rhetorical excursions

Julie Patel? Her name still haunts me. Bradstreet Gate is a poignant look at college life and murder wrapped up neatly in a beautifully designed paperback format. Shown on the edition I’d read, the cover alone depicts a sinister wrought iron gate slightly ajar, leading to mist shrouded grounds, littered with Victorian buildings. Dark windows and shadowy doorways allow the mind to wander while reading the pages of this story. 3 friends find themselves caught in a web of lies and half-truths. Lives of mystery and second guessing. A situation that would almost crush any 20-something student juggling not only their already frail academic careers, but their vain attempt at maturity as well. Honestly, if a friend was murdered, I believe that would catapult a person directly into maturity and possible even acceptance of mortality, or destroy their life. But I will now digress from my meandering half-assed poetic musing. Georgia, Charlie and Alice join the ranks of new faces on ca...

I mistakenly read the Spaceman books out of order, starting with Near Enemy first, for some ridiculous reason. But as soon as I cracked this opened I realized that although the series shares common themes and characters they're in fact suitable as stand-alone stories. In the 1st Spademan book we learn who David Spademan is, or rather used to be and who he has now become. Reduced to taking on the ever popular but slightly challenging role as hit-man. A used-to-be bed hopper, since recovered, he spent all of his time and money tapping into the limnosphere. The next big thing. Where most people live out twisted fantasies, Spademan chose to just float in a vast, black void. Emptying his mind and life all all the noise and strife. Oh, how envious I am of that. The story felted very balanced, and evenly paced. I especially enjoyed how Sternbergh chose to type his lines and dialogue. Very quick. Very short. Packing a huge punch to the face. Shovel Ready gives us a detailed acc...

I've always been a fan of John Cleese's [Cheese] work, from early on. I remember the first time I saw the sketch for the Ministry of Silly Walks I was about 9 or so and I nearly wet myself from laughing so hard. I carried that sketch with me for what seemed like forever, even mimicking it well on into high school. Despite how amazing I thought it was, it didn't seem to fair too well with the ladies, but I digress. John Cleese has an incredible knack for delivering the right amount of pressure to my funny bone. Admittedly I even chuckled a few time during A Fish Called Wanda despite it's several lagging moments. Reading this, I noticed the first 100 pages can be arguably considered pretentious or even gloating, but please do keep in mind that this is an autobiography, a memoir about the life of a person who has and continues to achieve far greater performances then the time he spent with The Flying Circus. I found the beginning half of this book to be most appea...

I greatly appreciate the work that Jonathan Maas offers his readers; it’s very apparent within the first few pages the shear amount of research and dedication he puts forth through his words. Each book has been an amazing ride for me. I initially started with Flare [3rd Book], which was a hard punch to my face, followed by Spanner: The Fountain of Youth [2nd Book] and have recently finished City of Gods: Hellenica [1st book]. Throughout these 3 novels I’ve noticed subtle themes, or undertones of a greatness locked within one’s self and through persistence and diligence a person can will truly understand themselves and find real happiness. City of Gods: Hellenica for me was thoroughly entertaining. Many of the characters [Gods/Spirits/Demons] we learn about early on in our lives, whether in school or just out of general curiosity make an appearance in this novel. Some, such as Hercules are portrayed as blundering fools allowing their strength to dictate their actions, while oth...

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 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...

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...