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Responses to this rant
Is anybody there? Hello?
Older rants
January 31, 2023   Nothing, really
November 23, 2021   Goodbye GoDaddy, Bunches of Books, and Vinyl additions
June 1, 2020   Birthday trip to the Grand Canyon in 2019,
Code Talker
Mar 21, 2020   The World Famous San Diego ComicFest
and the testament to dorkness that is my cubicle
and my sad, sad little doodles
Mar 8, 2020   A return to Potterland,
Meg & Dia's Christmas album, December Darling,
some other random stuff
Feb 21, 2020   Agorafabulous!,
Emeli's amazing creations
Nov 27, 2019   David Savakerrva Volume 1
The cubicle of nerdishness
Oct 28, 2019   Art Matters, Neil Gaiman
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Eric Idle
Alternate Routes, Tim Powers
Disneyland - Galaxy's Edge
Oct 4, 2019   Meg & Dia, HappySad tour San Diego 09/18/19
September 21. 2019   David Bowie - Scary Monsters,
More Adventures in Leasing,
More cubicle fun,
A new doodle
September 10. 2019   The Cranberries - In The End,
The Cranberries - Something Else,
Icicle Works, Icicle Works (vinyl),
Dia Frampton, Red,
Juliana Hatfield, Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton John,
The Lemonheads, The Lemonheads,
Green Day, Insomniac ,
and
Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords Live in London
August 28, 2019   Heir of Ra (Maciek Sasinowski,
The Catalyst Series (JK Franks): Downward Cycle, Kingdom of Sorrow, Ghost Country
May 11, 2019   Goodbye, little friend
Nov 30, 2018   Fire of Our Fathers,
a Science Fiction Book Club rant
Nov 24, 2018   The Dinosaur Lords,
Dragon Teeth
Nov 20, 2018   My cubicle revisited, really-old ComicCon stuff, Emeli's Art, More Disney Adventures, The Zoo and Safari Park
September 9, 2018   Perimeter - an eBook thriller
September 3, 2018   Take Back the Sky Starcraft Evolution
August 11, 2018   Idaho Dunes Awesome soda Ethanol-free gas an awesome Bald Guy card Our rough dig Harry Potter Interlude story
July 21, 2018   The Cup in the Shadows (The Forbidden Powers Book 1)
June 24, 2018   Jake, Lucid Dreamer
June 13, 2018   Troll-stalking
May 23, 2018   Another badbartopia email spoofer, A sunny-day Disney adventure, Raymond E Feist book signing
May 15, 2018   A rainy-day Disneyland trip The Bassoon King
Apr 28, 2018   Down and Out in Purgatory
Apr 13, 2018   Operation Hail Storm
Mar 4, 2018   American Exodus
Jan 22, 2018   Christmas, Didn't Get Frazzled, The Sea People, The Rooster Bar, Last Burial Night, Doctor Who and the Krikkit Men
Dec 15, 2017   Mistrial, City of Death and Disneyland
Nov 14, 2017   Grace Vanderwaal - Just the Beginning
Nov 11, 2017   Tim Powers Signing at Mysterious Galaxy for Down and Out in Purgatory
November 4, 2017   Return to Disneyland, Halloween at the office, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Long Cosmos Maximus One year After War Dogs, Killing Titan Daddy, Stop Talking
October 29, 2017   Bruce Campbell Signing, Hail to the Chin, Further Confessions of a B Movie Actor
October 20, 2017   Meg & Dia, Imagine Dragons in concert, 2 Years 8 months and 28 Nights
October 17, 2017   All Apologies
October 16, 2017   Thrawn
Septempber 7, 2017   The Rage of Dragons, The Lincoln Myth
August 10, 2017   The Molly Ringwalds, Dia Frampton Musical awesomeness, Beauty and the Feast
July 28, 2017   The IT Sweatshop revisited, How to Talk to Girls at Parties, American Gods and The Magicians, Rogue One, Camino Island
July 24, 2017   CRV glovebox difficulties, San Diego Comic Con rant
July 11, 2017   Beauty and the Beast at the Lyceum, Earthweeds, Sons of Neptune Book 1, Aftermath, Empire's End, If Chin's Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor
June 30, 2017   Eastwood: No Direction Home book 2
June 23, 2017   Excellent Adventures on the PCH (part 4/4) - The PCH family vacation tale concludes, my new record, record player, and Emeli's site is live!
Jun 14, 2017   A noteworthy eBook mention before I return to my vacation ranting - No Direction Home
June 9, 2017   Excellent Adventures on the PCH (part 3/4) - The PCH family vacation tale concludes...almost. More pictures of spooky old houses, trees, rocks, and other things that nobody cares about! Plus, Goonies stuff
June 2, 2017   Excellent Adventures on the PCH (part 2/4) - The PCH family vacation tale continues... And more pictures of trees and other things that nobody cares about!
May 31, 2017   Excellent Adventures on the PCH (part 1/4) - Way more detail than anyone wants about our vacation up the coast of California and Oregon. And lots of pictures of trees!
Apr 26, 2017   Resurrection America, Pizza Studio art, AmandaLynn, Emeli art, and Disney art, and Gifted
Apr 14, 2017   My San Fransisco OSI PI adventure & "Thanks for the Money: How to Use My Life Story to Become the Best Joel McHale You Can Be"
Apr 12, 2017   Neil Gaiman speaks, Norse Mythology, American Gods comic adaptation, The Magicians TV series, and Dirk Gently on TV
Feb 2, 2017   A trip to the ever-less-magical land of Disney, The Prince of Outcasts, the Whistler, and a brief mention of The Magicians.
Jan 21, 2017   An update to my nerd wall at work, Found out about Richard Thompson (Cul De Sac) being gone, A list of all the stuff (or most, anyway) I've given up to new homes, A review of Dave! and Warp, and a couple of new doodles.
Dec 23, 2016   My final visit to Potterland and a couple of doodles
Dec 11, 2016   Books and related comics, and free/cheap stuff. Not taco Bell Material, President Me, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The Hedge Knight (comic), The Sworn Sword (comic) Ooma, Ringplus, Amazon prime and other money-saving stuff.
Dec 4, 2016   I'm sharing my sad doodles with the world again. They're not very good, but I'll bet they're better than your scribbles!
Nov 12, 2016   Yet another trip to The Wonderful World of Harry Potter!
Nov 7, 2016   Blathering on about a few of the books I've read recently - Spire, The Check, and Dangercide, Pirate Detective
Oct 7, 2016   Yet another Visit to Harry Potterland. Oh, and my lease-mileage calculator.
July 25, 2016   Another Visit to Harry Potterland, a new car, a new shirt, a new dog, and a whole lot of the same old complaining
May 17, 2016   Email spoofers, Phishing emails, and scammers galore!
Apr 30, 2016   Winter's Edge and a Management zombie attack
Apr 23, 2016   Harry Potter land re-visited
Apr 9, 2016   Xenia...again
Apr 2, 2016   Sing Street, Batman vs Superman, Craigslist griping
Mar 1, 2016   The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Hollywood preview, fun at work, Xenia's new song, A Vanishing Glow, Our Fair Eden, Race Wars, The Force Awakens
Jan 27, 2016   Text Wars, Books I've read... Yup, that's pretty much it
Jul 30, 2015   Xenia Martinez news Still selling stuff on eBay, Hyperbole and a Half (the book), The Path Between the Seas, Trigger Warning, In Fifty years We'll all Be Chicks
Mar 17, 2015   Selling my treasures on eBay, Hyperbole and a Half, the Long Mars, Gray Mountain, Anathem, The Golden Princess, The Given Sacrifice
Mar 12, 2015   You'll be sorely missed, Sir Terry
Jan 21, 2015   More BBC 4 radio dramatizations by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett: The Amazing Maurice, Guards! Guards!, Neverwhere, Night Watch, Small Gods, Wyrd Sisters
Jan 10, 2015   JabberWocky, Neil Gaiman style!
Dec 24, 2014   The Good Omens BBC treatment
Aug 03, 2014   Every hobby has to end eventually, right?
Oct 8, 2013   Warning: Extreme Geekness ahead!
Oct 1, 2013   The Bloody Crown of iGoogle
Aug 26, 2013   Headphones at work
Aug 22, 2013   The guvmint is gonna getcha
June 25, 2013   Dweebs vs Big Bang vs IT Crowd
Jul 3, 2012   Xenia Martinez & Dia Frampton concert
Feb 24, 2012   Reading...just not much
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Being an idiot with Lev Grossman
Jan 7, 2012   If it ain't broke...
Aug 22, 2011   non-ComicCon report 2011
A Thousand Splendid Suns
An Act of Self Defense
May 5, 2011   On Stranger Tides
vs.
On Stranger Tides
March 2, 2011   I'm a gigantic slacker...
Ikariam
Wild Guns
Lord of Ultima
Metin 2
Lord of the Rings Online
Dec 15, 2010   Bring out your dead!
Aug 17, 2010   San DiegoComicCon 2010
August 11, 2010   I'm not dead yet...
May 3, 2010   Hero Comics
Liberty Comics
Dr Horrible
Neil Gaiman & Sam Keith in Batman
The Guild, Felicia Day
April 27, 2010   Mean Gene Wilder! Grrr!!!
April 24, 2010   If it's not one Jihad, it's another...
April 20, 2010   The Satanic Verses
March 15, 2010   Unseen Academicals
Feblueberry 8, 2010   The un-reading shelf (from most of 2009)
Feblueberry 2, 2010   Emily the Strange, the Lost Days...a novel
Nov 25, 2009   Happy Halloween, Mom!
Nov 18, 2009   Summer Vacation in Idaho
Aug 20, 2009   San Diego ComicCon 2009
Aug 12, 2009   I'm a big, fat slacker
June 05, 2009   The networks are helping me cut back on my TV viewing
June 04, 2009   Mandy Moore's Amanda Leigh,
Chris Isaak's Mr Lucky
and
My name is Bruce?
and Emmy Rossum? Where am I going with this?
May 21, 2009   Randy would have really liked Fanboys...sigh
May 3, 2009   The Spring reading shelf
Apr 21, 2009   Holidays On Ice (a little late for Christmas)
Apr 18, 2009   Leviticus Cross and other Hector Sevilla comic book stuff
Apr 16, 2009   The fantastically amazing and banal Badbartopia RSS Feed
Mar 31, 2009   Neil Gaiman's Blueberry Girl
Mar 30, 2009   My Amazon mis-order turns out to be not so annoying as previously expected...
(AKA the Dr Horrible soundtrack)
Mar 23, 2009   Stephan Pastis & Richard Thompson have me looking forward to the 2009 SD ComicCon
Mar 19, 2009   Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog,
The Guild
Mar 08, 2009   The Wonderful Wizard of Oz comic adaptation,
Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Dream Hunters
Mar 04, 2009   Little Brother
Mar 1, 2009   Pete & Pickles
Feb 11, 2009   She & Him
Flakes
Pushing Daisies
Jan 26, 2009   The Scourge of God,
When You are Engulfed in Flames
Jan 14, 2009   On the Road = hippy nonsense
Jan 12, 2009   One-by-one, my fish have met their maker
Dec 26, 2008   My Azeroth-avoidance continues
Dec 23, 2008   Nothing to see...move along
Dec 15, 2008   New scribbles
Dec 10, 2008   The Oct-Nov-Dec reading shelf
Dec 1, 2008   Shalimar the Clown
the economic impact of the events in Mumbai
Nov 21, 2008   Star Wars: Allegiance
Nov 20, 2008   Daredevil Black Widow: Abattoir
Nov 17, 2008   Travel Team
Nov 16, 2008   A new comic adaptation of The Wizard of Oz
Nov 14, 2008   Berke's Books:
The Last Basselope
Edward Fudwupper Fibbed Big
Mars Needs Moms
Opus: 25 years
Nov 13, 2008   Return to Azeroth?
Nov 12, 2008   Goodbye, Opus
Oct 29, 2008   Halloween costumes of 2008
Project Superpowers
Marvels
Ruins
Oct 23, 2008   The Graveyard Book
Interworld
Oct 16, 2008   Nation
Oct 10, 2008   The Joy of Programming
My foray into Ajax
Oct 9, 2008   My Saturn Scare
Opus ends
Terry Pratchett's condition
Oct 3, 2008   The Hitchhiker's Guide, Book 6...by Eoin Colfer?
Oct 2, 2008   Media master - music online
Sony builds a "better" camera
Sept 24, 2008   The September reading shelf
Sept 17, 2008   Still missing Randall
The Fish tank...again
The Graveyard Book
Sept 15, 2008   Slacking...as usual
The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang
Sept 9, 2008   The dearth of Opus strips
yes, I meant to say "dearth"
Sept 8, 2008   A new monitor goes bad...but it all ends happily
Sept 3, 2008   A Boy and His Dog,
Richard Corben,
H.P. Lovecraft's Haunt of Horror
Sept 2, 2008   A slightly newish look
(aka "why I will never be a graphic designer")
Aug 11, 2008   Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in all its incarnations Mike Kunkel's re-imagining of Shazam
July 29, 2008   San Diego Comiccon 2008
July 24, 2008   Neil Gaiman
July 17, 2008   Chris Isaak!
June 30, 2008   The Woman Who Wouldn't
Legends II
Mouse Guard Fall 1152
the Jetta's latest round of repairs
fishtank overpopulation
June 10, 2008   The Reading Shelf
Fish tank jungle
Attack of the bees
June 3, 2008   Missing Randall
May 9, 2008   My French Whore
Apr 28, 2008   Fish tank fatality
Flight of the Conchords
The Dangerous Alphabet
Mar 5, 2008   Gene Wilder book signing at Borders
new fish tank
subpoenaed!
Jan 11, 2008   The Jetta Strikes back!
The Plucker
The Anubis Gates
National Treasure II
Nov 8, 2007   San Diego on Fire,
A clean break from WoW,
UCSD Extension Java I graduation (kinda)
Making Money
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Oct 2, 2007   Back to school, Java class at UCSD
AT&T's Uverse
new sketches
Blockbuster movie pass
August 28, 2007   Mandy Moore concert!
Aug 19, 2007   ComicCon 2007 - Neil Gaiman, Iron Man and all the usual suspects
May 22, 2007   World of Spamcraft (and other spamalicious topics), forum fun...gus, the woes of being a contractor and PIRATES!!
Apr 5, 2007   I'm a conservative - bite me!
Timbaland? Dumb!
Marie Antoinette - snaggle teeth and teasing glimpes. Sweet!
John Q - a lesson about fatherhood or a liberal-propoganda film?
Mar 30, 2007   Things that make me grumpy-er,
employed again at last,
Finn and assorted other ramblings
Feb 8, 2007   The search for employment continues..and the unemployment benefits are NOT pouring in!
Jan, 22, 2007   Freed from the bondage of employment, a very brief review of a few books and films
Dec 17, 2006   Sad excuses, The Innocent Man, 1776, THe Man in High Castle, Absolute Sandman, Wintersmith, garage sale treasures: Ghost in the Machine
Aug 20, 2006   Writers of the Future XXII/Tim Powers, more movie reivews
July 20, 2006   San Diego ComicCon 2006
July 15, 2006   Superman Returns, inconsiderate morons, Peewee's Playhouse returns, my plea for more pirate movies
July 8, 2006   Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Wild Animal Park critters, site remodeling
Jun 27, 2006   The good, the bad and the mediocre (a bunch of movie reviews in the new forum).
June 15, 2006   Because of Romek - A Holocaust Survivor's Memoir
May 21, 2006   The DaVinci Code, Aeon Flux, Everything You Want
May 12, 2006   World of Warcrack, the Office, Coraline, my apologies...
Jan 24, 2006   Christmas Vacation 2006, Syriana, Traveling Pants, Wish You Were Here
Dec 19, 2005   Festive Neighbors, the death of Olivia, Media Misinformation surrounding Brent Wilkes/ADCS, Make Love the bruce campbell way
Nov 15, 2005   Microsoft Technet 2005 launch party, Lexmark printer problem, a bad, bad day, changing dentists.
Oct 22, 2005   Thud!, Anansi Boys, Where's my cow
Oct 18, 2005   Terry Pratchet Thud! signing, Neil Gaiman Anansi Boys signing
Oct 15, 2005   A very, very late Comiccon 2005 report.
Jun 23, 2005   The black hole of Warcraft, The Years of Rice and Salt, After the Sunset, Madagascar, Mr and Mrs Smith, Taxi.
Jun 3, 2005   All is quiet on the PM Front, War of the Worlds (the novel), Kingdom of Heaven, Sahara, Star Wars Episode III, Flight of the Phoenix
May 9, 2005   The program managers strike again, More of my horrendous sketches, Spanglish, A Lot Like Love, Elektra, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the film)
Apr 9, 2005   Stuck in Corporate Hell, a few of my recent sketches, Miss Congeniality 2, Collateral
Mar 21, 2005   Revenge of the Jetta (car problems), a Newegg purchase, a few new drawings, more Opus
Feb 13, 2005   The Mail mystery solved, more of my crappy sketches, A few new photos of the girls, bill-bert (introducing the new Project Manager), sweet phone skills, Opus, Dungeons and Dragons, In Good Company
Jan 27, 2005   Mystery mail, new photos of my beautiful kids, some new sketches, an Episode 3 spoiler, Opus, Going Postal, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ubik, Remember the Titans, Lemony Snicket`s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Dodgeball
Jan 7, 2005   Christmas 2004, Update to the site, Elf & King Arthur revisited, National Treasure, Opus, Blade Runner
Dec 18, 2004   A new Stephanie sketch, another Target web page goof, the SD Union Tribune confirms Greg Bear`s research for Vitals, Miramar VW proves my dealer service assertions wrong, neighborhood Christmas fun, Opus
Nov 24, 2004   More of my mediocre drawings, nw russian mail-order coins, Star Wars toys, a big green spider comes to visit, Opus, Dies the Fire, Digital fortress, The Incredibles, Twisted, Van Helsing
Nov 03, 2004   Some thoughts regarding the 2004 election, rants about the environment, a memory rebate update, new computer issues, Opus, The Lone Drow, Deception Point, Roswell season 2 on DVD
Oct 12, 2004   An interesting quiz, mal-in rebates, a parrot joke, my new computer, thoughts on frame removal, web logs, Opus, Vitals, Star Wars trilogy on DVD, Ladykillers
Sep 23, 2004   My "Heath" sketch for Mark Oakley, an update on my a PNY rebate check, the fictitious AWNA Act, Browser Issues with the site, Opus/Pickles, The DaVinci Code, Garden State (Natalie Portman), Man on Fire
Sep 11, 2004   A new drawing: "Stephanie", redneck wisdom, my salary to hourly reclassification, funny video: news from iraq, an update on my mail-in pny rebate, a new rebate through Costco, Ella Enchanted, Highlander Endgame, Princess of Thieves, The Whole Ten Yards
Aug 27, 2004   Fun with my VW Warranty, Opus, Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix, The Land of SokMunster, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Wedding, Napoleon Dynamite, Hidalgo, Chasing Liberty, Out of Time
Jul 23, 2004   San Diego ComicCon 2004, the family summer vacation, Bruce Campbell, Opus, Nanny Ogg`s Cookbook, Angels & Demons, Folk of the fringe, Bourne Supremacy, i robot, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Cody Banks 2, Hellboy
Jul 19, 2004   *** PNY Rebate fun, IE Patch, Linux and socialism, liberal scum, Opus, BIM, timeline, master and commander, tad hamilton, stuck on you,cold mountain, 50 first dates, the terminal, spiderman 2, king arthur, a hat full of sky, the thousand orcs, meditations on middle earth
Jun 20, 2004   Memorial day pictures, Duplex, Mark Oakley/Heroes, Wild Animal Park Dinosaurs, B-52s concertman, Say After Tomorrow, Big Fish, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Eragon, A Hat Full of Sky, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
May 08, 2004   Pat Tillman, LOTR Toys, 13 Going on 30, Mean Girls, Tolkien Miscellany, Last Juror, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Pork Tornado
Apr 06, 2004   Roswell season 1 DVD and a some other mindless drivel
Feb 19, 2004   Highlander site contest results, new downloads, princess gallery updates, lord of the rings toys, harry potter, underworld. lost in translation, the hunted, a tolkien miscellany...
Feb 09, 2004   Murder at 1600, Radio, Cheaper by the Dozen, King Arthur, Spiderman 2, Van Helsing, Harry Potter, Tolkien Miscellany, Mark Oakley, massive snow in Idaho...
Jan 28, 2004   Swat, Uptown Girls, Somethings Gotta Give, Along Came Polly, Seabiscuit, Ashley Judd Marathon, Van Helsing, Harry Potter, Science Fiction Bok Club, Nanny Ogg`s Cookbook, RA Salvatore, Mythology (Alex Ross), Fastner & Larson, Best page in the universe, etc, etc...
Jan 07, 2004   Clint`s rules, X-Men 2, Holes, Pirates, Two Towers, Freaky Friday (Haley Hudson), new drawings, Thieves` World, Playskool Star Wars, new Interest section
Jan 02, 2004   nothing all that interesting...
Dec 21, 2003   Nemo, Highlander page, Christmas vacation 2003, star wars kid
Dec 12, 2003   E.T. (Erika Eleniak), new drawings, Opus, Santa Claus 2 (Elizabeth Mitchell), Legolas toy/pics, How to Deal (Mandy Moore), Myth update, Last Samurai
Nov 27, 2003   Another Fine Myth, Elf
Nov 22, 2003   Dude, Where`s Bill & Ted
Nov 18, 2003   Not much to say
Nov 15, 2003   Disneyland, Astronaut`s Wife, Dumer and Dumber-er, Monstrous Regiment
Nov 10, 2003   Terry Pratchett, Matrix Revolutions
110103   School of Rock, Terry Pratchett signing, Darth Vader MBNA bust, San Diego fires
Aug 17, 2003   Johnny English, San Diego Comic-Con
Jun 17, 2003   Assorted ramblings
May 28, 2003   Not much to say
May 24, 2003   Almost nothing of note
May 17, 2003   Matrix Reloaded, Pirates
Mar 23, 2003   The Police, Pirates, Lord of the Rings grievances part II
Mar 16, 2003   Lord of the Rings grievances part 1
Super auld stuff   A big list of old submissions with boat loads of broken links

Happy new year!

It's 2018...but I don't see hover cars, colonies on Mars, or any of the other super-sweet stuff we were supposed to have by now. So I'm a little disappointed.

But we do have self-driving cars on the horizon, so at least there's still a chance we will all be enslaved by machines in the near future. Maybe Skynet will still become aware and try to kill us all. Or maybe we'll be enslaved by machines and get plugged into the matrix.

I had planned to post this just after Christmas while I had a few days to recuperate from the trip, but I just didn't have the time to put it all together. So here it is a week or two late. Beginning with the second eBook I started and finished on my Christmas vacation...

Speaking of Christmas, here's the present I received from my amazingly talented daughter, Emeli. It's hanging on my wall in my new cubicle at work (I'll have to show the new less-sweatshoppy digs one of these days).

I did a little reading while I was on my Christmas vacation, finishing one ebook that I'd been reading forever, a physical book that I'd been reading for a week or so before the vacation, and a couple of other books that I read in their entirety on the trip.



Didn't Get Frazzled

When the author of Didn't Get Frazzled, David Z Hirsch (a pseudonym), contacted me, I was still trying to get through Last Burial Night (mentioned below) and had lost most of my enthusiasm for ebooks. This request was a little different from many of the authors' requests I receive - Didn't Get Frazzled was published at least a year before I was approached, so either the outstanding quality of my book reviews has become common knowledge, or there's some random algorithm out there that keeps putting me on the radar of authors selling their books through Amazon. Either way I finally had a chance to read this ebook while on vacation and am happy to report that it was an enjoyable and enlightening read.

When I was approached by Dave (as he will henceforth be known) and offered a chance to read and review Didn't Get Frazzled a few months ago, his initial request contained these comments:

I have noticed from your Amazon reviews that you enjoy humorous novels. I have written a novel that you may enjoy called Didn't Get Frazzled, described as "unflaggingly funny" by Kirkus Reviews and "the best fictional portrayal of med school since ER" by BlueInk Review (starred review).
*INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist (humor category) and 2017 International Book Awards Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal Winner in the Fiction - Humor/Comedy genre*

There are several comedic moments in Didn't Get Frazzled, but none that made me guffaw embarrassingly in front of anyone else, so I don't know that I would classify this as a "humorous" novel. I can think of many other complimentary adjectives to use, but I wouldn't put "funny" at the top of the list.

I don't know if the following excerpt is more "funny" or "touching," but I enjoyed it either way.

Rotating next through the pediatric emergency service, I met Santa Claus. Turns out, off-season Santa worked as a pediatrician. He called himself Dr. Joseph Goldberger, trimmed the beard, traded in the red coat for a button-down shirt and goofy tie, and covered it with a white jacket, pockets stuffed with pens and lollipops. He fooled none of us. How the press never knew I have no idea, but the man himself put little effort into concealing the obvious."

"Now, Olivia, are you going to be a good little girl?" Dr. Goldberger rested his hand on Olivia's diminutive shoulder.

"Maybe."

The doctor angled toward her and continued in a stage whisper, "You don't want coal in your stocking, do you?"

Olivia's eyes lit up. She gasped in an adorably unsubtle way that only a young child can bestow. "Mommy, is he --" She mouthed the name.

Olivia's mommy embraced her daughter's excitement. "I don't know, honey. I guess you'd better be a good girl just in case."

Wide-eyed, the little girl covered her mouth, and for the rest of the visit, Dr. Goldberger treated what I presumed to be the best behaved three-year-old in the history of emergency medicine.

Didn't Get Frazzled was, for me anyway, an eye-opener about the rigors of becoming a doctor for those of us not in the medical profession. I've been aware of all the extra schooling required of those training for medical careers, but I wasn't really aware of how much more is involved than just endless, rigorous schooling. The massive time commitments of med students to accompany more experienced medical practitioners (not always full-MDs, surprisingly) as they perform their rounds, surgeries, examinations, etc is impressive. I thought the effort to get a B.S. was plenty - I can't imagine putting in all the extra time it takes to become an M.D. The book concludes with the protagonist's graduation from medical school, but does briefly mention the post-school requirements for becoming an M.D.

Here's an excerpt that provides a glimpse into the life of a med student, Seth, Didn't Get Frazzled's primary protagonist.

I remember when I realized how things had changed for me, how warped things had become. Halfway through anatomy last year, I walked into the lab and noticed this treasure chest of spare limbs. I remember thinking, 'Oh cool, we're starting extremities today.' Almost an hour passed before it hit me: 'Holy crap, there is a bin piled up with dead body parts.' Like something you might see on Halloween except actual, once-living limbs, severed from torsos. And what had I done? I ran over and searched for the best specimen -- not too fat, not too thin -- the optimal sinewy consistency to dissect out the vessels, muscles, and nerves. I rummaged through the bin as if I were selecting the perfect melon."

"At least you recognized the problem."

"Did I though? I decided to share my revelation with the group, and when I did, they all blew it off. 'Yeah, so, we're surrounded by dead bodies, what do a few extra limbs matter?' I didn't have an answer for that, because they were right. Once you've shifted your expectations that far over to the macabre, what real difference does a heap of severed limbs in a chest make? None. We were all long past being horrified. So you may be right. It's too late for me."

In addition to laying out the rigors of medical training for non-doctors like me, the book is also an interesting look into how difficult it is to maintain a social life, romantic or even platonic - with anyone who isn't going through these same experiences with you.

Here's a really brief moment near the end of Seth's relationship.

"I strained not to lash back at her. She liked to call me bitter. This was her new thing. My new thing was to view her as selfish and duplicitous, but at least I only insinuated it. April and I glared at each other from across the table. I had a feeling this might be our last night together."

I was never a big fan of ER, so I don't know if there was a lot of funny or medical school related storylines in its many episodes, but as I read Didn't Get Frazzled I often pictured the characters in a medical show I did watch: Scrubs. Many times I found myself hearkening back to the difficulties those young doctors-to-be struggled through, as I read Didn't Get Frazzled. But above all else, this is a book full of great stories (with names changes to protect the actual participants, no doubt). Here's a scene between the young doctor-in-training, Seth, and a veteran Nurse, Donna, that is a good example of the kind of doctor Seth is on the way to becoming.

"Donna, what's going on?"

"That lady out there is crazy. She thinks we're all partying it up in here when all we've been doing is working our asses off to help their children. You know, her son's up next, but I have half a mind to skip her the rest of the afternoon."

On another day, I might have let it go and waited out the last half-hour of my shift, but the thought of even one more suffering child consumed me with an impulsive fury.

"You wouldn't be skipping her -- you'd be skipping her son."

Donna swung toward me, her fiery eyes blazing into mine. "I know that, but who's going to go out there and talk to her?"

"I'm up for a new patient."

She placed her arms on her hips. "You really think she's going to let some white-boy medical student talk sense into her?"

I shrugged.

Donna twisted her lips until she released a belly laugh. "Okay, Seth, you go right ahead." She passed me the clipboard.

I skimmed the page. Travon Taylor, chief complaint: sore throat. Donna tugged me by the arm and pointed though the glass at a woman shifting from one leg to the other while glaring at the TV. Near her, a five-year-old boy slumped at an odd angle in a chair.

"Good luck. Be sure the door locks behind you."

I passed her the clipboard and stepped through the waiting area until I faced the boy's mother. She ignored me.

"Hello, Mrs. Taylor. I'm Seth Levine, a medical student." I said this with as much effervescence as I would conjure, but she kept her gaze fixed on the TV screen, even when she responded.

"Oh great, another completely useless person who can't help me."

"Well, I'm a medical student, so I'm more of a mostly useless person who will at least try to help you."

That got her attention. Followed by a sneer. She stared back at the TV. I squatted until eye-level with her son.

"Hi, Travon. I'm Seth. How are you feeling?"

"My throat hurts." A glob of saliva dribbled out of his mouth.

"Tra-von, you wipe your mouth. See, he keep on drooling. How do I know he don't have no stroke? You people stay back in there and don't do nothing. I been here for hours, and I ain't heard nothing from nobody."

Now that I had her attention again, I stood to face her. "That sounds very frustrating."

"Frustrating! Are you touched in the head? You damn right it's frustrating. My child'll be dead before a doctor see him. Will you be happy then?"

"I wouldn't be happy."

Mrs. Taylor scanned the other moms in the crowd, but no one collaborated this time. I decided to keep talking before anyone did.

"Let me go see how long the wait is."

"Fine, you do that. You go back in there and leave the rest of us out here with our sick children who don't nobody wanna help.""

[jumping ahead a couple of pages...]

"The three of us joked around like old friends until Dr. Goldberger returned with a prescription. Mrs. Taylor thanked him and gave me a bear hug. Travon shared his infectious spittle with me one last time, and the two of them exited the room. Before I could do the same, Dr. Goldberger closed the door, trapping both of us inside. I stood motionless, drawing up the last of my emotional reserves to prepare for whatever he had in store.

"Excellent work today."

I smiled. "Thank you."

He rubbed his white beard and stared at me while I anticipated an "except" or "however" to temper his compliment. "Do you know why I said you did excellent work today?""

"Because, um, I knew the bacterial causes of otitis media?"

He shook his head in cheerful bemusement. "I expected you to know that. You're nearing the end of your pediatrics block, you should know all the facts by now, but even if you didn't, you could always learn them later. No, you did excellent work today because you helped that little boy, more than anyone else here. I made the diagnosis and prescribed the antibiotic, but that was the easy part. Calming the mother down so we could provide proper care for her son -- that was the hard part.

"From what the nurses told me, she was so agitated and upset she may have left before her son got the care he needed. You kept her here and you kept her calm, and you did it with empathy. This is something we can't teach, something that's either a part of you or it isn't. And the most impressive part is you didn't get frazzled. Many people would have become angry or defensive. They would have taken her abusive behavior personally or been more concerned with themselves instead of having the wherewithal to do what was needed to help that little boy." He laid his hand on my shoulder. "You did a good thing today."

I wanted to respond, but the words lodged in my throat. A stinging fire flashed into my eyes. I used all my remaining strength not to cry in front of my attending.

"That's a skill which takes years to perfect, and many never do. You're well on your way, Seth. You're going to be an excellent physician.""

...

"Yeah, that was me, Mr. Didn't-get-frazzled. "

Warning: Didn't Get Frazzled is not a book for children. There is no shortage of profanity or sexual content, which makes me a little sad. I would have loved to share this book with my own kids, one of whom has expressed an interest in the psychiatric medical field (the training for which does get a mention in the book). But until they're adults and have brains that are no longer being mis-shaped by the world around them, Didn't Get Frazzled won't be a book I feel comfortable sharing with either of them.

Above all else, let me assure you this is a well-written book. The author is not only grammatically proficient, he knows how to tell a coherent story with a real beginning, middle, and end. He also does good job of developing the book's protagonist, Seth; you'll feel very well acquainted with Seth by the book's end. Many of the other characters in the book are a little less-developed and sometimes confusingly vague, but they serve their primary purpose of fleshing out the story, even if they dissipate and are forgotten as they move off stage. Also, unlike Last Burial Night (below), I have many, many unused quotes from Didn't Get Frazzled that I found thought-provoking and share-worthy.



The Sea People

For those of you familiar withe Change/Emberverse novels of SM Stirling, you will notice a couple of differences in The Sea People from the previous books in the series: 1) None of the action in the story takes place in the mainland United States/Montival-proper. At least not in the same time/universe. And 2) One of the primary characters in the story, Pip (there are six or seven real primary characters), was created by an author other than Steve Stirling. Pip is from The Change anthology of guest-authored stories set in the Emberverse universe (barely mentioned last year during my year of failures to talk about what I was reading). 1

Pip, the borrowed Australian princess, is a great character. She dresses like Alex from A Clockwork Orange (the movie version of him, anyway - I don't remember if the book version of the character had the same wardrobe) has and interesting assortment of armaments - a heavy-headed cane (another Alex reference), a wrist rocket slingshot, and a set of large knives, and her speech patterns and observations of the various Montivalian faux-Irish/Scotsmen's attire, accents, and customs is well done from a non-American perspective. Which is interesting, because Steve Stirling is an American, so the well-roundedness of her character must have come through a lot of research. I think there was even usage of droogs (another A Clockwork Orange shout out) a couple of times in the story, but I didn't note it and can't find it now.

Here are a couple of Pip's scenes (not the most descriptive, but the best I could find, flipping through the book).

Deor jerked upright from where he had been leaning against the wall that separated them from Wilde's chambers.

"What?" Thora said.

Pip and Toa waited wordless, Deor looked shaken, his narrow clever race staring and beaded with more sweat than the cool spring night could account for.

"Something has been unsheathed," he said. "A weapon, malignant as Tyrfing. Quickly! We must stop it. The time of testing approaches."

Pip ghosted to the door and looked out through a narrow crack, holding a hand out with fingers spread to check the others until she'd made sure of the way, they didn't have any lights on inside, so the opening would be darkness within darkness, and her eyes perceived the dimly lit hallway as bright. A tall horse-faced man was shambling out of Wilde's rooms.

Weapon? she thought. What weapon?

Then there was a glint of steel in his right hand, held down by the side of his leg. She blinked in surprise, yes, that was an inconspicuous location but surely she should have seen it at once? It wasn't as if she was a virgin with respect to matters concerning sharp, pointy-stabby things.

"Man with a knife, heading downstairs," Pip murmured.

"You follow him, l'll take this side," Toa said, climbing out the window above the alley, tossing his shovel onto something that made a dull thug

This one's a little less Pip-ish, but shows a a glimpse of the cross-dimensional weirdness of the story.

Catapults and crossbows she understood intuitively, but apparently it had translated.

Thora tucked the weapon into the belt over her shirtwaist, and checked that it was ready to her hand under the loose thigh-length jacket that completed the outfit. Pip made certain that she could get to her kukris quickly, and pulled a few more ball-bearings out into the palm of her hand.

Constance Hawberk had been looking at them with growing puzzlement. "Thank . . . you again, all of you. And you, Miss Balwyn. I've never met anyone like you, but I'm glad I did."

"You're very welcome. Just doing my bit," Pip said, feeling a little guilty as they filed out into the corridor.

"Now for Wilde," Deor said as the door closed and locked behind them and something heavy was drawn up against it. "Vance isn't important anymore - and Wilde is another step towards Prince John."

"Why couldn't I hit the bastard?" Toa said plaintively.

Deor shrugged with a wry smile. "Because we are in a story, my friend, a story about things that once happened. Happened in another place that no amount of physical travel could find, or inconceivably long ago, or both. And the . . . forgive me, l must use a term from my art . . . the narrative structure of this story had Vance using this-"

He moved the knife slightly.

"-to kill the young lady and her lather. When we disrupted that, it pushed back to restore events to the original . . . plot."

Toa looked slightly alarmed. "This . . . you-know-who bugger . . . he was doing it?"

"Not directly," Deor said. "Not yet. For that Power to do so would rip the fabric of this story apart, and this story is very important to It; one source of Its strength. No, what has happened here is that we have . . . written ourselves is the only way l can put it . . . into the story and are turning it towards our own purposes, a little at least. And the story itself is fighting us. Events try to reshape themselves towards the original ending"

As I briefly mentioned above, much of this story takes place in multiple alternate universes (jumping across different centuries, but always in a bizzare version of the US of A) filled with creepy monsters - some unbelievable and magical and many just monstrously evil. I'm not entirely sure if these alternate universes are supposed to be real (similar to the Long Earth books by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter or Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves) or if they're just some weird drug-induced dream sequence in Prince John's head...I suspect the former, though. Either way, the departure from real-world (okay, I admit that the basic premise of the change makes the whole series a departure from the "real world") could possibly make the book less-readable for some. I read everything, so the quality of the author's writing is more important to me than the setting/mechanics of the author's imagined unverse. Steve Stirling is definitely a skilled writer with a head full of knowledge that lends weight to his words - a lifelong student of history in general and specifically military history. His battle scenes are very detailed and a pleasure to read. Here's an excerpt from one of the great naval battles in the book.

Naysmith stiffened. "What the devil?" she said, looking at the latex message from the kite-observer and then through her own glass. "They're not opening out into line! They're all heading straight for us! That's suicide."

She turned to the signaler. "Flanking ships advance. Captain Edwards, take in sail. lf they're willing to stick their heads into a sack, we'll oblige them."

CRACK!

Sea-Leopard heeled under the recoil of her broadside of twenty-four-pounder catapults. The roundshot slashed out, invisible except as blurred streaks, and the Korean warship coming in on the port quarter seemed to stagger in the water. Orlaith could hear the crunching sound of the cast-steel globes racking into the timbers of the enemy ship. Splinters flew skyward amid screams. At least it wasn't napalm shell or firebolt; two more of the enemy ships burned like torches not far behind them and sent the black slanting pillars of their funeral pyres into the sky, but this one was too close to risk setting it afire. Pumps were jetting water over the Sea Leopard's decks anyway, and down the thin sheet metal that guarded the wooden hull. Special squads waited with the foam-gear that could extinguish chemical fire.

More screams of pain and mortal terror came from the waist of the Korean craft, where several of the heavy metal balls smashed through the gunwales and went through ranks of men kneeling behind them. Men too tightly packed to dodge even if they'd had time.

What flew skyward from those impacts wasn't splinters, except from a few of the polearms the soldiers carried. It was parts of men, and if you looked closely you could see that they splashed as much as breaking.

"For what we are about to receive . . ." some Christian with a sense of humor said.

The metallic twangs from the enemy ship were fewer in number; six, she thought. And subtly different, probably because the engineering tradition behind their design was. Natural law set the limits for what the students of the mechanic arts could do, but styles differed from nation to nation within those bounds. The massive fabric of the ship shuddered a bit, and something flashed by overhead too fast to see. Bits fell - severed ends of rope, and a block-and-tackle that caught in the netting overhead. Shouts sounded harsh as orders were barked and the topmen cleared the rigging above, with their clasp knives in their teeth.

Then the frigate's broadside cut loose again, she could see in her mind the crews longing up and down at the handles of the cocking mechanisms below, and the grunts as the shot were levered into the troughs. The enemy ship was only a few hundred yards away now, within long bowshot, and there was an explosion of spray and splinters as the heavy metal struck at the waterline. The bow jerked down as water flooded in, rammed home by the forward momentum of the ship. Then the thick stay-lines that held the foremast in place and transmitted the force of the wind to the hull snapped, writhing across the deck like thigh-thick whips with bone-cracking force.

The tall mast was a composite, smaller timbers fitted and bound together with shrunk-on hoops, not a single trunk like the Sea Leopard's Sitka spruce sparage. It was nearly as strong, but when it failed . . . as its writhing bend showed it was about to do . . .

"Duck!" Orlaith shouted crisply, petty officers were echoing it all the way down the hundreds of feet of deck.

She suited action to words by knocking down her visor and going to one knee with her shield up.

The enemy ship's mast shattered like one of the fabled bombs of the ancient world. The huge strain on the length of it turned into energy in motion as splinters and chunks scythed outward.

If I wasn't so distracted by the good stuff on TV, the silly games on my tablet and computer, the web sites I'm forever trying to update, the Android class I was taking that I just finished mid-December, and all the other demands on my time, I would have easily finished this book in a day, maybe two, instead of dragging it out over a couple of weeks.



Last Burial Night

I started reading Last Burial Night in August of 2017. The author, Osaze Ehigiator, hadn't yet released the book on Amazon and was hoping to get some positive spin for his book's release. I was reading another physical book at the time I started Last Burial Night, Thrawn or maybe The Lincoln Myth, so I didn't jump right into reading it. Also, as I've mentioned a time or two, I'm not a huge fan of the eBook medium, so reading Last Burial Night wasn't really a priority. Any time that I'm reading and enjoying a real book, it's not likely I'll spend much time reading an eBook. And the biggest factor for the long time it took to finish reading Last Burial Night - it just wasn't that well-written. I think I finished reading four physical books and at least one other eBook since I began reading Last Burial Night. So it pretty much required me being on a vacation without any of the books on my reading shelf to get all the way though it.

Last Burial Night is a difficult story to define. Even the actual time/location of the events in the story is kind of indefinable. I couldn't tell if the author was creating a completely fictitious universe to play in (though one with no significant differences in technology from our present-day universe) or if only the characters and events of the story were intended to be fictitious. I just couldn't tell. Everything seemed to be intentionally vague. I did see clues throughout the text that I made assumptions based upon, but they were really just guesses. Among the many confusing clues are references to Jews, Gentiles, India, Africa, English, the Fifth Amendment, and the "Savanna South and the Eastern Jungle". Sometimes I think the setting is somehow America. other times it sounds like Africa or some island nation (Madagascar?) near Africa. I just couldn't tell.

Our province enjoyed a culture of excess before the storm. We were the only true superpower, considering wealth, power, and influence. We coughed, and the entire world quivered. We had conquered space, land, and ocean.
or
Maximo's real name was Erick Gomez. AL D Loco named him Maximo because of his huge body frame and fierce look. He had African, Latino, and Native American blood - super mixed genes. He was also from a family of bootleggers and had some outlaws in his blood, just like my granddad

As for dominant themes in the story, discrimination/race relations figured big in the story, but I was never sure what race any of the characters actually were. Again, there were clues, but no answers.

According to them, mountaineers - often called "M" for short - blame us for all their troubles because of the expulsion of their fathers from their God-given promised land.

or

I think it's better to judge people by class than skin color. But when the majority from any particular group behaves...

or

Those are simple facts," I said. "It applies to all ethnicities. No hoodlum gets respect, no matter his ethnicity. That's class and economics, not race."

or

Many people don't want to hear it from a person or group they consider as oppressors and especially not from the so-called 'winning race.' A few of my mom's friends don't like their children or anyone around them using it, period. They say it reminds them of plantation history, which is still very recent in their recollections. Same reason they don't order plantation salad in restaurants."

or

They also said you guys can't jump either, but you jump higher than a kangaroo.

The most interesting aspect of the story, for me, anyway, was the asteroid en route to impact the Earth. I was expecting more of a Lucifer's Hammer type story (or Deep Impact, if you're a movie person) - complete with all the running around and panicking as the time to impact ticks down, followed by the details on how the survivors manage to survive in the madness that follows. Sadly, the event that should have been the focus of the story was little more than a plot mechanism to get the central character into his own little Hunger Games/Maze Runner type survival situation. And that might have been enough to carry the story, if not for the bigger flaws in the novel.

Bigger flaw #1: The dialogue between characters never sounds real. The word usage is all wrong, the tone of the dialogue goes from too formal to Napoleon Dynamite (there are several occurrences of "Dang"). There are way too many examples of seventeen year-old Drew explaining everything from botany, animal physiology, and jungle survival skills to the other, older, characters. And there's often just unending streams of dialogue with no clear indication of who's speaking or what's happening beyond the endless speaking. The stage is never set.

Bigger flaw #2: Grammatical and typographical errors abound.

The odd grammar is more prevalent than the small number of typographical errors I saw. Verb tenses jump back and forth between present and past - sometimes within the same sentence. All these oddities led me to believe that the author doesn't speak English as his first language. For me, the irregular writing/grammar was the biggest distraction and made the story almost unreadable.

Bigger flaw #3: The characters - even Drew, the star of the story - are two-dimensional. There's no real effort to get inside the heads of any of them or to explain who they are.

I noted a million things about the book that took me out of the story and made it very difficult to finish, but there weren't really any examples of things that I really found interesting. So I guess...the gist of all this rambling is that you probably shouldn't plunk down any of your hard-earned cash for this book. At least not if you enjoy well-written/edited prose.



The Rooster Bar

Jon Grisham books are hard to sum up. Not because they are overly complex or incomprehensible, but mainly, I guess, because I don't want to give anything away. I could share excerpts from the story, but none really stand out much more than any other. They're all good. This is a typical John Grisham story; complete with lawyers, FBI agents, deep-pocketed crooks, and, of course, at least one agenda item of the left - the perils of being an immigrant.

I picked my copy of The Rooster Bar from the Science Fiction Book Club because it was a couple of bucks cheaper than Costco and because they seemed to have turned over a new leaf in regard to miniaturizing their books. Big mistake. The last several Sci-Fi genre books I've purchased from the SFBC have all been full-sized, but The Rooster Bar was scaled down to about 3/4 of the normal size (as were all the SFBC books in the old days).

One thing that was a little different in this John Grisham novel - and often amusing - was the email correspondence between the drop-out law school students and the loan officers servicing their school loans.

Todd said, "I guess we need to stay away from the criminal courts."

"Oh, yes. Those days are over. No more hustling the poor and oppressed."

"What about our pending cases? We can't just drop these people."

Mark said, "That's exactly what we'll do. We can't close these cases because we can't risk going back to court. Again, those days are over. Starting now, don't take any phone calls from a client or anyone else for that matter. Let's use prepaid cell phones to keep in touch and ignore all other calls."

Zola said, "I'm already carrying two phones. Now a third?"

"Yes, and we have to monitor all of them to see who's looking for us," Mark said.

"And my days as a hospital vulture are over?" she asked and managed a smile.

"Afraid so."

"You weren't very good at it," Todd said.

"Thanks. I hated every minute of it."

A manager walked over and said, "Hey, Todd, you're on tonight. We're shorthanded and need you now."

"Be there in a sec," Todd said and waved the guy off. When he was gone, Todd asked, "So, gang, what's next?"

"We go after Swift Bank," Mark said.

"And dig a deeper hole," Zola replied, but it was not a question.

MORGANA NASH AT NowAssist sent Mark an e-mail that read,

Dear Mark: I have just been informed by the administration at Foggy Bottom Law School that you have been placed on withdrawal status. I called the law school and was informed that you have not been to class this semester. This is very troubling.

Please contact me immediately.

Last installment Jan. 13, 2014: $32,500; total principal/interest: $266,000.

Sincerely, Morgana Nash, Public Sector Representative

Late that night, and after several more beers, Mark responded,

Dear Ms. Nash: Last week my therapist had me admitted to a private psychiatric hospital in rural Maryland. I'm not supposed to use the Internet but these clowns around here are not too sharp. Would you please stop hounding me? According to one shrink here I'm borderline suicidal. A bit more abuse from you and I could go over the edge. Please, please, leave me alone!!

LOVE, Mark Frazier

Rex Wagner of Scholar Support Partners e-mailed Todd:

Dear Mr. Lucero: I have been informed by your law school that you are now officially considered "Withdrawn." I called the law school and was told that you have not attended a single class this semester, your last before graduation. Why would any sane student drop out of law school during his last semester? If you are not in school I can only assume you are working somewhere, probably in a bar. Employment of any nature while not enrolled in school triggers either the need for a repayment plan or, in the absence of one, default. Default, as I'm sure you know, means a lawsuit filed against you by the Department of Education. Please contact me immediately.

Last installment; $32,500, Jan. 13, 2014; total due: $195,000

Sincerely, Rex Wagner, Senior Loan Counselor

While Mark was typing his response to Morgana Nash, Todd fired off one to his loan counselor.

Dear SS Counselor Wagner; You hit the nail on the head with that sanity question. Nothing is sane about my world these days, most especially my insurmountable debts. 0kay, the fix is in. Jig's up. I dropped out because I hate the law school, hate the law, etc. I'm currently earning about $200 a week, cash, tending bar. So let's say that's $800 a month, tax-free because I haven't filled out those forms yet. To maintain my impoverished lifestyle, I need about $500 a month for food, rent, things like that. And you should see where I'm living and what I'm eating. Analyzing these figures, I suppose I could agree to a repayment plan of something like $200 a month, beginning in six months. I know you'll hit the "Interest" button as soon as possible and kick in the 5 percent per annum. Five percent of $195,000 is about $9,750 a year. Let's just round it to $10,000 in interest. Under my proposed repayment scheme, I can swing about a fourth of that each year. You loan sharks will then add the interest in arrears to the ballooning principal, and hit that with another 5 percent per year. The math gets a bit bewildering, but my spreadsheet says that in ten years I will owe almost $400,000. And this does not include all the little secret fees and add-ons and other illegalitles that SSP has been caught padding onto the student loans it handles. (I've read the lawsuits and, boy, would I love to file one myself. You and your company should be ashamed - piling hidden fees onto the backs of students already drowning in debt.)

So, are you willing to accept my offer of $200 a month? Beginning in six months, of course.

Your pal, Todd Lucero

Evidently, Mr. Wagner was working late, or, as Todd imaqined, was sitting in his recliner, in nothing but his boxers, watching porn and monitoring his e-mails. Within minutes he replied.

Dear Todd: The answer is no. Your offer is ridiculous. I find it hard to believe that a person as clever as you will spend the next ten years mixing drinks. There are plenty of good jobs out there, law related and otherwise, and if you'll get off your butt you can find one. Then we can have a serious conversation about repayment.

Sincerely, Rex Wagner. Senior Loan Counselor

To which Todd immediately replied,

Dear SS: Great. I withdraw my offer. T.L.

Zola's correspondence was slightly more professional. Tildy Carver at LoanAid wrote,

Dear Zola Maal; I have been informed that you have withdrawn from law school. Such a dramatic action presents several issues and we must discuss them at once. Please call or e-mail me as soon as possible.

Tildy Carver, Senior Loan Adviser

Last installment, January 13, 2014: $32,500; total principal and interest: $191,000

Zola was almost asleep. She responded,

Dear Ms. Carver: After the suicide of my friend in January, I found it impossible to continue with my studies. So I decided to take a gap semester instead, with the possible plan of resuming law school in a year or so. I will contact you later.

Sincerely, Zola Maal

I don't know how many of John Grisham's Fictional books have been based on actual events, but the actual story he read that led to this novel's creation is identified in the Author's Note.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

As usual, I played fast and loose with reality, especially the legal stuff. Laws, courthouses, procedures, statutes, firms, judges and their courtrooms, lawyers and their habits, all have been fictionalized at will to suit the story.

Mark Twain said he moved entire states and cities to fit his narrative. Such is the license given to novelists, or simply assumed by them.

Alan Swanson guided me through the streets of D.C. Bobby Moak, a tort specialist with an encyclopedic knowledge of the law, once again reviewed the manuscript. Jennifer Hulvey at the University of Virgina School of Law walked me through the complex world of student lending. Thanks to all. They are not to be blamed for my mistakes.

The question all writers hate is: "Where do you get your ideas?" With this story the answer is simple. I read an article in the September 2014 edition of The Atlantic titled "The Law School Scam." It's a fine investigative piece by Paul Campos. By the end of it, I was inspired and knew I had my next novel.

Thank you, Mr. Campos.

I wasn't familiar with the events from the September 2014 story in The Atlantic, so, for me, this book wasn't just a fictionalized re-telling of those events. Even if it had been a familiar story to me, I'm still all-in for new John Grisham books because of the way he develops and humanizes his characters, suspensfully lays out the twists and turns of the story, and then wraps everything up in a neat little bow by the story's conclusion - sure, a sequel could be written, but there's no need for it. We know how the story ends and that's good enough.



More Douglas Adams Dr Who fun

I received an email from Barnes and Noble soon after finishing City of Death about another James Goss-polished Douglas Adams Dr Who script-turned-novel to be published in March. This one features characters familiar to anyone who has read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the nefarious Krikkitmen. Here's what I know - this was apparently a "long-lost" story that was never turned into a Dr Who episode, featuring the Doctor and the same companion from City of Death, Romana. It is based on extensive notes and what sounds like a rough outlie for a story found in Douglas's archive.

Here's the description from the email - or possible the web site. As I mentioned, it sounds an awful lot like a familiar scene in THHGTTG...

Intergalactic war? That's just not cricket ... or is it?

The Doctor promised Romana the end of the universe, so she's less than impressed when what she gets is a cricket match. But play is soon interrupted by eleven figures in white uniforms and peaked skull helmets, wielding bat-shaped weapons that fire lethal bolts of light into the screaming crowd.

The Krikkitmen are back.

Millions of years ago, the people of Krikkit learned they were not alone in the universe, and promptly launched a xenophobic crusade to wipe out all other life-forms. After a long and bloody conflict, the Time Lords imprisoned Krikkit within an envelope of Slow Time, a prison that could only be opened with the Wicket Gate key, a device that resembles - to human eyes, at least - an oversized set of cricket stumps...

From Earth to Gallifrey, from Bethselamin to Devalin, from Krikkit to Mareeve II to the far edge of infinity, the Doctor and Romana are tugged into a pan-galactic conga with fate as they rush to stop the Krikkitmen gaining all five pieces of the key. If they fail, the entire cosmos faces a fiery retribution that will leave nothing but ashes...

I plan on buying this one before it hits the discount rack, in anticipation of James Goss doing another stellar job of penning a book with Douglas Adams's voice. I wish Goss had been chosen to continue the Hitchhiker's series, instead of Eoin Colfer.





1 Those of you lucky enough to have read the books in the original Thieves' World anthology will be familiar with the shared-universe concept of The Change. I really need to go into depth about Thieves' World and my favorite character, Shadowspawn, one of these days...



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