Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt For The Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson

Books about polar exploration always draw me in and the Franklin expedition would have to be my second favourite polar story after Shackleton of course. There’s just something about the whole age of heroes that draws me in each time. Men risking their lives for science (and celebrity status) is just a thing that’s not done anymore. The age of physical discovery is over, we don’t have these expeditions off to fill in an area of the map any more. Science is now done in the lab and on computers. I really wish that I live long enough to see this same race to explore take up once again but this time in space.

This book is split pretty much into three parts, the first part tells the story of the organisation of the expedition, Discussing the politics and bureaucracy in getting it all organised and then follows the progress if the expedition once it finally gets going and goes as far as known records show.

Once our records of known events are finished the story then switches back to England and the push by his wife to try and ascertain what has happened. The immense struggle she faces to get the Admiralty to do anything is covered by the many letters she wrote and then finally once she succeeds the story covers the many searches carried out and what limited findings they made.

The third and final part deals with recent events starting with the man who delved into Inuit stories to put the final pieces of the puzzle together and then on to the expeditions that finally found the ships as a result of Inuit stories.

Of course, there is still plenty of mystery around the expedition, most bodies still remain missing. Perhaps global warming and the receding ice sheets may reveal its final stories soon enough, in the meantime, this book serves as an excellent source to raise ones knowledge of events surround this expedition. It is well written, Paul really manages to capture the frustration felt my franklins wife as she struggled for years to get the Admiralty to do something. I really like how the book lists its sources where possible and even includes several pictures in the middle. A great read for sure,

 

Star Wars Ahsoka -E. K. Johnston

This was a great little story,  with the character of Ahsoka, first introduced in the clone wars cartoon but that there is the problem, the character is in a CARTOON not really a source of entertainment for adults and sadly Disney seems content in only making it’s non-movie material for kids.

There’s plenty of young adult and children’s books, the Rebels cartoon series but for an adult there is nothing but the main movies and the occasion sub par movie tie in book. Its as if Disney doesn’t care that adults like star wars

Which makes a dilemma for those not interested in children’s entertainment but want more Star Wars. This book is set after Episode 3 and the massacre of the jedi. Originally introduced as Anakin Skywalkers apprentice, Ahsoka was framed for a crime and left the jedi order when no one believed her innocence and that is when she left the Clone Wars series. She recently reappeared in the Rebels cartoon but we have no knowledge of what happened between the two series which is about 15 years

The story picks up after the fall of the Jedi and we find her in hiding, just trying to survive. After arriving on a planet she begrudgingly befriends some locals and finally starts to fit in when her past comes back to haunt her and she must choose to either run away or stand and fight. Great story that fills in the gaps between her appearances on the clone wars cartoon and in star wars rebels, with many flashback scenes taking us to past events as well. The events in this book help shape her and make her decision to return the fight

The Light Between Oceans – M. L. Stedman

I saw a poster for this movie near my work and it spoke of moral dilemma, that alone was enough to get me intrigued. I then checked with a few people to make sure it wasn’t just a boring love story, which thankfully it wasn’t.

Tom, having returned from the horrors of war just wants some piece and quite and to get away from society, so he takes up a role of lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock off the coast of Western Australia.

His life is quite disciplined on that island, everything gets reported and logged and he forms a rigid routine, to fill in the time between the quarterly supply boats. On his not so regular visits to the mainland he falls for a woman Isabel. Whom he eventually marries and brings back to the island.

After miscarriages and still births, Isabel is soon at wits end, when on the breeze she hears a babies cry. A boat has washed ashore on their island with the dead body of a man and a baby crying. Isabel still reeling from her most recent loss convinces Tom to betray his principles and not report the boat and pretend the baby is there. A few years later when they take some leave on the mainland the real consequences of their actions dawn on them.

What then follows is a battle between what feels is for the best and what is right. A lot of the reviews i read really disagreed with Isabel’s actions later in the book, but i’m the opposite, i think her actions were natural and realistic, its is Tom’s actions that i have issue with. I just cant understand the reasoning behind them. its this thought provoking struggle that makes me like this book so much. On a separate note this definitely goes in the pile of the book is better than the movie

Odessa Sea – Clive Cussler

Picking up a book by your favourite author is like sliding into a warm bed in winter or that first sip of beer on a hot Australian summer day, its just fantastic. Speaking of which it is 42 ° C   (or 107 F) to you crazy yanks.

Another solid entry into the Dirk Pitt series (its number 24 by the way) It ha been 2 years since out last adventure with these heroes and after the first few pages it feels like no time has passed at all. With the introduction of his long lost kids a few books back they pretty much are in all the books now and its sticks to the same formula, the kids have one plot and Pitt has another but by the end it turns out they are intertwined. This is normally done well but this time each plot for me just felt forced, like they each could have been their own book since the connection wasn’t that strong at all, each could function without the other.

It was however refreshing to see that the crew on the NUMA vessel’s which normally are treated like red shirts from star trek (ie canon fodder) were actually treated like people for once and not just killed off.

I do like how his books always seem to include some real life event in them kind of ties them down to a specific time frame. For this one we deal with the Russian invasion and take over of the Crimea Peninsula
With his multitude of series running and it is no surprise that sometimes things feel “familiar” but that doesn’t deter you from enjoying the ride. Bring on book #25

Meg #3 Primal Waters, Meg #4 Hell’s Aquarium by Steve Alten

Oh where to begin with this one, I really enjoyed Meg #1 with its introduction of a prehistoric, once believed extinct species but then Meg #2 introduced another species and I was concerned the 3rd might keep that ball rolling. Sadly something worse happened, the book revolves around that gutter trash commonly referred to as reality television. Oh the pain. If it wasn’t bad enough that our screens are filled with this trash and that our society scoops up this rubbish in which stupid people are made famous. To write a book about it is just depressing. Was the author running out of story ideas? The story starts out loosely believable and then add in a plot of revenge and its just bare-able.

But all sense of realism and plausibility is thrown right out the window with Meg #4.  To make up for his bucking of the trend in bringing back long dead species in Meg #3, the author steps it up a notch and brings back half a dozen extinct species and an underwater realm were they have all lived since time eternal. Cash money Arabs throwing money around like confetti to capture these animals and put them in a zoo just makes we wonder if anyone has ever watched Jurassic park? It wont work guys give up.

I really didn’t enjoy either of these books and really found myself having to bribe myself into finishing this book. The plot and realisim was just gone for me.  The sad reality is there is still a 5th book in this series to come, and I dread as to what the plot will be for that. My compulsion to always finish a series once started really annoys me here as I would love nothing more than to throw away these books and never read this author again but alas I must continue I hate loose ends

The Trench – Steve Alten

Set four years after the previous novel, we find the baby shark from  said novel is now a full grown 20+ meter long Megalodon Shark. The book does talk in imperial units,  yuck! A 20+ Meter shark in captivity, yeah that sounds like a good idea. Then we quickly find out the shark is in heat, so there is a bunch of eager great white males hanging around the aquarium. The fact that the male great white is only about 4 meters long compared to the Megalodon who is called “Angel” being at over 20 meters long, doesn’t even deter these animals.

So it wasn’t exactly a huge surprise when Angel broke out and as Jonas and gang attempt to capture her again we find out there are other forces at work with some kind of hidden agenda.

The situation gets worse when Jonas finds out his wife has gone back to the trench where this all began, plagued by nightmares it seems Jonas is about to fall apart.

Too often action stories focus solely on the physical so it was refreshing to see this story deal with the emotional impact and possible PTSD. Mental issues are too often ignored so its great to see this being dealt with in this story.

It did get a bit far fetched when they introduced a second prehistoric creature but that didnt deter the entertainment. This book was just as good as the original but with 3 more to go in the series i wonder if they can maintain realisim throughout or will the final books and up much like the final jaws movie, rubbish

Before the Fall – Noah Hawley

After the last 2 disappointments i had read, it was a risk to grab an author i hadn’t read before. I needed a good mystery and i had read everything by Harlan Coben and then this showed up on my Goodreads feed.

What i liked about this story was the way it was structured, we begin with the plane crash and then as the story moves on and deals with the investigation interspersed with flashback chapters dealing with the events leading up to the crash from one character point of view. Naturally we have one of these chapters for each of the victims.

I thought it was a little bit different to do it this way, rather than several chapters in a row dealing with the past or perhaps leaving it out completely, we have these brief pauses to current events and a brief flashback. I think it does a good job of not hurting the forward momentum of the story by doing it this way.

As the investigation continues we see the stark reality of nature come to a front, we see the vicious parasites that most people just refer to as the media, Go from labeling the  survivor a hero, to stalking him to try and get a interview, to down right blaming him for the crash.

As personal biases and agendas come to a front (just like our own media)  and the harassment of the survivor continues we the reader get drawn into it and start to wonder could the survivor really be responsible? The ending is rather shocking and i did not see it coming.

Really makes us think on our own judgements and how often we make them before all the facts are in. A fantastic read!

 

 

Star Wars Aftermath:Life Debt – Chuck Wendig

The second part of a trilogy set months after Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. While the story isn’t to bad, this book trilogy plus the many others released since Disney took over really shows the new direction Disney is taking Star Wars.

Star Wars used to be for all ages, there were the movies of course but then there were the two Ewok movies for kids/families, plenty of computer games and numerous expanded universe books. These books were detailed and many were parts of series. It didn’t matter your age, there was something to cater to your star wars needs

But with Disney taking over if you want your Star Wars fix you have the choice of the following

Rebel cartoon series

Children’s adventure stories – letting you know what the main characters got up to between Ep 6-7

Numerous young adult novels

They have been a few books released for adults but all of them just like this read more like young adult novels, the level of detail and depth just isn’t there anymore. This saddens me, it shows Disney sees Star Wars as a kids market only.

I have nothing against the young adult genre, i just personally don’t like it not just because i’m not a teenager but because i crave books with detail and young adults books don’t have that, they are short in length much like a teenagers attention span. While i crave tomes like Tom Clancy novels or A Song of Ice and Fire.

I just wish Disney would stop dumbing down Star Wars and Release some decent Adult level Fiction

 

 

The Terror – Dan Simmons

Found this book while filling in time at a book store. I recognized the authors name and picked it up to check it out. It’s the authors take on what happened to the lost Franklin Expedition to discover the Northwest Passage. The blurb on the back caught my attention with the whole the crew are pursued across the ice by The Terror.

It got me thinking back to his previous book i had read The Abominable, that books blurb gave the impression the climbers were stalked by a Yeti, but the truth was far from it. So i anticipated a similar deception here. I assumed instead of a monster, “The Terror” that the author described was death. chasing them across the ice as each man succumbed to starvation.  Since all the men died i felt this would probably be the case.

To test this i decided to get the book not from there of course, pfft Dymocks is a rip off. I scanned the book on my app and when i got home bought a copy from Bookdepository.com. $4 cheaper than Dymocks and free shipping.

Once the book arrived i dove straight in. Well unlike his previous book it wasn’t a metaphor, something is actually pursuing the men. This increased my interest ten fold. Man this book was good, the level of suspense, you really feel on edge like the men would be, ever wary of the nearby threat.

Was loving it till about halfway when a local native to the region started displaying some magic spiritual mumbo jumbo crap, when i first read that part i thought i had daydreamed it, it was so out of the blue. I went back and read the preceding pages to check, nope the author did indeed throw in some strange mumbo jumbo. I thought i can deal with it ill just ignore it and revel in the suspense side of things but as it drew to the end that spiritual mumbo jumbo just went down right crazy and for me it ruined a solid book. It was just over the top unbelievable stuff. like seriously a native who kisses polar bears and when the bear kisses her it blows into her mouth and plays her vocal cords like a flute?? what crack was this author on.

Loved the suspense and setting of this book but the ending just killed it for me, With the ridiculous mumbo jumbo. That aside if you read 3/4 of the book and skip the polar bear symphony and then finish there by saying then they all died its brilliant.

 Tongueless people who make music by kissing polar bears and all that other spiritual voodoo stuff, like really?? Try harder and be a little more creative  next time Mr Author

The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz – Denis Avey

We live in a different time now, we have become numb to violence and hatred. We fear speaking out because the left wing nanny state fascists will accuse you of being a racist or intolerant.

This story serves to remind us of a time when people risked death to save another and didn’t give it a second thought, a time when people saw something was wrong and knew something had to be done to let others know what occurred. A far cry from today’s generation who only care for themselves (and their votes at the next election). All life is equal and it is only through the fallacies that are religion, Supremacy ideology and elitism that we seem to forget this. This story is a horrible insight into a difficult and appalling time but one that still offers a glimpse at the enduring human spirit.

What Denis did for a stranger is beyond words, but shows us what we were once made of. This story is even more emotional as not only are we given a glimpse into what occurred but we also follow the journey of Denis as years later, he discovers the consequences as a results from his actions.

A brilliant and emotional read….