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Never saw the movie, and haven't seen the 2014 Mother's Day adaptation either. It was the author's second and best known novel, though he wrote scripts and screenplays before that.

Though the characters are thoroughly unlikeable, they are well written. Only Rosemary has some growth (in more ways than one) - this is more of a characters meet situation story. Religion is a major theme, but feminism is a strong second, especially at the end. Gaslighting and paranoia are another theme.

Described as a "perfectly crafted thriller", I beg to differ. The reader can easily piece together what has happened, and we spend most of the book watching the worm wriggle on the hook. For a likeable character, the empathy could carry this, but I found Rosemary irritating - and nine months is a lot of irritation.

Unlike the ordinary bell curve, I found a lot more 4 and 2 star reviews. I liked some aspects and didn't like others. It's horror without being too bloody, but it's also not a thriller. 3 stars.

A series of short stories, each in a different style, resulting in a story suitable for children and adults alike. The illustrations in various editions vary wildly, and make up a good part of the story.

The story itself, 4 stars. I read two different annotated editions from two different libraries simultaneously, and was very surprised by just how different they were.

Let's start with [a:Seth Lerer|194198|Seth Lerer|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1446565613p2/194198.jpg], published in 2009. This is an excellent annotation, 5 star, adding in every way to the story. The editor notes the differing styles in the stories, with comparisons and quotations from relevant passages. Three Men in a Boat, Sherlock Holmes, Romantic period poetry, Shakespeare's Falstaff, Sigurd, early films with locomotives, the Bible, and of course, Ulysses. Time periods of these and other unusual words are given - this book really places the tale within the time frame of the original readers. An epilogue delves into the subject I touched on earlier - the differing styles of illustrations - and a color insert mid-book has excellent examples of these. Highly recommended!

Interestingly, I found that I couldn't "read" two different versions of the book on Goodreads. I'll go back and add this second part to the second annotation next - can I give it a different rating also?

That second annotation is the larger volume, edited by [a:Annie Gauger|2764146|Annie Gauger|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], published by Norton in 2009 to "honor the author's 150th birthday." This one starts off with a biography, and unfortunately this is one of only two things that are good in an otherwise poor work. The other is the additional illustrations, color throughout.

The biography is good and bad. It was interesting to consider the connection between main character Mole and Grahame's son, suffering from macular degeneration. These stories originated as bedtime tales, and it is often reported that Grahame identifies with Water Rat. Other aspects of the biography were unimportant to this story and probably belong in a full biographical work of this famous Scottish writer.

A word about annotations - they should explain aspects of the story but not get in the way of the story. Some of the best I've seen are in wide margins, with the story in the middle (Lerer does this), or on alternating pages with the story.

In Gauger's book, the annotations run rampant, and commit the cardinal sin of completely interrupting the story. In this volume, a half-page of story can be followed by a full page of annotations, another half page with an illustration, and finally get back to the story (often interrupted mid sentence!) on the third page following. Partly this is due to the volume of them, the rest is honestly poor choice of what to annotate. I found very little cross-over with the Lerer volume (maybe 15%?). On the goodreads scale, this annotation rates not much over 1 star.

A series of short stories, each in a different style, resulting in a story suitable for children and adults alike. The illustrations in various editions vary wildly, and make up a good part of the story.

The story itself, 4 stars. I read two different annotated editions from two different libraries simultaneously, and was very surprised by just how different they were.

Let's start with Seth Lerer, published in 2009. This is an excellent annotation, 5 star, adding in every way to the story. The editor notes the differing styles in the stories, with comparisons and quotations from relevant passages. Three Men in a Boat, Sherlock Holmes, Romantic period poetry, Shakespeare's Falstaff, Sigurd, early films with locomotives, the Bible, and of course, Ulysses. Time periods of these and other unusual words are given - this book really places the tale within the time frame of the original readers. An epilogue delves into the subject I touched on earlier - the differing styles of illustrations - and a color insert mid-book has excellent examples of these. Highly recommended!

Interestingly, I found that I couldn't "read" two different versions of the book on Goodreads. I'll go back and add this second part to the second annotation next - can I give it a different rating also?

That second annotation is the larger volume, edited by Annie Gauger, published by Norton in 2009 to "honor the author's 150th birthday." This one starts off with a biography, and unfortunately this is one of only two things that are good in an otherwise poor work. The other is the additional illustrations, color throughout.

The biography is good and bad. It was interesting to consider the connection between main character Mole and Grahame's son, suffering from macular degeneration. These stories originated as bedtime tales, and it is often reported that Grahame identifies with Water Rat. Other aspects of the biography were unimportant to this story and probably belong in a full biographical work of this famous Scottish writer.

A word about annotations - they should explain aspects of the story but not get in the way of the story. Some of the best I've seen are in wide margins, with the story in the middle (Lerer does this), or on alternating pages with the story.

In Gauger's book, the annotations run rampant, and commit the cardinal sin of completely interrupting the story. In this volume, a half-page of story can be followed by a full page of annotations, another half page with an illustration, and finally get back to the story (often interrupted mid sentence!) on the third page following. Partly this is due to the volume of them, the rest is honestly poor choice of what to annotate. I found very little cross-over with the Lerer volume (maybe 15%?). On the goodreads scale, this annotation rates not much over 1 star.

Historical dystopian science fiction from one of the first Soviet dissidents, this book inspired 1984 and many others. Zamyatin's rocket is ahead of its time - partially the product of the authors background as a naval engineer.

We learn the story through the main character's diary entries. He has an ordered mind, thrown akilter by unexpected passion, and this comes through in the text. Unfortunately, while his character changes, the remaining characters are flat and unbending. Religion plays a larger element here than in most dystopian fiction, and this is well written also.

Otherwise the writing is clunky, and I'm not sure if that is the translation. I thought Orwell did a better job portraying his dystopian state, and his ending was far more tragic. Interestingly, Orwell claimed in a book review of Brave New World that Huxley had lifted many elements from this book, and then 17 years later Orwell used even more of it to write 1984.

I read each of the novels individually; this is a combined review of the two for this combined release.

Rice wrote "The Kolchak Papers" around 1970. That document was purchased and inspired a 1972 ABC movie-of-the-week adaptation by Richard Matheson - before it was even published. The first book, related to that, was released in 1973.

This is a story within a story - Kolchak provides his version of the story to Rice, who publishes it with comments and a few clarifications. The novel has typos and several paragraphs of vampire exposition - but it is also a page-turner and hard to put down. The descriptions of the villain are usually sparse, put down to Kolchak making notes while on the run or after the fact. Perhaps in this case the movie is better. The very brief appendix on Jack the Ripper seems out of place.

The author said of the novel "I'd always wanted to write a vampire story, but more because I wanted to write something that involved Las Vegas." The brief location descriptions (Las Vegas in the late 60s) are fun to read.

In the second book, the roles were reversed - now Rice was writing a book based on the screenplay by Matheson. Surprisingly, I haven't seen the film in question, but this book reads like a novelization - it is a quick read, fun and few complaints. I especially enjoyed the role Seattle history and geography played in this story.

While Carl Kolchak saw a lot of things other people didn't, it was nice for the police to see something he didn't here. There is considerably less infodump in this book than in the first one. I liked the strong character of Louise Harper.

Near as I can tell, Jeff Rice didn't write anything more in this genre. Other novels, comics and collections of stories are available from Moonstone Press, who published the two combined Jeff Rice books as The Kolchak Papers.

1987 time loop story that both predates and has less redeeming qualities than Groundhog Day. Won the World Fantasy Award and is considered a fantasy masterwork - but other than looping back in time, there are no fantasy elements.

Without too many spoilers, the first things that come to mind if you could loop back in time are money, sex, drugs, and finding true love. Our protagonist goes through these, focusing mostly on himself. While he can make some changes locally, they don't "stick", and he doesn't appear to learn much from them. Groundhog Day has better use of a shorter time, more interesting characters, and a resolution driven by the main character. Another comparison could be made with Stephen King's 11/22/63, but at least the timeline of Jeff Winston is not obdurate. You would think a journalist would want to know more about a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, though!

This novel seems to divide reviewers, most reviews very high or low. I found the idea interesting but the story lacking. As a reader, it was frustrating to see Jeff focused on the United States, complaining in the end about not hearing original music. Given that much time and knowledge, he could have lived in other countries instead of just visiting them, learning languages, hearing new music, and meeting so many new people. Imagine reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in the original Spanish, or early Vladimir Nabokov novels in the original Russian?

In addition to awards, the story was sold to studios, but no film was made. Elements of the story may have appeared in other movies, angering the author. The latest mention was in 2010, with Back to the Future's Robert Zemeckis directing Ben Affleck as Jeff Winston.

The main character's life closely resembles the authors - raised in Florida, Emory college, radio journalism, international travel. According to a friend of the author, he was working on a sequel when he died suddenly at age 59, much like his main character. Perhaps we are just living in the continuation of one of his time loops?

The simulation hypothesis looks at the possibility that this world is a simulation - but this book from 1964 comes up with some points that are rarely mentioned. Way ahead of its time, this is also a pretty decent story.

The biggest thing missing from most of the times this hypothesis shows up is the why. The "battery" reason from the Matrix is pretty weak, and many other stories just dance around the problem. In this book, it is to act as a predictor for the future - especially political attitudes. The difference between concern that the citizens are being watched and actual paranoia is also smoothly addressed. And again, this was way before computers were capable of these calculations.

A minor quibble is the ending, unspoiled here - the key idea is introduced about 2/3 of the way through. Had that been there, in a subtle way, from the beginning, it would have been more satisfying. Or the author would have been [a:Philip K. Dick|4764|Philip K. Dick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1633698608p2/4764.jpg], who specializes in that sort of thing. Still, a very minor quibble in a story half a century before its time. Worth tracking down!

PS Aspects of this book ended up in "The Thirteenth Floor", and fittingly it is the 13th book I finished this year. If only I had finished it on February 13!

The original D&D boxed set consisted of three books, the first was the largest. Four supplements were published, and the set of seven was reprinted and sold for big bucks to nostalgia seekers in 2013.

As covered in [b:Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventure from Chess to Role-Playing Games|15784870|Playing at the World A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventure from Chess to Role-Playing Games|Jon Peterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1350579412l/15784870.SX50.jpg|21502915], this edition was the second step away from wargames and towards the Dungeons & Dragons RPG we have today. These books feel like the rules to a large game, with the third even suggesting a board to re-use from a different game (Outdoor Survival). Later publications from TSR included the Dungeons & Dragons Basic edition (not too far from these books) and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which put much more emphasis on role play.

The first book is the largest, spelling out how the game is played. It describes the attributes, character classes and the concepts of levels. For combat, these are spelled out in the number of "men" the character could fight as, eventually reaching "hero" and "superhero" - which connects directly to the original wargames. Nearly everything is ruled by the six sided die, and the number 6 shows up many places, including the highest spell level. Most weapons do a d6 damage, occasionally modified by 1 or 2 points, and most spells damage in multiples of a d6. This book also mentions the main venue for play - dungeons - and the third book covers this in depth.

The second book lists monsters and treasures. This is far before the concept of a "stat block" - tables at the beginning list a few important vitals, and the description of most is only a small paragraph. Men and Dragons are exceptions, with many details of the varieties, and for the latter, a large discussion on subduing them for later market sale.

The third book is the slimmest, going into detail on dungeon design - which was mostly an exercise to frustrate the party trying to draw a map. For exteriors, Outdoor Survival is frequently suggested, with water holes becoming castles. The actual battlefields were probably played out on the same sand tables used for Napoleonic conflicts, though with a different scale of one character per miniature figure. While not a "DM" book, this volume has the least information for players, who could probably get buy with just one book. These books were not sold separately at the time - I would bet the first book was passed around the group quite a bit.

These were a quick read, and really connect D&D back to its wargame roots. The first few printings of this book detailed the balrog, ent, and hobbits, then the Tolkien estate kindly requested these be removed. The 2013 reprints were of a later edition without these bits, and the cover art for all seven books was updated. Very amateur interior drawings were not changed however, and the balrog (drawn by Greg Bell) lives on at the bottom of page 13.

I recommend these books to anyone interested in the historical D&D, especially as a supplement to the research tome listed above. My gaming will continue to focus on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons branch though - I enjoy the role playing aspect more than the tactical combat and board game described here.

A very British book of science, discovery, and ramifications. While many Wyndham plots have made it into movies, this one strangely has not. I read it as a 2021 reading by Vanessa Kirby, who did a great job.

The two scientists are male (head of a research house) and female (his employee), and circumstances lead them to investigate the new discovery separately. They each ponder the implications on society, and this leads to their main difference - one echoed by the earlier movements to earn women the right to vote (in fact the main female character is descended from a suffragette). The implications go as far as catastrophe, a topic that shows up in many other Wyndam novels. This form of time travel is one that has always been quite interesting to me.

There was a religious reaction towards the end that echoes fundamentalists today, this was unfortunately swept under the rug. The novel also assumes a knowledge of the British Parliamentary party system, but the plot politics are left unresolved in the text. Other reviews have described the novel as dated or slow - but it was published more than 60 years ago. I would call it ahead of its time, and in fact I think it would make a fantastic film set in the modern day.

Author Peter Lovesy, writing under a pseudonym, shows both track and field expertise and medical research in this psychological and sports thriller. Though filmed in 1979, NBC aired the filmed version (staring a 5'11" Susan Anton) in 1981, after the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

All of the historical examples of athletes are accurate; the 1980 Olympic athletes are not (though the East German women still dominated the 100m, 200m and 400m events). The author's research into the medical effects of growth hormones is also accurate, and a major factor of the novel. Were the psychological aspects also part of that, or just the result of the professional manipulation of "amateur" athletics?

The ending was fairly short, and I'm wondering if the TV version was similar - I intend to find out soon. There are definitely scenes which could not have been brought straight from the book. This novel wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either - it easily rates 3 gold stars.

The 1970s was a turbulent time in baseball, and this was one of the first books written about that era. It's poetic prose covers personalities and stories, along with history and anecdotes of five seasons - including the best world series ever.

This era saw the start of free agency and the first DH in the world series. Angell's comments that those championship games were played "too late in the year" were true then, and three weeks more so now. The essay on Steve Blass "Gone for Good" was clearly the best in the book.

The book is enhanced by the internet sources available now - after reading Angell's excellent description of Herb Washington in the 1974 world series, I was able to find a television broadcast of the event. Box scores of the games he was at or talked about, whatever happened to Dick Allen, etc.

I liked the book a lot, but it didn't hold my attention as [b:The Summer Game|603712|The Summer Game|Roger Angell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328820924l/603712.SY75.jpg|590278] did. Rambling paragraphs speculating on the future of some players feel out of place among the well-written prose - this was the stuff of newspapers at the time. Minor complaints, really - I look forward to more from [a:Roger Angell|18856|Roger Angell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1389625724p2/18856.jpg], who celebrated his 101st birthday last year.

Quick read, like a screen play with typos. Rice wrote "The Kolchak Papers" around 1970. That document was purchased and inspired a 1972 ABC movie-of-the-week adaptation by Richard Matheson - before it was even published. This book, related to that, was released in 1973.

This is a story within a story - Kolchak provides his version of the story to Rice, who publishes it with comments and a few clarifications. The novel has typos and several paragraphs of vampire exposition - but it is also a page-turner and hard to put down. The descriptions of the villain are usually sparse, put down to Kolchak making notes while on the run or after the fact. Perhaps in this case the movie is better. The very brief appendix on Jack the Ripper seems out of place.

The author said of the novel "I'd always wanted to write a vampire story, but more because I wanted to write something that involved Las Vegas." The brief location descriptions (Las Vegas in the late 60s) are fun to read. Rice wrote a sequel, based on the Matheson screenplay of the follow-on movie, [b:Kolchak: The Night Strangler|19093262|Kolchak The Night Strangler (Kolchak The Night Stalker)|Jeff Rice|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1385955619l/19093262.SY75.jpg|27121382]. In 2007, Moonstone press collected both short books in one edition, [b:The Kolchak Papers: The Original Novels|996660|The Kolchak Papers The Original Novels|Jeff Rice|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348509902l/996660.SY75.jpg|982153].

I picked this author, new to me, because of the audiobook's narrator, R.C. Bray. Greatly enjoyed both the book and the narration, and will probably read more from Mr. Thomas in the near future.

Written in 1969 but not that dated, deals with crime families and extortion and murder, with a dash of used cars and thirsty FBI agents thrown in. Said that way, it sounds like Clive Cussler, but the difference is the protagonist here is no superman - he's a mostly ordinary guy (okay, he was previously a Hollywood stuntman). His job is to stagger through the various stories (and fights) provided by the other characters, eventually piecing together the real story. There are good aspects of thriller and mystery here, with a bit of cynicism and wit also.

The author served in the Philippines during WWII, and I wonder how much of his description of Nash is connected to real life. Narrator Bray had to contend with Italians and Los Angelenos, Chinese and Malay, male and female - and pulled it off well. I first heard him narrate The Martian and was hooked. It turns out he has narrated two more Ross Thomas books - [b:The Seersucker Whipsaw|1956871|The Seersucker Whipsaw|Ross Thomas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1509491480l/1956871.SY75.jpg|1959849] and [b:The Mordida Man|2584472|The Mordida Man|Ross Thomas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391214412l/2584472.SY75.jpg|2601174]. Both have goodreads ratings over 4, and both are now on my to-read list.

Back to The Singapore Wink. The female characters are fairly strong, the story is largely set in Singapore, and the characters are interesting. There are a fair amount of monologues delivered to our main character, who soaks them up to eventually distill into the true plot. The ending felt very quick to me, and it wasn't because I was turning the pages faster - Bray's pace remained constant. Recommended.