I’m a big fan of the “MAMMOTH” series of anthologies. They provide great value and plenty of wonderful stories! Maxim Jakublowki’s The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (2014) presents 33 stories from the 1930s to the 1990s. It weighs in at 814 pages and I picked it up for a dollar at a Library Book Sale! Talk about bargains! As you can see from the Table of Contents, there’s a variety of stories in this anthology by a variety of writers from a variety of eras. Think of this book as a Pulp Fiction buffet! Do you see any of your favorite writers here? GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction by Maxim Jakubowski xiii
The Diamond Wager (1929) by Samuel Dashiell (Dashiell Hammett) 1
Flight to Nowhere (1955) by Charles Williams 21
The Tasting Machine (1949) by Paul Cain 84
Finders Killers! (1953) by John D. MacDonald 101
The Murdering Kind! (1953) by Robert Turner 130
Cigarette Girl (1953) by James M. Cain 173
The Getaway (1976) by Gil Brewer 185
Preview of Murder (1949) by Robert Leslie Bellem 194
Forever After (1960) by Jim Thompson 236
The Bloody Tide (1950) by Day Keene 244
Death Comes Gift-Wrapped (1948) by William P. McGivern 277
The Girl Behind the Hedge (1953) by Mickey Spillane 290
One Escort–Missing Or Dead (1940) by Roger Torrey 301
Don’t Burn Your Corpses Behind You (1954) by William Rough 325
A Candle for the Bag Lady (1977) by Lawrence Block 378
Black Pudding (1953) by David Goodis 408
A Matter of Principal (1989) by Max Allan Collins 433
Citizen’s Arrest (1966) by Charles Willeford 444
The Sleeping Dog (1965) by Ross Macdonald 451
The Wench Is Dead (1953) by Fredric Brown 467
So Dark for April (1953) by Howard Browne, writing as John Evans 493
We Are All Dead (1955) by Bruno Fischer 516
Death Is a Vampire (1944) by Robert Bloch 552
The Blue Steel Squirrel (1946) Frank R. Read 576
A Real Nice Guy (1980) by William F. Nolan 615
Stacked Deck (1987) by Bill Pronzini 626
So Young, So Fair, So Dead (1973) by John Lutz 648
Effective Medicine (1954) by B. Traven 669
Nicely Framed, Ready to Hang! (1952) by Dan Gordon 680
The Second Coming (1966) by Joe Gores 704
Pale Hands I Loathed (1947) by William Campbell Gault 714
The Dark Goddess (1955) by Samuel G. Edsall 730
Ordo (1977) by Donald E. Westlake 756

I’m a big fan of Martha Wells’s work, but I wasn’t engaged by Razor’s Edge: Star Wars Legends (2013). Princess Leia is on the run after the destruction of her home planet, Alderaan, by the Death Star. Razor’s Edge takes place before the events in Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back. Needing supplies, Leia and her small band of rebels are captured by space pirates. However, Leia learns the pirates were survivors of the Alderaan tragedy. She thinks she might be able to recruit them to the rebel cause. But, the Empire is searching for Princess Leia. Han Solo, along with Luke, Chewbacca, 3-CPO, and R2D2 attempt to keep Leia safe in this hostile space pirate environment. Lots of chase scenes. Some run-of-the-mill space battles. Nothing special. Are you a fan of these STAR WARS novels? GRADE: C

Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can’t Go Home Again and based on this 10-episode season, FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) should have retired and stayed away from this retread series. The magic of the original, iconic series is gone. The paranoia and conspiracy aspects of the original X-Files seasons now seem ordinary and pedestrian. The UFO aspects don’t resonate as they once did. Watching these new episodes was a slog. As B. B. King sang, “The Thrill is Gone.” Were you a fan of the original The X-Files? GRADE: C-

When I was a kid, my favorite DC superhero was The Flash. I loved the idea of super speed. And The Flash used his intelligence to defeat his villains instead of just using his super speed. In this new LEGO animated feature, The Flash finds himself in a time-loop. His nemesis, Reverse Flash, tricks The Flash into losing his powers. The Justice League is also tricked into kicking The Flash out of their organization. Things look bleak for our speed-challenged hero. But wait, there are some clever surprises that Reverse Flash didn’t anticipate. I enjoyed this fun film. If you want to delight the little kid in you watch LEGO DC Super Heroes: The Flash. Do you have a favorite DC superhero? GRADE: B+

Just in time to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Mickey Spillane’s birth, Hard Case Crime is publishing The Last Stand, a book with two previously unpublished Spillane novellas. As Max Allan Collins discusses in his informative Introduction, “A Bullet For Satisfaction” was written around the mid-1950s. It has the style of I, the Jury with an ex-cop narrating his fury of vengeance against The Syndicate for the killing of a politician. Rod Dexter, former Captain of Homicide, loses his position on bogus charges. But that only fires up his crusade to get even with the gangsters who are trying to take over his town. Yes, there’s a dash of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest in “A Bullet for Satisfaction,” too.

“The Last Stand” was the last completed manuscript Mickey Spillane wrote. Max Allan Collins estimates “The Last Stand” was finished shortly before Mickey Spillane’s death in 2006. It’s an adventure story featuring Joe Gillian, a pilot, whose antique plane is forced to make an emergency landing in the desert because of a mechanical problem. Joe meets a Native American who calls himself Sequoia Pete and his beautiful sister, Running Fox. Joe finds himself drawn into a battle with government agents, criminals, and local tribe politics. Lost Aztec treasure and mysterious arrowheads propel the plot to a thunderous conclusion.

Mickey Spillane knew how to tell a story and now Hard Case Crime brings us two of his best! Don’t miss The Last Stand! GRADE: B+

I’m not a big fan of milk. I generally drink Silk soy milk instead. Plenty of our friends have become lactose-intolerant. But now, from Sweden, there’s an alternative to milk: Oatly. A professor of Food Science, Rickard Oste, developed this alternative to milk by using enzymes to liquefy oats into a rich milk that also retained oats’s high fiber content. Oatly has been available in Sweden for 25 years, but now it’s being marketed in the United States in 2018. Our favorite grocery store, Wegmans, will carry Oakly as well as Fairway and ShopRite. Right now, it’s available mostly in coffee shops. Do you like diary products? Would you give Oatly a try?
Nutrition Facts
300ml of Oatly Oat Milk – Oat Milk
Servings:
Calories 135 Sodium 0 mg
Total Fat 5 g Potassium 0 mg
Saturated 1 g Total Carbs 20 g
Polyunsaturated 0 g Dietary Fiber 0 g
Monounsaturated 0 g Sugars 12 g
Trans 0 g Protein 3 g
Cholesterol 0 mg
Vitamin A 0% Calcium 45%
Vitamin C 0% Iron 0%

Carefully compiled over more than three decades by Wood assistant Bhob Stewart, The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood Volume 2 is the sequel to The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood Volume 1 (you can read my review here). Wallace Wood was a remarkable and legendary comics creator. A special tribute gallery includes artwork by Robert Crumb, Dan Clowes, Michael T. Gilbert, Al Feldstein, Dave Sim, Michael Cho, Drew Friedman, and Marie Severin. The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood, Volume 2 features full-color illustrations and artwork on practically every page. If you’re a Wally Wood fan, this book is a must-buy. If you love comic artwork, you should definitely take a look at this wonderful volume! Highly recommended! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction/Ed Piskor 7
From the Woodwork Out/Clark Diamond 9
Making “My World”/Ben Saunders 17
The Bubblegum Years/Les Brown 25
A Case History of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy Poster/Paul Krassner 37
Blowing Down This Dusty Road/Flo Steinberg 45
Wood Workers/Bhob Stewart & Mike Catron 47
Strange Magic/Tom Sutton 51
About Woody/Trina Robbins 55
Wood at His witzend/Rick Spanier 59
Guitars and Flying Tigers/Larry Hama 67
The Overseas Weekly Discovery/Roger Hill 71
Wood Engravings/Paul Levitz 79
Ghost Story/A.L. Sirois 85
Rapping on Wood/Basford, Cuti, Kirshner, Pearson, Stewart 93
Trajectories/Paul Kishner 125
Second-Story Man/Bill Pearson 137
Wood Screws/Paul Kirshner 151
The Third Man/John Workman 155
The One That Got Away/Mike Moore & Bill Spicer 167
The Woody Papers/Richard Bassford 171
Wood Posts/Wallace Wood 183
The Wizard of Odkin/Feshid Barucha 195
In France/Wallace Wood 199
Cover Story/Roger Hill 207
The Big Blue Pencil/Wallace Wood 213
Self Portrait/Wallace Wood 217
Portrait Gallery/233
Final Curtain/Mike Catron 237
There Are Good Guys and Bad Guys/Bhob Stewart 243
Contributors 263
Selected Bibliography 270
Acknowledgments 271
Hooray for Wally Wood!/Bhob Stewart 272

“Harry Dresden would like Alex Verus tremendously–and be a little nervous around him.” That’s the blurb by Jim Butcher that adorns both Fated and Cursed, two urban fantasy novels by Benedict Jacka. Alex Verus is a mage who lives in contemporary London. He operates a store that sells magic items and trinkets. But Verus has a very specific power: he can see the Future. Given this premise, Jacka builds a couple of interesting novels combining the treachery of other mages (who have different powers) and Alex Verus’s flaws. In Fated, Verus agrees to work with Light mages to crack the puzzle of a powerful magic item called the fateweaver. But, of course, Dark mages appear to battle them. In Cursed, Verus tangles with mages who discover how to drain magic from magical creatures to enhance their powers. I enjoyed the system of magic that Jacka constructs. It’s logical and clever. If you’re in the mood for a trip into urban fantasy, I’d recommend Benedict Jacka’s works. GRADE: B (for both books}

I’m a big fan of Walter Isaacson’s biographies. Steve Jobs and Einstein manage to give the reader a tour of these complicated lives. The same goes for Leonardo Di Vinci. I can’t imagine how much research Isaacson had to do in order to tackle the life of Di Vinci. Isaacson not only gives the reader insight into Leonardo’s painting, but also his turtle-like tanks, human-powered flying machines, and perpetual motion machines. Di Vinci was curious about EVERYTHING! He studied the human body by conducting dozens of dissections. He was fascinated by mirrors. Di Vinci devotes pages and pages of his notebooks to the ways water swirls. Leonardo was as much an engineer as a painter. He wondered why the sky was blue (and then provided an explanation–later Einstein would ask the same question and provide the equations). Diane and I started listening to the 14 CD audio book alone. But, wonderful narrator, actor Alfred Molina, kept referring to illustrations in a PDF. We bought a hardcover edition of Isaacson’s Leonardo Di Vinci just so we could look at the lovely illustrations as we listened. Highly recommended! Do you have a favorite Di Vinci work? GRADE: A (for both the book and the audio book)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Acknowledgments p. ix
Main Characters p. xi
Currency in Italy in 1500 p. xiii
Note Regarding the Cover p. xiii
Primary Periods of Leonardo’s Life p. xiii
Timeline p. xiv
Introduction I Can Also Paint p. 1
Chapter 1 Childhood p. 11
Chapter 2 Apprentice p. 23
Chapter 3 On His Own p. 68
Chapter 4 Milan p. 91
Chapter 5 Leonardo’s Notebooks p. 105
Chapter 6 Court Entertainer p. 112
Chapter 7 Personal Life p. 129
Chapter 8 Vitruvian Man p. 140
Chapter 9 The Horse Monument p. 160
Chapter 10 Scientist p. 170
Chapter 11 Birds and Flight p. 181
Chapter 12 The Mechanical Arts p. 190
Chapter 13 Math p. 200
Chapter 14 The Nature of Man p. 212
Chapter 15 Virgin of the Rocks p. 223
Chapter 16 The Milan Portraits p. 236
Chapter 17 The Science of Art p. 260
Chapter 18 The Last Supper p. 279
Chapter 19 Personal Turmoil p. 293
Chapter 20 Florence Again p. 299
Chapter 21 Saint Anne p. 315
Chapter 22 Paintings Lost and Found p. 325
Chapter 23 Cesare Borgia p. 335
Chapter 24 Hydraulic Engineer p. 347
Chapter 25 Michelangelo and the Lost Battles p. 355
Chapter 26 Return to Milan p. 380
Chapter 27 Anatomy, Round Two p. 394
Chapter 28 The World and Its Waters p. 425
Chapter 29 Rome p. 444
Chapter 30 Pointing the Way p. 463
Chapter 31 The Nona Lisa p. 475
Chapter 32 France p. 495
Chapter 33 Conclusion p. 517
CODA Describe the tongue of the woodpecker p. 525
Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Sources p. 527
Notes p. 533
Illustration Credits p. 571
Index p. 573