Book Land

I was in my local book emporium yesterday. You might well wonder Why ‘the fuck you in Barnes and Noble again so soon? Weren’t you just there on Tuesday!? You couldn’t possibly have read Tim O’Brien’s Tomcat in Love in that short time!

No, no I didn’t. Though I’m a mondo fan of O’Brien – LOVED The Things They Carried, Going After Cacciato, If I Die in a Combat Zone and In the Lake of the Woods – I just couldn’t get into this one. I tried. Honest!

Billed as a dark comedy, I was simply unable to get past the main character's tremendously obnoxious self to appreciate the humor.

 Although the book is being positioned as a comedy, Chippering is a most obnoxious companion, so terribly self-deluded, self-absorbed and self-satisfied, so pedantic and boorish, so convinced of his own charms that the unfolding drama of his pursuit of revenge becomes discomfiting. We want to root for his ex-wife, but through the Chippering ""song of myself"" we don't hear her, or know her. (source)

Agreed! Possibly, I’ve known a few too many dudes like this and, rilly now, one would be a superabundance. They're not funny, to me, and I've no interest in reading about 'em.

Back into Book Land I went where I was, near instantly, assailed by panderingly annoying, flat out irritating and occasionally misleading cover art.

The Courier by Gerald Brandt – JAY-zuz this one’s worthy of Playboy or Penthouse. There’s no way in holy hell that I want to be seen in public reading something that mega reeks of bean flicking and carrot waxing. Hells bells. 50 Shades of Grey, which really, truly IS a fuck book, has a more subtle cover!

I had to know, is this paperback just an onanism accessory for the sci fi crowd?

A far-future science fiction debut set in San Francisco—action adventure with a cyberpunk tone.

Kris Ballard is a motorcycle courier. A nobody. Level 2 trash in a multi-level city that stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border, where corporations make all the rules.
~~snip~~
Witnessing the murder of one of her clients changes everything. Now she’s stuck with a mysterious package that everyone seems to want. (source)

So then, that’s a big fat NO and now I want to read it BUT I don’t think I can get past that cover. I'd be embarrassed to even stand in the checkout lane with it. Maybe I’ll download the iPad version. *sigh* I much prefer ink on paper but, in this case, I think I can make an exception.

Katie Ashley’s Last Mile has a similar sexy time cover. I looked it up just in case this was another case of bad, deceptive, SEX SELLS cover art. Nope. This is a danger romance for girls who prefer bad boys and fancy themselves as always up for big, seemingly-skeevy-but-not-really adventure.

PASS!

What’d I end up with? Warlock Holmes: A Study in Brimstone by G.S. Denning.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius who uses the gift of deduction and reason to solve the most vexing of crimes.

Warlock Holmes, however, is an idiot. A good man, perhaps; a font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart flatmate.

So far, it’s funny as all hell, engaging and, frankly, it was hard to put down so’s I could write this.

‘scuse me, I gotta go back to Holmes and Watson. K?