Review - In the Blood by R L Martinez

Disclaimer: I received an ARC copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I think that the events of this book feel like the characters won the war, but then lost the battle.

In the Blood is the story of twin sisters who are separated by a great distance. Ottilde is locked in a prison camp after being captured during a war which took place before the start of the novel. Her sister Oriabel is locked in a castle with a group of odious captors.

Oriabel is a witch, masquerading as a person with healing powers in a society which has a Salem-esque fear and paranoia about, and general love of the burning of, witches. In spite of the apparent danger, she seems to go out of her way to do obviously witchy things in front of people. Ottilde is a famous (or infamous) warrior who for all intents and purposes may as well be genderless, and after a few brief action scenes at the start to demonstrate her badarsedness, proceeds to be extremely passive for the rest of the novel.

The story is split between the two locations, and I didn't feel like they were all that connected. The characters seemed to be somewhat-psychically aware of things which were happening to the other, but I felt like the story lacked connectivity.

And then there's the romance.

Now I am a bloke, and pretty blokey, and so some of this I might write off to me just not 'getting it' but I really didn't buy the romance between the main male protagonist (Hito) and Oriabel. I'm sure that every girl who gets sexually assaulted, and then raped by a powerful male is just DYING to jump into bed with the next vapid nobleman who wanders along. (spoiler, not spoiler, this IS romance fantasy)

Oh how she lovingly tends to the wounds of the injured nobleman, stroking his kneecap lovingly. And now she's drugging him - for his own good of course - so she can tend to his needs better. (what?)

And then just when I thought the author was building more of a relationship between them, BAM! Hito turns into an animal, discovers his beloved is a witch, discovers she's being blackmailed by her rapist and loses his shit. But never fear, the conquering hero will ride to the rescue... from himself.

Erm... ok, that escalated quickly.

I... in spite of these gripes did actually enjoy - for the most part - this novel. I thought the world was well-described, and the different characters felt distinct from each other. I did however think that the author took a bit too tight of a lens on the small events in the world, rather than dealing with more of the grander world events, like more of the fallout from the war that just happened.

It's a competent, if un-spectacular beginning to something, which reminded me of a lot of other books in this genre that I've read. It was somewhat reminiscent of Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy - which I disliked immensely - and a little of Gail Carriger - whose works I love. In spite of the things I may have disliked about it, it kept me interested until the end, and am willing to give any further books a chance.

3/5 stars

Review - House of War by James Carroll

The subtitle of this book is "The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power" which is pretty accurate, based on the book's assertions.

Every so often I read a book which really makes me mad about the fucked up way that the world works, and the atrocities and madness which have been perpetrated in our names by governments. Although I am not American, I felt like the story of Australia's post WW2-history was interwoven into so many of the events, due to our being dragged into so many of America's conflict.

The book follows the history, political and power developments which occurred through the lifetime of the Pentagon from its construction in the second world war, through to what it has become today. Chiefly the author focuses on a number of events which occurred on September the 11th in various years, and it is certainly interesting how so many pivotal events occurred on that particular date.

The author certainly takes an anti-military industrial complex stance in the book. However, it is hard not to feel that the world may well have been a different place if it were not for military forces creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion about what the Russians were doing in the world. What great works, or how many of the world's problems might have been solved if billions and trillions were not being spent on preparing for a nuclear war which never came. 

I remember reading a quote a while ago, although its origin now escapes me, which goes something like this:

"How many times over do we need to be able to kill everyone on the planet with nuclear weapons? About three times should do it."

It's just fucking crazy, and it's fucking madness. 

All in all, House of War is an interesting look at the relationship between the military leadership and the civilian politicians they are answerable to throughout the decades. 

4.5/5 stars

Review - Contact Sport by J K George

Disclaimer – I received an advance reader copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Contact Sport is a book about a somewhat obscure, and unknown (at least to me) sort called Contesting or Radiosporting, Specifically a competition which took place in 2014. This somewhat anachronistic event involves ham radio operators from around the world coming together in one location – in this case America – to compete against the other teams over a 24 hour period to make the most contacts with other radio operators in Europe.

The author does an excellent job of teasing out the history of previous events, and the characters who are involved in the whole competition. The fact that the author went out involved himself in the action, working alongside one of the teams made the story that much more interesting.

While not all of the concepts involved are explained particularly well – for instance, how the point scoring system works in the contest – but it is generally very accessible for people who don’t necessarily know much about ham radio. It was also interesting to hear about the use of, and integration of modern technology in this old

As a fan of bird-watching, and  other obscure sports, I can appreciate the obsessive nature of some of the contestants who took part in the event. Even the slightest mistake can ‘ruin’ everything.

I really enjoyed reading the book, and learning about something new – I had no idea that there were such contests still going on around the world, and while there is something “old-fashioned” about it, it still has a certain charm.

4.5/5 stars

Review - The Nazi Hunters by Andrew Nagorski

The hunt for high-ranking Nazis after the second world war is one of those periods of history about which I thought I had at least some knowledge. Probably the most famous of the Nazi hunters is Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian jew who survived the concentration camps, and determined to hunt down the people responsible for the deaths of so many jews.

The book sets out to dispel some of the myths, or stories which are out there about the Nazi hunters. It focuses on some of the lesser-known - to me at least - characters, and purports to tell the ‘true story’ of some of the famous events like the capture of Eichmann, amongst others.

Generally speaking, it is an informative book, although I found that it could get repetitive at times, as it covered an extended period of time between the end of the second world war and approximately 2013. It is more the story of the people who did the Nazi hunters, rather than the hunting themselves, and as such can take a bit of reading.

While the book is obviously well-researched and written, with more references than you can poke a stick at, I don’t think it was something I would go out of my way to read again. I suppose I would recommend it to people with a serious interest in the subject, or a connection to the story.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

3/5 stars

Review - The Angola Deception by D C Alden

The Angola Deception is a conspiracy/spy/thriller novel, and I received it from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This novel suffers from generic genre mediocrity in the worst possible way.

Reading this book I felt like I was again a naive teenager growing up in the 90s - watching the movie Conspiracy Theory, getting all worked up about FEMA, the New World Order, the Illuminati, and all of those other things you read about on blogs. And to bring it into the 21st Century there was a healthy dose of September 11 conspiracy.

After reading the book, I realised that the deception in the title seems to refer to the fact that Angola has virtually nothing to do with the actual novel. Okay, that's not fair, the Angola refers to an Angola virus, which the dark and mysterious forces in the world intend to unleash on the world.

We have a cast of characters who are about as generic as you might find in a thriller:

- Roy Sullivan - some working class schlep who has a missing/dead brother in Iraq. The centralish conflict in the story is that he is being blackmailed by some generic gangster into babysitting some other generic psycho for purposes unknown.
- Roy Sullivan's ex-wife, who has a new boyfriend and wants a divorce. (either Vicky or Vikki depending on the author's mood)
- Roy's autistic son Max.
- Derek - the generic psycho.
- Frank Marshall - a guy who is on the run, with some kind of Jason Bourne amnesia thing going on, but then he suddenly remembers who he is.

Generic Bad Guys
- Josh.

Some other generic bad guys I can't remember the names of. There are also the big bads, who are Committee - a shady Bilderberg Group/New World Order conspiracy who like to think they control the world.

So many things about the novel didn't make much sense to me - why Roy was being blackmailed, or even what he was being blackmailed with, or what his relationship with the generic gangster was exactly. He is forced to endure numerous beatings and generally psychotic behaviour from Derek, all the while carrying on a normalish life and working at a regular job.

So many things in this novel are predictable, and none of it really seemed to matter. Roy's role in the novel seemed to be to carry the plot of the novel until something more important happened. The problem for me was that it had a decent amount of potential, but the things that took centrestage were not the most interesting parts of the plot which was hinted at.

Overall I was quite disappointed. The premise reminded me a little of the Robert Ludlum novels published after his death by other authors, but it was nowhere near as good.

2/5 stars.

Review - Strangers on a Bridge by James Donovan vs Bridge of Spies (film)

After hearing about the new Tom Hanks novel - Bridge of Spies - I was very interested in watching the movie. After learning that there was a book written by James Donovan - the central character played by Tom Hanks - based on his diaries kept at the time, I was also interested to see what the similarities and differences were between the two versions.

Strangers on a Bridge (the book) takes the form of Donovan's diary entries, as he was corralled into defending the alleged Soviet spy Colonel Rudolf Abel. It follows the extensive courtroom dramas which unfolded, and follows his journey up to and including the Supreme Court arguments. What unfolds between Donovan and Abel is a grudging respect that turns into a cautious friendship. Donovan was formerly involved in the OSS during the Second World War, and also took part in the Nuremberg trials. This was in part the basis of their connection which went beyond the lawyer-client relationship.

The courtroom, and legal battles comprise approximately 80% of the book, and is followed by a much shorter, and less intricately detailed (allegedly for security reasons) description of how the exchange of prisoners between Russia, East Germany and America took place.

I will admit that in watching the movie, I felt that there was not a good balance between the two 'halves' of the story, but I can see how much of the legal wranglings which work in book form would probably be death on screen. I felt that much of the performance of Mark Rylance as Colonel Abel rang true for me, but the relationship between Abel and Donovan was completely ignored in the film. Unfortunately, most of his lines seemed to boil down to asking "would it help?" in response to any question asked of him by Hanks. According to the book, he was deeply interested and involved in the preparation of his defence, and was no passive actor.

I felt as though it was played up as Hanks being the ra-ra 'Murica angle, and red blue and white-washed a lot of the humanity of the story. I really got sick of the 'clever' transitions between actions occurring in one location, and similar but contrasting action taking place in another. It was neat the first time, but got old very quickly.

Rylance's performance was definitely the most outstanding of the actors, although Hanks' wife, played by Amy Ryan was very well characterised. I note that the book makes only infrequent mentions of his relationship with his wife, but it seemed to be accurate from what I can tell.

There is something about Tom Hanks that has started to annoy me. There was a certain Sleepless in Seattle feel about his performance, that leant a certain air of incompetence. I'm just not sure I bought it.

I much preferred the book, although the diary style of it could be a bit jarring, and might have worked better as woven into a narrative. However, it did serve to pinpoint the time periods over which the events took place. I would rate the book 4 out of 5 stars.

The movie is an overdramatised, overhyped, mostly-accurate version of the events, by comparison to the events as described in the book. Only the performance of Mark Rylance stands out in a mostly-mediocre cast. At best a 2 out of 5. I wouldn't bother seeing it in theatres.