Book Review: Star Wars: Canto Bight

This casino city is the latest stop on the Journey to "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."

"Star Wars: Canto Bight" consists of four very different novellas set in the Las Vegas of a galaxy far, far away, on the desert planet Cantonica, ahead of the city's first on-screen appearance in Episode VIII.

The first of these, "Rules of the Game" by Saladin Ahmed, focuses on Kedpin Shoklop, a seemingly guileless Wermal who has won a trip to Canto Bight.

However, his dream vacation gradually turns nightmarish as he runs into various con artists before his encounter with Anglang Lehet, a Caskadag assassin who decides to use Kedpin in his mission.

Ahmed employs a straightforward, clear writing style, but he manages to craft a nice introductory tale. Since Kedpin is an outsider, the reader learns about Canto Bight with him.

Additionally, the contrast between Kedpin's cheery naivete and Anglang's hardened cynicism creates a fun tonal shift as we jump between their points of view.

Mira Grant's "The Wine in Dreams" is a less typical tale.

Derla Pidys, a sommelier, is trying to purchase a legendary vintage from the mysterious Grammus sisters, who claim to be from a dimension beyond hyperspace. 

The sale is complicated when ruthless nightclub owner Ubialla Gerald tries to procure the wine for her superior.

Grant's writing is quite poetic, but needlessly long descriptive passages and flowery dialogue (mostly from the sisters) slow things down too much. The pace picks up towards the end, but it's hard not to get bored during the buildup to the deal.

Luckily, "Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing" by Rae Carson more than makes up for it.

This novella introduces us to Lexo Sooger, a Dor-Namthian masseuse, and Lula, his human adopted daughter who works in indentured servitude. The pair appear to lead quiet lives until Lexo finds himself caught up on a power struggle between the elites of Canto Bight — something he has tried desperately to avoid.

Carson's story is the strongest of the four. It's fast-paced and thrilling, with an excellent main character. Lexo is easy to empathize with and he becomes increasingly fascinating as we learn more about him.

This tale also reveals the most about the hierarchy of Canto Bight, from its glamorous elites to those struggling to survive in its dark underbelly.

"The Ride," by John Jackson Miller, is the most fun of the four stories.

Here, we are introduced to Kaljach (Kal) Sonmi, a Heptooinian career card player with a debt and a tight time limit. He follows a system until he loses it all to the Lucky Three, brothers who make wild bets and win big.

Kal's seesawing luck and the Lucky Three's happy-go-luck attitudes make this an unpredictable ride. 

Gambling stories often hinge on the readers' understanding of games, but Miller — also known for 2014's "A New Dawn" — does a nice job of explaining the rules.

This collection's authors and editors also deserve credit for the subtle links between the four stories. 

These give us a satisfying sense of the Canto Bight community and some nice narrative threads for readers, but never to the detriment of the story being told.

It's unlikely that the events of this book will have a major impact on "The Last Jedi," but it will enrich one of the movie's locations and create some nice Easter eggs for fans who want to know about the background characters.

"Canto Bight" doesn't change the galaxy, but those who love all the small details and quirky characters of the "Star Wars" universe will enjoy at least three of the stories in this collection.

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Original Review on: http://www.nydailynews.com

Book Review - Strong To The Bone by Jon Land

Jon Land's Caitlin Strong thrillers usually have a "ripped from the headlines" feel, and the new one, "Strong to the Bone," features violent neo-Nazis, industrial robots, a lethal biological weapon, the international opiates trade and a creep who buys pharmaceutical companies to jack up the price of drugs.

For the uninitiated, Strong is a trigger-happy, insubordinate, fifth-generation Texas Ranger whose exploits always have a direct link to one of her ancestors' investigations. 

In this one, the ninth book in the series, it's her grandfather Earl Strong's pursuit of a Nazi who escaped from a World War II prison camp in Texas in the 1940s.

The series' other regulars, including Caitlin's long-suffering commander, D.W. Tepper; her ex-con lover, Cort Wesley Masters; and Masters' sons Luke and Dylan, all return. 

The oldest boy, Luke, who becomes more like his father with every book, initiates the action when he faces off against neo-Nazis who harass his Mexican-American friends.

The story also finds Caitlin coming face-to-face with the darkest moment in her past. Called to the scene of a nightclub brawl in Austin, she discovers that a young woman has been drugged and raped.

The circumstances are eerily similar to what happened to Caitlin when she was a college student — an assault Land reveals here for the first time.

Caitlin soon suspects that the girl's assailant and hers are one and the same. This makes Caitlin wonder if she's always been quick to pull the trigger because she harbors a deep-seated rage against male offenders.

Eventually, the Masters' struggle against neo-Nazis and Caitlin's pursuit of the rapist merge into a single, related criminal case. As always with this rollicking, entertaining series, the complex plot is resolved in a burst of righteous violence.

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Original review on: http://www.nzherald.co.nz

Book Review: The Stark Truth by Jayson Stark

Who’s the best first baseman ever? Who’s the worst second baseman of all time? What pitcher has a big name, but doesn’t live up to it? Which outfielder is unheralded, but always delivers in the clutch? 

These are the questions Jayson Stark attempts to answer in his book, The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History (Let the Debate Begin!).

This isn’t just bar room talk—this is a definitive ranking of the most over and undervalued players at each position and don’t for a second think this list is ‘click bait’. 

As any lover of baseball will soon realize as they read through the first section of the book, Stark took his time and assignment of compiling this list seriously. There aren’t any hap-hazard choices. 

For each person, whether they be over or under-rated, Stark provides compelling reasoning as to his logic and guidance as to why a player ended up on either side of the leger.

As if reading through the top and bottom ranked players at each position isn’t enough, Stark also compiled a list of the three overrated and underrated players all time for each team at the back of the book. 

These lists are relatively brief, but each mention of a player does come with a short comment of Stark’s thoughts.

For each position category, Stark chose to go five deep on both sides of the scale. Here are the positions he rated:

• Right-Handed Starting Pitchers
• Left-Handed Starting Pitchers
• Relief Pitchers
• Designated Hitters
• Catchers
• First Basemen
• Second Basemen
• Third Basemen
• Shortstops
• Left Fielders
• Center Fielders
• Right Fielders

This reviewer found it particularly interesting that Stark chose to rate each outfield position and also divided starting pitchers up by which arm they used.

For an idea of how Stark went about picking these players, here are a few of the rules he came up with to help him decide (details for the rules will have to be found in the book):

• Book A Cruise Every October
• Beg for a Pay Cut
• Spend Your Career in the Central or Mountain Time Zones
• Take Boredom Lessons
• Demand to be Traded to the Royals
• Whatever You Do, Don’t Get Elected to the 
  Hall
   of Fame

This was one of the most enjoyable baseball books this reviewer has had the pleasure of reading. 

Read  cover to cover in one sitting, it is a page turner, unlike many non-fiction baseball books that are informative but tedious. 

Stark does a great job adding his perspective, yet relying on concrete statistic and real world situations to back his ratings. 

Each page that went by, I became more intrigued by whose name I would see pop up next on either side of the line. 

Add to this that I was pleasantly surprised to see my favorite player of all time, Omar Vizquel, listed as one of the most underrated shortstops of all time. This work is highly recommended for anyone who considers themselves a baseball guru or just even just a casual fan of the game.

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Original review on: http://baseballreflections.com

Comic Book Review - Mystik U #1

While the DC Universe is filled with colourful superheroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and the rest of the Justice League that save the world and fight a ton of supervillains, it is also filled with quite a few magical heroes who fight demons and other magical foes. 

They haven’t been given much of a spotlight lately, but DC’s new bi-monthly series by Alisa Kwitney aims to change that with Mystik U.

The first issue of Mystik U is like DC meeting Harry Potter and X-Men after Zatanna finds herself taken to Mystik University, a place where people could study and harness their magical and supernatural abilities. 

The first issue combines an entertaining cast of characters with an interesting premise as one of the new students is bound to become a powerful force called The Malevolence that will destroy the world in seven years time.

Kwitney writes a good take on Zatanna, one who is younger than she typically is in the DC comics. She’s an engaging character with a good sense of humour that readers can identify with with immediately. 

All she wants at the start of the story is to be recognized as a good magician and be equal with her father, who doesn’t think she has ‘the gift’. One odd beat, though, is how she transitions from mourning the potential death of her father to being wide-eyed and giddy about Mystik U. 

The change happens a bit too fast as her father is never really brought up again in the issue, but otherwise Zatanna’s characterization and relationship with her fellow students is pretty well handled.

The supporting cast is just as entertaining as Zatanna. Its nice to see Kwitney using less-known or almost forgotten magical DC characters, like Sargon the Sorcerer or Mister E. 

Sebastian Faust is a social rebel that looks more like James Dean than a wizard while Enchantress alternates between a sweet looking girl and a punk hipster depending on the dominant personality. 

Sargon provides a bit of comic relief as the socially awkward one of the bunch while the new character Pia is an interesting addition to the magical corner of DC, adding another fish out of water in the school.

Mystik U has Runaways‘ Mike Norton doing the artwork that compliments the tone of Kwitney’s script. He captures Zatanna’s youth pretty well and includes a nice amount of detail in his facial expressions and background. 

One example is the differences between Enchantress when she’s June Moone and the sorceress, particularly in a set of panels where Moone is changing into the Enchantress in the background and is putting on make-up, dying her hair and giving herself a new hairstyle.

Some of the magical entities are also drawn well, such as the horde of demons that captures Zatanna’s father to Plop, the school’s new slime monster. Jordie Bellaire makes good use of the colours on these creatures and characters as well, giving some of the school’s settings an eerie feeling whether its in the cemetery or Dr. Psyche’s office.

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Original review on: www.flickeringmyth.com

Book Review: Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality by Katherine Franke

You’re not in any hurry. The ring’s on your finger, the engagement was just announced, and you both feel like you’ve got plenty of time. Now’s your chance to enjoy the process of getting married and planning your future together. 

But Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality by Katherine Franke asks the question: why marry at all?

When president George Washington died, his will stipulated that his slaves should be given their freedom after the death of his wife, Martha, who inherited them.

This, says Katherine Franke, accidentally “put a price on” Martha’s head, and revealed Washington’s acknowledgment of one of the complexities of slavery: marriage among the Washington slaves meant that freeing his without freeing hers would break up families. 

This issue, and others before and after the Civil War, illustrates how “many of the experiences of African-Americans held out a message to the same-sex marriage movement today.”

Throughout American history, Franke says, the “rules” of marriage for non-white or gay individuals hid a double-edged sword of enhanced rights and enforced matrimonial laws complicated by the pre-Emancipation fluidity of relationships and looser definitions of “marriage” within early African-American communities. 

The current lack of awareness about state marriage laws in today’s LGBT community presents a similar problem.

The bottom line that’s often not emphasized: when a couple marries, the state suddenly “acquires a legal interest in your relationship.” Now, as then, marriage may also be legally “forced” on a couple: in the case of former slaves, to gain benefits in wartime; for LGBT couples, to continue receiving health-insurance benefits. 

And beyond all of that, marriage, as Franke reminds readers, has never offered a guarantee from discrimination.

Is it possible, Franke asks, that “the inability to marry creates a kind of freedom from the ‘bonds’ of marriage?” At a time when the marriage rate in the black community is low and LGBT parents are demanding new legal definitions of “family,” will marriage become antiquated? 

Or is the “freedom” to marry just another way for society to meddle in the lives of marginalized individuals?

To be sure, Wedlocked is not exactly a fun weekend read that you’d take to the beach. Fun, no. Interesting, absolutely.

It’s also quite thought-provoking. Author Katherine Franke is the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University, and in this book she asks hard questions in between her jaw-dropping history lessons and arguments that marriage is both burden and boon to anyone who’s not white and straight. 

That’s not to say that the institution is dead; instead, Franke wonders if, of all the civil rights that were denied former slaves and gay individuals, marriage may have been the oddest choice to become the hallmark legal battle.

But which other right would’ve been better? That question seems open for discussion—just one of many questions that readers are given to ponder in this heavy-duty, scholarly book. But be aware: Wedlocked, now in paperback, can’t be enjoyed and contemplated if you’re in any hurry.

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Original review on: http://www.outsmartmagazine.com

Book Review - Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir by Gareth Evans

The political memoir, especially in Australia, can make for heavy reading: self-aggrandisement, ego-boosting, dubious justification and the settling of old scores and slights, real or imagined. 

But not so with the ebullient Gareth Evans, one of Australia's outstanding public figures of the modern age, whose latest book, his 12th, crackles with wit, self-deprecating humour and illuminating insights into both politics and the complexities of public policy. 

He has few, if any, regrets; his judgments, while acute, are generous. The title, Incorrigible Optimist, is most apposite.

Since entering the Senate in the late 1970s and serving with distinction in the Hawke and Keating governments, Evans went on to grace the international stage as head of the Brussels-based international Crisis Group before becoming the Australian National University's chancellor in 2010.

Evans has always been a good talker and an amusing raconteur; such qualities abound in this elegant, almost conversational memoir of a busy, rich, engaged and very examined life.

In the early 1990s, The Canberra Times sent me to talk to the then foreign minister to write a profile. He agreed to a 20-minute interview, but the allotted time came and went and, despite his staff's efforts to get him to stick to his schedule, he was happy to go on talking, embellishing a story here, adding a reflection there. He was expansive and exuberant.

On the way out after what seemed the best part of an hour, or perhaps even longer, a very senior official, who had been kept waiting, looked up at me, saying: "Oh, it was only you he was meeting. No doubt you engaged him on his favourite subject: Gareth Evans." It was, I thought, a needlessly waspish comment.

Anyway, as one might expect in a memoir, there is a lot of Evans here – and it is a far from unattractive or intrusive presence; rather, it is an absorbing and thoughtful meditation on events, issues and processes that Evans has been part of for four decades.

An early supporter of Bob Hawke, Evans looks back on Labor's most successful leader with undisguised admiration. 

Hawke, as leader, had four exceptional strengths, he writes: the ability to craft a grand narrative; a facility to connect with people; a readiness to operate collegiately; and – in contrast to the earlier larrikin persona – the maintenance of both personal and institutional discipline.

Hawke appointed Evans to the foreign ministry after Bill Hayden, the man Hawke deposed as Labor leader, vacated the post to become governor-general. But Evans writes he was not Hawke's first choice for the plum job. 

That was Kim Beazley, but Beazley's preference was to stay at defence. Evans had different views on some of those most closely held by Hawke, notably the United States alliance and the Middle East.

Evans notes wryly how Hawke later described him as "the best and most widely respected foreign minister in Australia's history", but not before taking out insurance by appointing an old friend, Richard Woolcott, as head of his department.

"It did not take me long to discover that his very explicit prime-ministerial brief was to curb my more adventurous instincts. This mission evidently gave my new secretary the impression that he should see himself as the lead policymaker in the enterprise, and feel free to make public statements accordingly." But after a testy start, the two crafted a sound working relationship.

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Original review on: http://www.canberratimes.com.au

Book Review - The Big Chair by Ned Colletti

I have a confession to make: I’m not much of a reader. While I enjoy reading, I often find myself too strapped for time to commit to a book, especially during the daily grind of the baseball season.

I have quite a backlog of books I’ve been meaning to get to, and hopefully will at some point. But I made a point to read former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti’s new book, ‘The Big Chair,’ written with Joseph A. Reaves. and I’m glad I did.

Colletti has been in baseball for 35 years in a variety of roles, starting out in media relations and publications with the Cubs in the early 1980s. He also worked for the Giants before coming to Los Angeles, and has basically seen it all in baseball.

This book does a good job at telling many of those stories, with Colletti sharing several behind-the-scenes details of various points in his career. I read the book just before Thanksgiving and found myself loving the tales so much that I finished it in two days.

Without giving anything away, a few stories I particularly enjoyed included in the book are Colletti’s exhaustive interview with Frank McCourt for the Dodgers general manager position, how Colletti convinced Cubs general manager Dallas Green to hire him, and Colletti’s daughter’s reaction to the Angelsbeating the Giants in 2002 World Series.

There are details of a few colorful disagreements between Yasiel Puig and former Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, plus Odalis Perez and Brad Penny each leaving the Dodgers on not the best of terms. 

There was Colletti with the Cubs watching Greg Maddux leave as a free agent for the Braves, then nearly 14 years later bringing him to the Dodgers in trade.

Also included in the book is the time in 2011 a Dodgers intern posted a Fan Post on True Blue LA that laid out Colletti’s organizational report, including confidential information on several players, heading into the MLB Draft. That post was eventually deleted, and the author lost his internship.

I was surprised that the signing of Jason Schmidt wasn’t mentioned, but Colletti was otherwise pretty thorough discussing his tenure as Dodgers general manager, hitting nearly all the key points that have been discussed ad nauseum over the years.

Where this book shines is in the storytelling, and with 35 years in baseball Colletti has a lot of stories to tell. That makes ‘The Big Chair’ well worth your time.

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Original review on: www.truebluela.com