February Book Round-Up

21: WE: A Big Sky Christmas – William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

22: TH: Suicide Mission – William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

23: WE: Savage Texas: The Stampeders – William W. Johnstone

24: TH: White Fire – Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

25: HR: Doctor Sleep – Stephen King

26: SF: Rough Beasts – Harlan Ellison

27: CR: The Second Longest Night – Stephen Marlowe

28: CR: Killers Are My Meat – Stephen Marlowe

29: CR: Death Is My Comrade – Stephen Marlowe

30: CR: Jeopardy Is My Job – Stephen Marlowe

31: CR: Violence Is My Business – Stephen Marlowe

32: CR: The Ranger – Ace Atkins

33: MY: Murder Of A Beauty Shop Queen – Bill Crider

34: PA: Captain Midnight Chronicles – edited by Christopher Mills

35: AD: Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon – Kenneth Robeson

36: MY: Sherlock Holmes and The Giant Rat of Sumatra Paul D. Gilbert

37: PU: The Avenger Chronicles – edited by Joe Gentile & Howard Hopkins

38: SF: Interlopers – Alan Dean Foster

39: SF Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen – Alan Dean Foster

40: PU: Doc Savage: The Desert Demons – Kenneth Robeson

41: SF: Terminator Salvation: Trail By Fire – Timothy Zahn

It Won’t Be Long Now

I visited the Doctor yesterday, after missing him two weeks ago in the big storm. He said the graft had healed but wanted to give it a couple of more weeks to allow the skin to toughen up. It wouldn’t do to walk on it too soon and pop it open.

So I’m shooting for getting home in the week after next.

Sherlock Holmes and The Giant Rat of Sumatra – Paul D. Gilbert

“Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,” said Holmes in a reminiscent voice. “It was the name of a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.”

The Adventure of The Sussex Vampire
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Of the many slight mentions of unrecorded tales in the Holmes stories, the clip above has inspired the most pastiches. I have three novels with this title(The Richard Boyer book does omit Sherlock Holmes and… from the title) as well as several short stories in various pastiche collections).

This one begins when Holmes is hired by an insurance company to investigate the Matilda Briggs incident. The clipper ship had drifted in forty miles and two days late from it’s original date. The cargo, tea, is intact and the crew missing except for a cabin boy who with dying breath utters the words “Death himself has come for us all!” The captain’s log is also missing.

Author Gilbert captures the voice nicely and delivers an original tale.

No New Update

I was supposed to see my doctor yesterday to look at the graft. But the snow storm put the kibosh on that for the time being. We may have been able to get it in, it was a morning appointment, but the woman that drives for the facility was afraid we’d run into the storm and said no drive. The storm was coming up from the south and Winston-Salem, south of us, was where we had to go. Best not take any chances.

Doctor Sleep – Stephen King

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Stephen King

In his sequel to THE SHINING, author Stephen King has given us another fine novel. In his afterword, King says he gets asked “Whatever happened to that kid in The Shining?” often and that he had in fact wondered the same thing.

We now have that story. It’s a battle between good and evil.

Dan Torrance had wandered a good deal of his adult life, never staying anywhere long, and had become an alcoholic like his father. But he’d finally settled in the small town of Frazier in New Hampshire. He’d gone to AA and worked a number of years in a hospice where he’d earned the nickname Doctor Sleep. The facility had a cat named Azee that always knew when a patient was about to pass(he’s never missed yet). Dan was there to hold their hand, ease their fears(with a touch of his Shining), and help them get to life’s next stage.

Abra Stone is a thirteen year old with a strong dose of Shining in her. It had first manifested one morning when she was just a few years old in crying that wouldn’t stop. That was early on the morning of 9/11. She’d gotten stronger over the years.

The True Knot is a tribe that passes themselves off as retired folks and others traveling in a fleet of Winnebagos and RVs. Polyester pants, tee shirts, they are constantly on the move to disguise that they change frequently. You see, they are a sort of vampire, but they don’t live off human blood. They hunt children with that psychic shining(they call it steam), kidnap them, and torture them(which hightens the steam) before murdering the children. They can also die by most anything(gunshot, drowning, falls, car wrecks), like regular folks.

They want Abra Stone.

Dan and Abra and some normal are all that oppose them

And the final battleground takes Dan Torrance back to the site of his greatest horror, the Overlook Hotel, that burned down when Danny was just five, thus saving his life.

Most excellent.

Pyramid Lake – Paul Draker

Author Paul Draker’s second thriller is almost completely the opposite of his first. They do have a few things in common though: well-written, a terrific plot, and relentless action from beginning to end, with twists tossed in for good measure along the way.

It’s the story of a young programmer Trevoe Lennox working on a secret project for the gobernment at Pyramid Lake. But hr makes enemies easily and he’s afraid he’s being replaced before he can finish the real project: saving his seven year old daughter. Every bit as brilliant as he was at that age, she has a mental problem that he hopes Frankenstein, his massive computer that’s a bit more than everyone knows.

And now someone is murdering people on the base, Trevor’s boss, a Homeland Security official, and trying to place the blame on Trevor.

An engrossing thriller.

Latest Update.

Visited the doctor Thursday and things look good so far. Go back in two weeks. Another irritant cropped up though. Gout hit my left wrist and caused the joints on the forefinger to swell up. That’s doing good now that the family doctor prescibed something.

And now, I want to thank you friends for all the good thoughts and wishes, not mention the phone call from Charles. Totally unexpected and I was asleep when the phone rang, making me a bit befuddled at first. But it helped my spirits.