron are the owners of a very successful Coffee business. Although the dollars are raking in the millions, their relationship is fraying to the point of inaudible mumblings a handful of times a week as they awkwardly pass each other in the halls on their way to the respective office to shut out the world and focus on making more millions. This has always been their relationship. Ron is younger than Brock but somehow he always manages to be better at everything they do. Brock’s marriage is also falling apart as he focuses more and more of his time on his business instead of his family. His wife

David Spademan is good at one thing, being a garbageman, his father was a garbageman and he followed suit, but seeing how the once great city of New York is now basically a memory that has all been wiped out by a "dirty bomb" , he's been reduced to peruse other areas of trash related work. The people that still inhabit the fringe neighborhoods that once surrounded Time Square spend their time locked into a dreamlike virtual reality where anything goes, Spademan still manages to take out the trash, but in the form of a box-cutter to the jugular while creepy perverts who broke an unwritten rule are locked into la la land. Technically there are no rules in this altered reality known as the Limnosphere, so in short, Spademan takes out whomever his clients ask, so long as he's paid in cash. He likes his job, to a degree. But his latest target, Lesser, a fat sloppy bed-hopping pervert who likes to peek in on other people's fantasies sends Spademan down a weird and

This book is yet again another testament of the brilliant artistry of Johnathan Maas. His ability to weave several story lines into 1 book amazes me. Spanners: Fountain of Youth, is a book about a group of individuals who have been granted specific abilities outside of the average human being; some live briefly, 30 days or less, but within that time can learn and achieve more than an entire nation combined. Some Spanners are built with the strengths of 10 men, some control fire and others can take your life with a single touch. Some Spanners have been granted immortality and with that burden a clear and concise memory of every wrong done and evil action to ever exist alongside them. This is the story of one such immortal and his plight to not only save the collective human race, but the Spanners race as well. An evil has been awoken by the name of Juan Ponce de Leon and his aim is to destroy all life with the exception of a handful of his fateful follows and reduce the earth’s po

This was a very quick, entertaining read. But readers beware, the content should not be treated lightly, this is a very serious survival guide that should be kept on your person at all time. "When Clowns Attack" by Chuck Sambuchino is a how-to book that will help any and everyone aiming to steer clear of the Clown Cartel. This handy guide is broken down into 4 major chapters. 1.) ASSESS , in the opening chapter the reader will learn why clowns frighten people, also this chapter touches briefly on the mental instability of the clown. 2.) ANALYZE , here the reader will discover the many types of clown, their trademarks and how to avoid if needed. The reader will also learn about Clown anatomy and the communication and lingo. 3.) DEFEND , in the chapter the readers will learn how to Defend against a single Clown or a posse. Their methods of attack and their weapons of choice. This is by far the most important chapter in "When Clowns Attack." 4.) PROTECT , t

Despite the negative reviews this book received I will openly and gladly admit that this story was a wonderful work of art. The story opens on Christmas Morning, 1893 in a little boom town called Abandon in Colorado. A town that was once filled with cheer has now been downgraded to simple survival mode through the winter months while the town's occupants decide if they'll stay on one more season? Maybe the mines will reopen and once again produce ore plenty enough to help the town regain it's footing. Maybe it'll close for good and Abandon will be reduced to yet another ghost town that seems to be rapidly spreading along the mountains in the West. This particular Christmas morning the towns preacher has a vision and hears a voice from God that tells him to gather all the towns people in the very mine that once gave Abandon so much life and joy, and seal the door forever trapping every man, woman and child in the dark, cold, wet subterranean environment that was t

The first thing I noticed about this novel right from the start was that although it says, "A Sherlock Holmes Mystery" it didn't immediately feel that way. The novel's characters shared a lot of similarities and even posted at the famous 221B Baker Street address, but their attitudes, mannerisms and even dialogue was somewhat skewed. Not to discredit the author, the story in of itself was actually quite captivating and entertaining to boot. A mystery shrouding an Earl, art dealers murdering civilians and a very seductive damsel in distress. Action flooded nearly every page in this story and the climate in the scenes help mask the shady-dealings happening on every page. Snowy nights muffling suspicious footfalls, shadows cast when no one is near, the cold ripping at the clothing of the characters as they battle to survive. I will give the author, Bonnie MacBird much praise in her set up for this story which is revealed to the reader in the first few lines of this

This book was the most incredible piece of literature that I’ve had the privilege to read in a number of years. A stark dystopian world ravaged by the very essence that once gave us life is slowly consuming the world and its inhabitants. The Sun’s massive power explodes without warning sending millions of death rays killing off most mammals and plant life in a matter of minutes. Those lucky enough to survive are forced into a world of survival of the fittest. Not a world of the strongest, but a world of the wisest and cleverest. The pages of this book are filled with mass murder outside of the sun killing people, cannibalism and even entire groups of civilization forced back further than the dark ages in order to survive. New groups emerge as vicious drug addled monsters hell-bent on controlling the surface all the while a smaller more sophisticated group creates an underground utopia where the world’s leading experts in all things left to know are rapidly creating a system that s

This is a beautifully crafted, clever story broken up into 3 separate books. Moojie is an orphan left at the door of a church in a little town off of the coast of California at the beginning of the 1900's. A town where the folks are settled in their ways, still believers of mythical stories and have a tremendous hatred for the Natives of the land. Truthfully I believe it's more of an ignorance-driven fear then hatred, like most bigots the town folk are quick shoot and slow to aim. The first 6 years of Moojie's life pass by quite uneventfully. Save for the family that adopted him, the strange and miraculous situations that happen when he's excited or angry. His inability to walk or talk and the eventual sudden death of his mother. Poor Moojie's life at 6 changed drastically. After the death of his mother, his father decided he could no long be a parent and abandoned his poor crippled speech-impaired son on his Father, Captain Finnegan, or Pappy as he comes to be

In this issue we learn the origins of the Aliens, the Evorah and how they came to this planet, how they created a system to track human emotions and how they formed a pact with a small number of influential humans. This group, Kindred Corp. harvests the emotions to keep the aliens at bay and in return make trillions of dollars at the very nasty expense of innocent human lives.  Guy stumbles into Woody's house after his was destroyed by Kindred Corp. to demand answers and finds Woody dissecting an Evorah in hopes of using it's brains as a weapon against the rest of the Swarm. I cannot wait until issue #3 is released, this is getting interesting!  For more information on Negative Space or Ryan K. Lindsay & Owen Gieni please visit the DARK HORSE page.

What an incredible read, here. A corporation secretly harvesting the emotions of living beings to be used to feed demons. One prolific writer on the verge of suicide and huge pinkish aliens bent on eating the world. And that's just the first issue?! I cannot wait for this series to take off. Unfortunately this series is only 2 issue in so far and regrettably issue #3 will not be released until January of 2016! For more information on  Negative Space  or Ryan K. Lindsay & Owen Gieni please visit the  DARK HORSE  page.

This was a very short collection of very short poems written about life & death; sex & food and memories & regrets. I enjoyed the raw grittiness of it all. I felt like many of these were written on the fly with little hope from Brautigan of ever seeing them published. I really enjoyed Brautigan's, " Willard and his Bowling Trophies " and I felt that this collection was definitely in the same vein. I could waste my time writting a long thought provoking review, but it would be longer than this book, proper.  I gave this a 5/5. For more information on Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork or Richard Brautigan , please visit his Goodreads page.

This is a very interesting book, to say the least. It has subtle undertones of Dead Like Me, a really great television show about Grim Reapers from the early 2000's mixed  faintly with the writing style of A. Lee Marteniez's Divine Misfortune, all cleverly narrated by Roquet's spunky slack-off protagonist Lana. Also, there isn't a single religion that has not been targeted. Blasphemy, all around. Archangel, Gabriel is a terrible alcoholic, The Grim Reaper himself is a power hungry business mogul and the afterlife has become just another job to work at for survival. The world in of itself is very fascinating, for example, the City of Limbo is where all the Reapers live, some souls that have been harvested can either bribe their way into staying on shore and work in factories in Limbo City to avoid not being chartered off to an afterlife or thrown into the Sea of Eternity. The souls have even created a Union and demanded and won their right not to work on Satur

This is an incredibly long series that has been a guilty pleasure of mine for the last 2 months, in this volume, Dray finds himself once again stranded on the beach of a land with which he knows nothing about, where only moments ago he was sailing swiftly through the night sky's with his friends and his sweat Delia, Delia of the Blue Mountains! Immediately, per usual, Dray is shackled and sold into slavery to do another Apim's bidding until he either kills everyone, or grows bored and does something about it. For the next 11 years Dray grows and Army, is a Slave, becomes a King and takes part in the murder of a Kovneva. An interesting and key factor to this volume is how Dray is forced to be a miner in the Heavenly Mines. To dig and produce a relatively bland and boring looking material, yet very important to the Hamalese and their flying machine. In this book we are introduced to the propulsion science behind the flyers, well sort of, and it appears that all the myst

Talan follows his desperately hungry stomach into a city that fills his guts with empty promises and sorrow. He's forced into a labor camp after being treated like royalty to slave and toil for a force greater than anything he's ever know. Poor Talan feels he was duped into slavery by a mysterious Gray man and his equally gray fox as he, Reynar procured Talan with a mysteriously rusted key to the only known entrance into this curious city. Reynar offers his sincerest warning before Talan embarked but sadly he did not heed to such nonsense. Talan has developed a sixth sense and newly found powers, which are so wonderful and terrible and with this knowledge he forges a master weapon called Muse, with Muse and his newly found powers Talan manages to destroy the evil forces which have been devouring his world slowly. Talan overcomes all odds but at a painfully awful price. Now he must learn to live again as humble and peacefully as possible. Bard continues to blow my

I really enjoyed this book in the most literal sense. Not because I fancy myself an activist, nor do I indulge in anything remotely close to activism, but simply because the story was captivating and held me in awe from the very first page. Consequence as a whole is definitely against the grain of my normal tastes but suitably so as I found this book so terribly difficult to put down. Page after page of lyrical prose filled this novel. I especially enjoyed the back and forth banter between Chagall and Christopher, which were aggressive and domineering as both parties fought for control and in the end one side completely fails to hold up the agreement and betrays the other. I will say, in my opinion that this book was not a gut clenching thriller, in any sense, but it did leave me feeling uncomfortable and afraid of the outcome for many a character. Masover is smooth with his delivery and direct with his words. For more information on Consequence, by Steve Masover , p