A new book out, written by journalist Leslie Kean and called UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, will surely stir up that old UFO hornet nest again.  My first acquaintance with serious works on UFOs occurred in 1956 with Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt’s classic The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects.  (Yes, I was only ten years old—call me precocious.)  This report seemed serious enough (to my budding scientific mind)—after all, the Captain was the first head of the USAF Project Bluebook.  So what’s this all got to do with Fermi?

(more…)

(Leona Bodie, Shadow Cay, WRB Publishing, ISBN 978-0-9844198-1-4)

There is no mystery here.  Shadow Cay is a thriller and the subject is revenge.  The plot details are intriguing and complex enough that you have an interesting read that will last you through the rest of your summer trips to the beach—the book is longer than your average thriller and the characters suffer a lot before all is resolved.  There is no subtlety here.  Ms. Bodie’s graphic scene constructions and characterizations are raw and gutsy, but they are an integral part of the story, not just for shock value.  I recommend the book with one important caveat: it’s not for the squeamish.

(more…)

Ever since the Nixon-Eisenhower White House wedding in 1968 I have wondered about America’s need for royalty and royal weddings.  While old George showed his sanity and humility by not allowing the rest of the colonials to make him king (I’m speaking of our first President, not the inept British king the colonials defeated), it seems that many of my compatriots feel short-changed.  Many of them go after the gossip, intrigues, and photos by the paparazzi like ants at a pastry makers’ picnic, all in their haste to find a truly American substitute.  And when the Lohans and the Pitts just don’t do it, there’s always a White House wedding.

(more…)

(John L. Betcher, The 19^th Element, 2010, ISBN 9781451521016)

Do you need an entertaining and action-packed book for your summer reading?  This is it!  A very realistically portrayed terrorist attack in an unusual setting provided me with a nerve-wrenching adrenalin rush.  If you’re into suspenseful thrillers, try this one on for size.

(more…)

(Carolyn J. Rose, Hemlock Lake, Five Star Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-59414-884-2)

There are fiction genres that challenge me as a writer.  Romance, YA, and mystery are really troublesome.  For the first two, I believe it is indispensable that the author put himself in the mind frame of the reader.  The first readers have graduated from fairy tales like “Cinderella” to more adult fantasies about lust and love.  While those elements can be found in other genres, they are the quintessential elements of the romance genre.  The second readers, often young and impatient in this computer game world of instant gratification, are looking for adventure and some magic (and perhaps lust and love) at a level they can relate to, not too profound and highly entertaining.

(more…)

(Dean Koontz, Breathless, Bantam Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-553-80715-8)

Dean, Dean, tell me it isn’t so.  I’ve been a fan of yours for years, delighting in your stories of good versus evil, relishing your use of words and turns of phrase, and feeling my skin crawl with your pseudo-scientific-supernatural creations.  Stephen King’s writing was always second rate to your masterful way with the written word.

But now you seem to have been reading too much creationist and intelligent design literature.  The creatures in Breathless are new humans, not evolved but spontaneously generated.  As one of the characters says, “…their sudden appearance suggests some mechanism entirely different from evolution through natural selection.  In the Cambrian period…a hundred new phyla appeared, thousands of species.”  This character is a physicist and a mathematician, a dabbler in chaos theory.

(more…)

(John L. Betcher, The Missing Element, ISBN 978-1451512717)

This book was a lot of fun.  It is the kind of book I love to read and it is the kind of book I try to write.  John Betcher has written a real gem.  Like a good port, you can enjoy it any time.  It is an entertaining addition to the thriller/suspense class of books with just a dash of sci-fi-the style lies somewhere between Carl Hiaasen and Michael Connelly, although the author claims to emulate Robert B. Parker.  A difficult task, but he comes close in entertainment value.  There is not much negative I can say about the book.  But if you want more information, read on.

(more…)

I apologize up front for this post.  I will reminisce about one of my previous careers and, as a consequence, may give some readers a royal headache with the technical jargon and pedagogical whining.  Please forgive and bear with me.  Memoirs are not my forte.  But Mr. Feynman is as much a part of our American cultural background as hot dogs sold at Fenway Park.  You will perhaps remember his role in leading the analysis team of the shuttle o-ring disaster.  I have more complicated memories of him, although that one even showed his genius.

(more…)

(R. J. McDonnell, Rock & Roll Rip-Off, Killeena Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9814914-2-4)

I began reading Rock & Roll Rip-Off with some misgivings.  Too many authors, inspired by Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series, or other famous series in popular fiction, start to write a series.  The tradition goes all the way back beyond Christie’s Miss Marple and Poirot to Conan Doyle’s Holmes.  The standard cliché that “you can’t argue with success” seems to mesmerize the writers’ world.

A series, successful or otherwise, is itself something of a rip-off.  A writer, comfortable with a character and perhaps stimulated by the character’s popularity, now has the freedom to pay more attention to developing other aspects of the story.  A better writer, on the other hand, takes the opportunity to also develop that main character a little more-returning to his childhood, lost loves, traumatic events, and so forth.

(more…)

(D. M. Annechino, They Never Die Quietly , Amazon Encore, 2010, ISBN 978-098255503-3)

D. M. Annechino’s They Never Die Quietly is a suspenseful thriller with all the right ingredients: Simon, a serial killer who is convinced he is doing God’s work; Rizzo, a police detective and single mother who is unsure about a lot of things, even her job; Diaz, who is a recovering alcoholic and secretly in love with his partner Rizzo; and Davison, their Captain, who is caught between the two detectives trying to do their jobs and the politicians that make his life miserable.  The author blends all these ingredients into a story that keeps you turning the page but at the end doesn’t quite work for me.

(more…)