Reviews and Comments

"Wunderlich" Sheila Kohler

An elderly suburban wife finds that the massages from Gabriel Wunderlich spawn a renaissance in her life. The cost?

"Atlantis", Richard Burgin

After his restless girlfriend nags him to plan for them to leave the house, druggie Stacy thinks it would be a good idea for them to visit Atlantic City, where both of them have history.

"The Enigma Of Grover's Mill", Bradford Morrow

Wyatt grows up in Grover's Mill, the city of H.G. Wells and Orson Welles' War Of The Worlds. His father, a Great War veteran, can't face another war and kills himself rather than fight aliens. Soon his mother and grandfather die. Wyatt is convinced that Franklin, a boarder who comes to live with his grandmother and him, is an alien who survived when his s side lost the invasion.

"Lola", Jonathan Santlofer

A stalker starts obsessing about Lola, a woman who bumped into him on PATH, follows her, paints her, spies on her. obsessively. Told from his point of view. It's noir. he doesn't get redeemed.

best story so far.

"New Day Newark", S.J. Rozan

86 year old Miss Crawford wants to help the new mayor clean up the city, and there are two drug dealers on her block. Who are no match for her.

"Newark Black: 1940-1954", C.K. Williams

Poem about the black things in Newark, and a bit about the Black people in Newark.

"Soul Anatomy", Lou Manfredo

a rookie cop, the son of a US Attorney, shoots and kills a Black squatter. He tells his union attorney the story, and he's pretty messed up about it, but not in a way I'd expect.

"Live For Today" by S.A. Solomon.

An addict gets a job as a morgue technician, where she works primarily with the bodies of dead junkies.

Been a while since I read an anthology.

This year, I've vowed to read some of the books that I've had on my shelves for a while. This one has been on my shelf since 2009 at least.

On paper, I should really enjoy Scalzi novels. In practice, not so much. Every character feels like an extension of Scalzi's social media presence. Fir the first book of this series, I could put up with it because the premise and plot were interesting.

There's nothing interesting in this second installment. it's just court intrigue with a bunch of wise cracking nobles. Scalzi can't seem to write a normal conversation, or plot intrigue that isn't over the top mustache-twirling.

Unfortunately for me, i want to know the end of the saga now. i will read the third book. then please, talk me out of reading any other of his books.

(He seems like a decent guy, but his fiction is just oil to my water.)

Ugh. The first book was ok. This is a drag, but now I'm invested in knowing what happens. And there's one more book in the series.

A prequel set just before book 1, The Affair tells how Reacher gets pushed out of the Army. The Army sends him to Carter Crossing Mississippi, where a young woman has been murdered and the town thinks the perpetrator must've been a soldier from the nearby Kelham Army Base.

This episode takes us back to early Reacher novels, where he can't put a foot wrong at all.

Including the sex scenes. Reacher can't do wrong, but Lee Child certainly does. These should have been whittled down a lot.

Second Son goes back to Reacher's childhood, specifically age 13 when his family is newly stationed on Okinawa. Local bullies threaten the new to town Reacher brothers. Reacher kisses a girl on the beach. Reacher acts and, worse, talks like adult Reacher. He gets to solve crimes like adult Reacher, including explaining to military investigators exactly where his father's missing code book has ended up. At age 13. Just scan right.