Yep, I’m lazy and combining posts today…

…from Thanksgiving to my “regularly scheduled” (ahem, if you’ve been here a while, it’s very “irregularly scheduled”) posts of Midweek Review and Flashback Friday and Library Loot (which I toss in every once in a while).

A hodge-podge if you will, sort of like a plate on Thanksgiving, with a little bit of this and that thrown on the plate.

For what am I least grateful this week?

So in my last Library Loot post I mentioned The Professional by Robert B. Parker, and I’m going to mention it again this time around as, again combining posts here, one of the things for which I’m least grateful this week.

Each Monday, a small group of ladies participate in the meme Sleeping with Bread, started by Mary-Lue and based off the book by the same name and on the Friday before that, I post something I call Flashback Friday (today on Saturday) as part of that. The meme is based on the Examen as practiced by St. Ignatius of Loyola.

I enjoyed Spenser novels when I was a teenager and in college, but I think Parker has taken the character as far as he can go and it is time for him to retire the legendary hard-boiled detective. It’s the same way I feel about Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch character. It’s time for him to retire too. I won’t belabor the point, because unfortunately neither one is worth discussing further, even though I have enjoyed both authors’ characters in the past.

Another book and series for which I’m least grateful this week is Lynda La Plante DCI Anna Travis series. Earlier this week, against my better judgment I picked up the third in the series, Clean Cut, and after only about 20 pages into it, I decided to quit. Why? La Plante wrote the acclaimed British series Prime Suspect, which I loved. However, I don’t think the brilliance carries over here, because I feel like I’m reading a screenplay. The stories here feel like just a long string of “and thens.” And then Anna did this…and then Anna did that…and then Anna…blah blah blah. I think actually I’ve been spoiled by reading Agatha Christie mysteries too, where Christie has her plot so meticulously planned, and I don’t get the same feeling from La Plante.

For what am I most grateful this week?

Classics, especially the aforementioned Agatha Christie, of whose books I picked up two from the library this past week: Poirot Loses A Client (aka Dumb Witness) and Death on the Nile. I am reading both as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge (click on badge to sign up yourself for the challenge).

For links to the reviews of the first 20 Agatha Christie mysteries I’ve read so far this year as part of the challenge, see my Challenges page.

I also picked up Ovid’s Metamorphoses from the library, for another challenge in which I’m participating, the Really Old Classics Challenge (again click on button, this time to go to challenge’s main page, where you can sign up if you’re so inclined). I had taken this book out of the library a few months ago with the intention of reading it, but didn’t get to it.

All three of these books also fit with yet a third challenge (yes, I need to add these to my challenges page, one thing at a time): Blogger Unplugged, hosted by Jen of Devourer of Books and Candace of Beth Fish Reads. They have no sign-up page, but the challenge here is to unplug from Facebook, from Twitter, from your blog, from your computer essentially, especially during the holidays to fight blogger burnout and catch up on reading and with family and friends (Real Life, in other words). I’m all for that.

Now if only I can catch up with the 79 blog posts in my Google Reader this afternoon (rolling eyes) and figure out which running backs to play this week on my fantasy football team (member of the “vaunted” Humor Bloggers Fantasy Football League), I’ll be golden.

This post also can be found on my main blog, an unfinished person (in an unfinished universe).

This is a combination of the past two weeks’ Library Loot actually. You may say, “That’s sad.” However, I have been sick with the flu (swine maybe) for the past few weeks and so haven’t been reading anything. Plus as I mentioned the last Library Loot I did at the end of October, I’m working on toward focusing on my own bookshelves rather than the library. (So there :P.) To that end, last night I did finish a book from my library, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, which I loved. A friend gave me and my wife the first four She’s already read all of the series (using the library for the rest), one right after another, and loved them.

So to my two pieces of loot:

1. The Professional by Robert B. Parker: I was put on the hold list for this before it even came out, and I am a big fan of Spenser, although recently, like Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, I don’t think Parker has been up to par with them. However, if nothing else, it’s a quick read with the dialogue (my favorite part of the Spenser novels) dominating the action.
2. Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, selected and edited by Joyce Carol Oates: Lovecraft came up after a discussion on Facebook about Neil Gaiman, who wrote a short story called “I, Cthulhu,” using Lovecraft’s Cthulhu from his short story, “The Call of Cthulhu.” So I decided to find some Lovecraft at the library and this is all that was on the shelf, but it included “The Call of Cthulhu.”

I also was semi-familiar with the name Cthulhu anyway as I’m a fan of Metallica, who had the song “Call of Ktulu” on their album, Ride The Lightning, because they became fans through late bass guitarist Cliff Burton. Appropriately, I’ll end with that song:

This post also can be found on my main blog, Just A (Reading) Fool.

I just tallied up the number of books I’ve read and movies I’ve watched for the year, and I’m at 50 for each. Last year I read 70 books according to this, which also lists this year’s books read, and watched 68 movies according to this list I compiled on Listography.

The list of this year’s movies can be found here. After each one, I put the number of asterisks for how I rated the movie: *- abominable, ** below fair, *** fair, **** good, and very good *****.

Here are the 12 that I rated with five *****

1. La Vie En Rose *****
2. Blade Runner: The Final Cut *****
3. Man On Wire *****
4. I’ve Loved You So Long *****
5. Rambo *****
6. Notes on a Scandal *****
7. The Visitor *****
8. The Lives of Others *****
9. Doubt *****
10. All Quiet on the Western Front *****
11. Frost/Nixon *****
12. Tell No One *****

Out of those, half are foreign movies (in bold), and out of those six, I highly recommend I’ve Loved You So Long for the performance of Kristin Scott Thomas (she also has a supporting role in Tell No One) and The Lives of Others for the performance of Ulrich Mühe.

Out of the 50 books, the five-starred reviews are a lot less with only eight books that passed muster for me. Four are by Agatha Christie: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Murder at the Vicarage and Murder on the Orient Express. Two are by Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study In Scarlet and The Sign of Four, and one is by Donald E. Westlake, writing under the pseudonym of Richard Stark, with his first Parker novel, The Hunter.

The last one I technically gave a 4.5, but bump it up to a 5, because it is by an independent author and an online acquaintance of mine, Robert Kroese. The book is called Mercury Falls. My review is here; the book’s website, here. Out of all the books I’ve read this year, it probably was the nicest surprise, because I’ve read Kroese’s blog, Mattress Police, for a few years, and it was good to see that he could pull off such an accomplished novel. Sometimes with bloggers that you like, you’re not sure if they can pull off a novel too (I mean, you know they’re good writers, but to put together a novel is another thing entirely), but Kroese shows that it can be done and with quite good results too.

I’ll leave you with the trailer for the two movies I mentioned earlier, first, I’ve Loved You Too Long and then The Lives of Others:

This post also can be found on my main blog, an unfinished person (in an unfinished universe). If you are interested in getting a more complete picture of this unfinished person, you can subscribe to that blog, if you so choose.

Waving…

“Hey, I’m still here.”

Sorry, just been hanging out elsewhere the past week:

Tuesday: Humor Bloggers Fantasy Football League Blog where I was playing Tuesday Morning Quarterback.

Wednesday: Unfinished Rambler where I counted down The Top 10 Biblical Characters To Dress Up As At Halloween…Er…Harvest Parties.

Today: In this place (rubber ducky soap optional):

Taking Immodium. Enough said.

“See you all next week.”

…waving.

Title: Mercury Falls
Author: Robert Kroese
Publication Year: 2009
Pages: 337
Genre: Fiction
Count for Year: 48

How I discovered

It’s a wee bit complicated, but the short version is that I know Robert Kroese through a site called Humor-Blogs, where my blog Unfinished Rambler is listed. Rob, also known as “Diesel” to most people who know him, has his own humor blog, Mattress Police. Using material from that blog, he published his first book, Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police in 2007. Based on the overwhelming (positive or negative? I make no value judgments here) response he received there, he actually thought that he was qualified to write a novel, and, lo and behold, two years later, he has shown the world he can write a novel.

But the question is this: Is it worth the $12 you have to pay on Amazon for the paperback or even the $5 for the Kindle version? Damned if I know, since (note to Federal Trade Commission: disclosure notice) I got a free copy as a financial supporter of Humor-Blogs…however, you may be wondering for yourself, and by the end of this review, I may give you an answer to that very question whether it’s worth actually purchasing and worth me keeping on my shelf for future re-reading. As is my nature, though, I may just ramble on and on and on and not get to an answer at all. Stick around and see, though. It still might be a fun ride.

The setup

The world is ending. Again.

Years of covering the antics of End Times cults for a religious news magazine have left Christine Temeri not only jaded but seriously questioning her career choice.

That is until she meets Mercury, an anti-establishment angel who’s frittering his time away whipping up batches of Rice Krispy Treats and perfecting this ping-pong backhand instead of doing his job:  helping to orchestrate Armageddon. With the end near and angels and demons debating the finer political points of the Apocalypse, Christine and Mercury accidentally foil an attempt to assassinate one Karl Grissom, a thirty-seven-year-old film school dropout about to make his big break as the Antichrist.

Now to save the world, she must negotiate the byzantine bureaucracies of Heaven and Hell and convince the apathetic Mercury to take a stand, all the while putting up with the obnoxious mouth-breathing Antichrist.

– from the back of the book

The novel begins twenty miles outside of Elko, Nevada on a plateau with Temeri covering the story of the Reverend Jonas Bitters, First Prophet of the Church of the Bridegroom, and a small group of his followers who believe that the Second Coming of Christ will occur April 29 shortly before dawn. Not surprisingly, Christ doesn’t return, with the blame falling on Ten Virgins who aren’t…well, all they seem to be. For Christine, it is just another story of a religious crackpot who thinks he knows the future but doesn’t, the same kind of story she’s done for years.

And now her publisher, Harry, wants her to interview the next crackpot, Galileo Mercury until she says that she can’t take much more of covering the “Apocalypse circuit.” Then Harry gives her the ultimate interview, with General David Isaakson of the Israeli Army, also known as “the Architect of the Apocalypse” in the middle of a conflict between Israel and Syria (and as Harry says: “Maybe the Iranians too.”). Even though ostensibly it’s about the Apocalypse, it also is the chance to get her name known on the international front. So she goes…

…and ends up coming back to Mercury in a roundabout way — and then to Grissom, the Antichrist selected in a contest by an author promoting the last book of her series about a boy named Charlie Nix, which seems more than vaguely reminiscent of another famous series by another famous author. But could he be the real Antichrist? And what does a metallic attache case that Isaakson gave to her to take to Mercury have to do with anything?

I’m not telling you. You’ll have to read it. However, I can tell you that it is a fun ride with Christine along the way as she crosses paths with fallen angels and archangels alike and travels through portals to the basements of Heaven and the attics of Hells trying to answer those very questions. How much fun? Let me give you a few samples, starting with a footnote (yes, there are footnotes) about the Antichrist:

The identity of the Antichrist is, of course, less important than the fact that there is an Antichrist. No one cares much what the Antichrist says or does, but they feel better knowing he’s around. In this way, he is much like the Pope or the United Nations.

It is probably not entirely coincidental that both the Pope and the United Nations have often been accused of being the Antichrist. Other individuals and organizations have also made the short list, of course. Nero was an early favorite, and dictators like Napoleon and Hitler were strong contenders. Even the affable U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan — who had the distinction of having six letters in each of his three names– was named a potential Antichrist. Later, the name of vaunted Israeli General David Isaakson also tended to crop up among people who discussed such things.

Yet, on some level, most people seemed to sense that someone like Hitler was too obvious a choice. Once you make it clear that your intention is global conquest, the mystery is gone and people start to look for someone with less pedestrian aims. Start talking about a Brotherhood of Man or a New World Order, though, and ears perk up.

People also seem to intuitively understand that Antichrist is really more of a figurehead position. They expect the Antichrist to make ominous pronouncements that can be disassembled and slotted into a prefabricated eschatological framework, not impose martial law or orchestrate mass killings. It is safe to say, however, that nobody expected the Antichrist to look quite like Karl Grissom.

Then this:

There were thirty-eight Charlie’s Grills on I-5 in between Yreka, California and Los Angeles, spaced so that on a road trip from one end of the state to the other one could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner– not to mention brunch, linner and several other meals to be named later– from a completely standarized menu of entrees that ranged in quality from passable to mediocre.

This proliferation of family restaurants was not, despite the protestations of anti-sprawl advocates and concerned cardiologists, part of any kind of diabolical plan. This isn’t to say that there was no plan, or that there weren’t demonic entities involved in its inception, but the actual marketing strategy and franchise agreements were more intrinsically Satanic than was the norm for the hospitality industry. Charlie’s Grill was only evil to the extent that it concealed the unremarkable character of its food with a facade constructed of faux brick walls and artificially weathered signs promoting no-longer-existent brands of soda and/or motor oil with slogans like “The smoothest yet!” That is to say, it was about as evil as Applebee’s.

Charlie’s Grill was, pure and simple, a money-making operation for Lucifer, who had long ago come to terms with the fact that while spreading depravity and ruination was his true calling, it didn’t always pay the bills. Lucifer was a true believer in the adage that no one ever went broke overestimating the numbers of time that Americans can pull over for cheeseburgers. It wasn’t an exciting or particularly sinister way of making money, but it did make possible all sorts of other costly but worthwhile diabolical schemes, so Lucifer expanded the operation at every opportunity.

And finally this:

The Apocalypse Accord is a long and mind-numbingly detailed document, hashed out by seraphic lawyers over the course of several thousand years to cover every conceivable aspect of the Apocalypse. Regarding the Antichrist it reads, in part:

The Antichrist is to be the official representative of Lucifer on earth. The Antichrist must be a human being of Semitic descent (at least one sixteenth on the father’s side), and is to be selected by Lucifer (or his designated representatives) a minimum of forty days prior to the commencement of Phase One of the Apocalypse. Once selected, the Antichrist’s name must be submitted to the Senate, the Antichrist comes under legal protection of the Senate’s Committee on Persons of Apocalyptic Interest, and may not be physically harmed or coerced in any way by any parties to this agreement (See “When Are Agents of Heaven Permitted to Attempt to Kill the Antichrist?” in Appendix L). The Senate then has seven days to ratify or veto the selection. If the candidate is vetoed, the Senate must also provide a written rationale for their veto (For a detailed list of Antichrist qualifications, see Appendix F: “So You Think You’ve Got a Candidate for the Position of Antichrist?”). If the Senate does not veto or ratify the candidate’s selection within seven days, the candidate’s selection is assumed to be ratified by default. Once a candidate is ratified, the Side of Heaven has forty days to publicly denounce the candidate as the Antichrist and an agent of Lucifer. Failure to adequately denounce the candidate within forty days of his or her ratification will cause the Hosts of Heaven to be held in Breach of this Accord, and to be ascribed penalties as detailed in Appendix H (“Denunciation: Why It Matters.”). Once the candidate is denounced, he or shall be considered to be Antichrist and will be accorded various Powers and Principalities (see “Legal and Tax Ramifications of Being Classified as the Antichrist” in Appendix P).

So final answer to the question: Is it worth the $12 you have to pay on Amazon for the paperback or even the $5 for the Kindle version? And is it worth it for me to keep on my shelf for future re-reading? Yes. After all that rambling,  most of it as you might note not done by myself but Mr. Kroese, not only might it be a fun ride, but also it is a fun ride.

My final rating: a 4.5 out of 5 with the 1/2 point for my getting a free copy. :)

My rating system:

5- Classic, must read
4- Worth owning a copy
3- Worth picking up at library
2- Worth skimming at the bookstore
1- Worth being a doorstop

This post also can be found on my main blog, an unfinished person (in an unfinished universe). If you only are interested in getting a more complete picture of this unfinished person, you can subscribe to that blog, if you so choose. I also posted this at my blog, Unfinished Rambler, since the book is, after all, a humorous one.