Chris Kuzneski - The Secret Crown

I have to say, The Secret Crown is one of the best book I’ve read in a while. The two lead characters are fantastic and the way interact often verges on real conversations – albeit the closest I’ve seen to real dialogue. There are several instances where they go off on tangents that don’t necessarily drive the story but they do develop the characters. Their personalities come across almost straight away which is a difficult thing to do.

The story itself is also pretty solid, although it feels quite short. There is a lengthy action sequence in the middle of the book and no last minute showdown when it really feels like there should be. All in all, it feels kind of... easy. The hardships the characters face are more like mediumships except for the one gunfight.

There is one major writing issue that kept bothering me. There are a few telephone conversations throughout the 465 page book. These conversations are always – as they should be – from the perspective of the main characters. This should mean that we shouldn’t be made aware of the facial expressions being used by the person on the other end of the phone. It feels a bit lazy. If you are going to have telephone conversations in a book, one of the sacrifices you should make is removing this kind of description, especially if you’ve already proved your dialogue is strong enough without it. You can emphasise the feelings of the other character through the dialogue or even the intuition of the main character.

There are a few other minor inconsistencies. During some scenes in an old bunker in the mountains there are several doors that are hard to spot and open. However, we get the impression that these giant stone doors have been opened recently so it doesn’t make sense that our experienced protagonists struggle to locate the door and even more, cannot open them.

Also these doors appear to be made of stone with no handles and there is no description given of how to close them which surely must have happened before our protagonists arrived.

On the positive side, there are also some real gems in the narrative. On page 111 there is a joke about Mother’s Day cards and what greetings are not used in them which not only broke the forth wall but was also quite funny. Towards the end of the book there is a dig at the Twilight saga in context which, as you can probably tell from previous reviews, is always welcome.

However, the best bit is the author’s note at the end. Chris shamelessly asks readers to buy 10 plus copies of his book to discuss in reading groups. It is a self-deprecating joke and comes across really well.

To sum up, it’s a solid book, very nearly well written with likable characters and a likeable author. So much so that I ordered his back catalogue when I finished reading simply to learn more about his characters – and he won me over with his author’s note.

The Secret Crown by Chris Kuzneski was published by The Penguin Group in 2010. RRP £6.99 (Paperback)

Michael McInyre – Life and Laughing: My Story

Life and Laughing: My Story was a Christmas gift from 2010. As stated on previous reviews, namely Frank Lampard’s trip to McDonalds, I do not agree with autobiographies being written by celebrities prior to the end of their career or even their fortieth birthday. Such is the case for Michael McIntyre – at the time of publishing he was the ripe old age of 34.

This is of course okay if Michael McIntyre’s career had died at the end of his 2009 tour. However, the news tells me that this is not the case. 2012 was his biggest year. He played to lots of people a record for performances at the 02 Arena. I can’t find this information in his autobiography. Why? Because it was written before it happened.

He does make a good point towards the end of the 295 page story of his life so far, in that he didn’t write about after he became successful because it is boring to him. Also the audience probably know all there is to know because why would they buy the biography if they didn't know who he was? This should mean that we won’t see a follow on autobiography, but only time will tell.

Anyway, enough of my personal autobiographical opinion and on to the book itself.

The first thing I noticed was the Americanisation of the book. Now after experimenting with my own word processor, it does not pick up criticising as a misspelt word. Nor does it pick up criticizing either. Whereas neither is recognised as a spelling mistake, I believe that McIntyre, as an Englishman, should be using the English version of the word. Incidentally, when publishing this on here, it highlights 'criticising' as incorrect and also misspelt.

During the first few chapters, the book reads as if he is speaking and feels a lot like his stand up material. This is quite entertaining and would have been really good had he managed to keep it up for the length of the book.  Unfortunately he doesn't and the narrative falls into standard prose interspersed with jokes, some of which fail to work on paper.

The first one of these occurred on page 29 when he starts talking about the countdown theme and how Alan Hawkshaw gets paid for every time the theme tune is played.  There are several problems with the attempted joke;

1. The theme tune is played more than once during the show.
2. The countdown clock doesn’t reset if a contestant incorrectly guesses.
3.  I’m going to guess that Alan doesn’t get paid by the second as my other two point lead me to believe that this joke is a joke for the jokes sake to try to funny as opposed to actually being based in truth.

This isn’t the only time this happens. On page 75 McIntyre describes his old home town of Golders Green as having the following shops; C&A, Wimpy, Cecil Gee, Woolworths and Our Price. This joke is aimed at the fact that all these stores have gone out of business. However, just by chance, there is a Wimpy in my home town of Newton Abbot. Wimpy still exists, it has just reduced the amount of stores it owns. I’m being a bit picky here but my point is that whereas these jokes would probably work as part of a sketch, when they are on paper, they do not work as well as they otherwise would.

There is another example of this when he tells about his wedding on page 257. He says there are no horses coming to the wedding, but they have a horse drawn carriage to take them away from the chapel. It’s another technicality but I would expect a little bit more thoughtfulness to go into this seeing as the author is one of Britain’s best comedians.

Not even Michael McIntyre can make interior decorating funny. He still tries though on two occasions and, in my opinion, fails. It feels a little too much like filler that is trying too hard to be funny.

That said, there are a few golden moments, one of which stood out to me but again, I think it’s poorly placed in a novel. On page 100, McIntyre makes reference to the Andrew Sachs, Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand saga by saying, ‘I’d like to add that Andrew Sachs, who played Manuel, is a very fine actor and I’d like to wish him and his family well,’ following on from the events of October 2008. It is quite funny but wouldn't be relevant in ten years time as, I think, many people would not know what this was referring to and as such, it would no longer be relevant.

The book is very targeted in that anyone who is a big fan of Michael McIntyre would want to read it and for this, it is very good. However, as a writer, he goes off on a lot of tangents and this makes the book hard to follow in places. However, it did encourage me to re-watch his Royal Variety performances, which allowed me to forgive the few writing faux pas’ he makes in this book.

Life and Laughing: My Story by Michael McIntyre was published by The Penguin Group in 2010. RRP £20.00 (Hardback)

R.A. Salvatore - Servant of the Shard

Servant of the Shard is meant to be the first book in a series of three books, which is why I was perplexed that the very first word of the prologue is ‘he’ like it assumes some kind of prior knowledge to something that has happened  before the story has started. In fact, the entire opening of the book reads like this. So much so that I did a little research into the author and discovered that this trilogy is preceded by five other series’, set in the same world, that follow on from each other.

My main issue with this is that if you are going to have several series that follow on from each other, there should be a brief summary in the beginning of the book to inform the uninformed reader of anything they need to know to enjoy the story. Stephen King did this with his epic fantasy, The Dark Tower and it majorly helped me, especially when I waited a few months before reading the next book in the series.

Another issue with reading this as a first book is that there are a lot of characters with weird fantastical names and they are all introduced at the same time. This made life very confusing for me. I am only a simple minded man and to accommodate lots of new names at the same time was very challenging for me.

By page 6 of the 369 page fantasy extravaganza I had finally established who everyone was and their place in the world (no easy task,) and could move on to bashing the narrative. There is overdone dialogue description where the author over emphasises the calmness of one character’s talking. Had there been a preamble detailing the previous books and this character’s specific traits, this might not have been necessary. However the phasing of, ‘he asked calmly – too calmly,’ is a lazy way of describing the difference in character.

Page 17 is littered with over written sentences, one such example being, ‘taking no obvious note of her arrival at all.’ This style carries on throughout the novel, so much that I stopped making note of anything after page 24.

There were two other things that bugged me before this point (bad things happen in twos in seems.) ‘Life in the Dark Lane’ is the title of chapter two and while this is clichéd, it is also out of context in this particular fantasy where cars do not exist.

On page 24, one paragraph is written from the perspective of two different characters which again makes for confusing reading as well as poor layout and sentence structure.

After this point I stopped making notes, put all my issues with the story aside and discovered that the book actually gets better as it goes along. Salvatore has got a lot of skill when it comes to writing complex action sequences. Even though there is a lot going on, they are quite easy to follow and he manages to build suspense without foreshadowing future events or character death.

Also as a final note, I am pleased that the book actually features a crystal shard which uses its holders as servants. Finally, we have a book with an appropriate title!

Servant of the Shard by R.A. Salvatore was published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000. RRP £5.99 (Amazon Paperback)

Allan Pease - The Ultimate Book of Rude and Politically Incorrect Jokes

Why did the dead baby cross the road?

That is a politically incorrect, rude and insensitive joke. It is also nonsensical so that would explain why it is not in Allan Pease’s collection of jokes. At least it would on the outside. There are a lot of ‘jokes’ in this book that fit the criteria of not making any sense, and some not even in their own context.

What does it take to circumcise a whale? Foreskin Divers.

If someone can explain this joke and why it is funny, please post a comment below. If it is in fact a reference to four skin divers, it is simply a terrible joke.

Some are not even rude or politically incorrect and following on from my previous review this makes the title somewhat misleading. To be an ultimate book of politically incorrect jokes, I would expect to be reading lots of jokes that are quite offensive.

Instead this book plays it safe in most respects. Apparently it is okay to make sexist jokes towards both men and women, the French, Greeks, Irish, Gays and Jewish people. However there are several notable minorities missing from this list so does this mean that going into all of them will be taking it to far? In the same light is it not okay to include any of the more inappropriate jokes that circulate the internet on sites such as sickipedia? The difference is that sites like sickipedia are opposed to quality control and anyone can contribute. Therefore I would expect an ‘ultimate’ book to have a least a few of the more offensive ones cherry picked from these locations.

For example;

I was doing my secretary up the arse last night when my wife caught me.

‘You can’t do this to me!’ she said.

‘I know,’ I replied. ‘That’s why I’m doing it to her.’

This is only a slightly offensive one but over the course of the 276 pages, I would expect a lot more offensive jokes of this nature and worse - and a lot less whale foreskins.

I think that maybe the problem is more with society than the book itself.  It was published in Great Britain and the nature of the general English population is that they are easily offended and will actively look for things to complain about. People have forgotten that jokes are exactly that – jokes. Jokes are told to get a reaction from an audience. If you find racist jokes funny, that doesn’t mean you are a racist. If someone takes these jokes seriously, it raises more concerns about the reader than the teller.

However, the disclaimer in the front states, ‘Send complaints or abuse emails letters to allan@dontcare.com’ so clearly Allan isn’t that bothered if he offends people – so use more offensive jokes! And remove the ones that don’t make sense!

So in summary, it is a mediocre collection of jokes, some of which are really funny and others which are not.  The ones that don’t make sense annoy me but mainly because the title states Ultimate book of which is very misleading.

The Ultimate Book of Rude and Politically Incorrect Jokes by Allan Pease was published by Robson Books in 2001. RRP £6.99 (Paperback)

As of 15 March 2013 this book is now referenced on Allan’s Wikipedia page.

James Becker - The Nosferatu Scroll

One of the most important things about a book is that the reader can identify with the characters involved. However, there are certain ways a writer can prevent a reader from doing so even if they design a really good character and this is exactly the case with James Becker’s Chris Bronson.

Of all the surnames there are to chose from, including making up new ones, I do not understand the decision to name the main after one of Britain’s most notorious criminals – complete with a matching first initial. He is also referred to throughout the book as Bronson and he is a policeman. I found it impossible to picture anything but a bald guy with a cheesy eighties moustache as Bronson was gallivanting around Venice.

There will be more on Chris Bronson’s skill set later, but for now let’s discuss the actual writing. The first few chapters hammer out a load of semi-relevant information in the form of dialogue from Bronson’s wife, Angela.  My main problem with this is that it stops being dialogue and reads like non-fiction. There is no characterisation to the paragraphs; they just run as uninterrupted dialogue for pages at a time. I would have forgiven this had Bronson said something at the end like, ‘Sorry darling, I stopped listening about 3 pages ago.’

There are small problems with the characterisation of everyone throughout the book. On page 125 when some random dudes have a woman prisoner, they haven’t said anything to her for the entire time she has been captured. Then, all of a sudden, it what appears to be a complete change of character, one of the dudes turns around and starts antagonising her.

The dialogue problems also continue throughout. A lot of the conversations are very wooden with little characterisation from either party. It makes for very uninteresting reading.

Around chapter 31 I started to become aware of a few problems with the pacing of the novel. Some parts which feature a lot of moving through different locations pass by in a few sentences and other parts, such as unnecessary conversations and information based dialogue get dragged out. I was quite shocked in this chapter especially because I almost didn’t notice that we had skipped a really long journey and passage of time.

Chapters are written from a few different perspectives.  One such perspective is the captured girl mentioned earlier. All these chapters serve to do is remind us that she was captured and is still captured and is being held captive. They don’t add anything to the story other than to remind us that she is in trouble and that something potentially bad is going to happen to her later. If nothing happened later, there would be no point to the story. There is far too much forewarning in these sections – we know something is going to happen and we do not need to be reminded of it every five minutes.

Moving on to problems with the story itself – one of the other characters is captured later on and kept alive to complete a translation. However the captors point out that they have translated some of the text themselves so would know if she was doing it wrong on purpose. At this point, it seems the only reason to keep her live is a device to drive the story.

As mentioned earlier Bronson has very specific skill set. One such skill is the art of aikido which is explained to us in the middle of an action sequence. The only reason for this is because Bronson needs to use this skill to survive. Similar occurrences happen throughout the novel, if Bronson needs to do something, the author gives him the necessary skills to do so with a quick history of why he is able to do it. At one point he needs to use a gun so it is brought to our attention that he used to be in army. After this I was half expecting him to come face to face with a lion – but he would be okay because of that year he spent as part of the circus as a lion tamer.

There are several other irritations, too many to mention all of them at this stage so I’ll mention two more that really got under my skin.  At the end of one chapter, Bronson is asked to if he can confirm whether or not a dead woman is his wife. His response is, ‘Yes I can.’ This is expected, he should know what his wife looks like. But surely if anyone is ever in this position where they are asked if they are able to confirm whether the dead person is their wife, the response would not be, ‘yes I can,’ and then stop talking.

The last one comes near the end where there are two girls are captured together - one of them is English and the other is Italian. The Italian knows a little English. Now in my experience, when someone says they know a little English, they know the basics. I wouldn’t expect someone with limited knowledge of a foreign language to know what the translation for taser was.

It seems that Becker, throughout the 466 paged of the novel, will give his characters the necessary requirement to make his story work with very little effort on his part which is attributable to very lazy and predictable writing. I managed to predict the ending to the letter and I am very rarely able to do that which is a not a good sign.

Despite the many, many points I’ve raised I still sort of enjoyed it, although the best bit was the author’s note in the back which taught me a lot about the history of vampires. Wait, I’ve just thought of another irritation! The book is called The Nosferatu Scroll and this would indicate that there is an item in the book of that name. However, Nosferatu is not even mentioned until the author’s note which makes the title of the book almost completely meaningless.

The Nosferatu Scroll by James Becker was published by Bantam Press in 2011. RRP £6.99 (Paperback)

Robin Cook - Terminal

I’m annoyed at myself for putting off this review for as long as I have.  However, now my significant other has finished reading it too I found myself in a position to revisit a book that left me sitting on the fence over whether it was good or not.

Overall the book is pretty decent. It tells a solid story and balances the research aspects with character development as well as telling a fictional tale involving mystery, love, and science. However there were moments, several in fact, where I wanted to throw the book at the fictional characters’ heads.

The first one occurs on page 16 where the one of the characters is seemingly very pleased with himself for not having an alcoholic drink for three days. This may just be my age though. Terminal was written in 1993 so daily drinking may have been the norm. However, three days without an alcoholic drink – not so much of an achievement. It’s only a small gripe and it’s more about the words used than the character himself.

The next one is small as well, but there is also a technical issue with it. The sentence on page 20 reads, ‘Staff at the Forbes Cancer Centre was...’ where ‘was should be ‘were’ as ‘Staff’ is plural. It’s this kind of mistake that should stop me reading and would certainly have stopped a publisher from considering the novel for publication if it was submitted now.

Next, on page 23 we have overdone dialogue description. ‘“Great!” Sean said sarcastically.’ It is perfectly clear from the conversation preceding this sarcastic comment that Sean is being sarcastic in a sarcastic kind of way. I would expect it to be there if the dialogue did not make the sarcasm clear. But it does. Sarcastically.

By page 58 I had lost count of the many different character perspectives the story had been written from. Generally, I don’t have a problem with changing perspectives. Robin Cook breaks them down in different chapters however the chapters are not very long which made it difficult to get into. After this initial onslaught of different perspectives, it then settles down to a constant three or four, but by that point I’d forgotten about the initial others – which makes me wonder. How important can they be?

Page 199 introduces us the Miami police department who are depicted as slow, unkempt, careless and not really that bothered about the situation they have been called out to – much like every other police officer in the history of fiction, where the fiction was not written by former members of the police force or alternative public servicemen. My point is that it is becoming very clichéd to have bad policemen show up in fiction and be bad at their jobs. It would have been less detrimental to the story to sum the scene up with one line and move on.

On page 210 we are introduced to a character named Tim who has one line. Who the fuck is Tim and why should we, the audience, give a shit about his one redundant line? He may have been introduced before but if I can’t remember him at this juncture then his name is insignificant.

There are a few other small technical errors that caught my attention. There is over-repetition in one page, incorrect work usage on another – they aren’t big mistakes but they are catching my attention which kind of ruins the story.

So in summary, Terminal is a good book. It’s not going to set the world on fire but it’s not God awful. It’s just a shame that some careless writing ruined a few quality moments.

Terminal by Robin Cook was published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in 1993. RRP £4.99 (Paperback)

Robyn Young - Brethren

Walking home blind drunk from a night out resulted in the purchase of this book. It is not a good idea to have a 24 hour Tesco on the route home from the local club. Well, for me anyway. Especially with change in my wallet.

However, unlike the many other things I’ve bought when I haven’t had complete control over my sense, Brethren is actually far from the worst. Or the mostly costly (Amazon has had an adverse affect on my bank balance over the years.)

Brethren takes us back to the crusades and follows the main protagonist Will Campbell through his young life. The first strikingly strange thing is Will’s name and how he is surrounded by other characters with far more historically general names than his. For example, his best friend is Garin de Lyons, his mentor Owein and a few other friends. Basically he is the only character with a generic surname like Campbell.

The main problem with the book is its length of 653 pages. There are many sections of the book which give bits of history that are unnecessary to the story. It really takes away from the story and character development when you are removed from it for a long irrelevant history lesson.

It seems that Robyn Young is more interested in writing about the history of the crusades as opposed to developing her characters and their individual stories. If I wanted to learn more about the crusades I would have picked up a non-fiction book.

One of the most interesting parts of the story is the relationship between Will and his love interest Elwen. They develop a secret love at a young age. Inappropriately young some might say, and it very interesting to see how their relationship affects Will’s anger levels. Unfortunately, tying in with the history stuff above, there isn’t enough of their relationship on paper, which is a real shame.

After their young love comes to end though, Will Campbell’s mood develops more swings than a children’s play park. At the start he is confident slash arrogant with his approach to becoming a knight. Then he becomes insanely angry due to his circumstances and then depressed but also angry and then back to happy in the space of a few pages. I don’t think this is a character flaw but more a problem with the language used surrounding his moods. This more generally happens with characters in action scenes where the words describe them as pretty much dead yet somehow they claw their way back to victory. Despite the fiction, it takes away from the believability of the characters.

That aside the book has some enjoyable moments. It kept me entertained enough to see it through to the end – and not just because I’m wired that way. Despite the history breaks it was good to see the young characters develop over the duration.

Brethren by Robyn Young was published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2006. RRP £6.99 (Paperback)