For the past week or so, I’ve been listening to “BEST OF” CDS. One that stood out to me is ALL FIRED UP: The Very Best of Pat Benatar (1994). This 2-CD set collects most of Pat Benatar’s hits and more obscure songs.

There’s the politically incorrect “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” the moody “Shadows of the Night,” and the rock anthem, “Love is a Battlefield.”

Are you a Pat Benatar fan? Any favorite songs here? GRADE: A

TRACK LIST:

During the 1960s, I read many stories by Hayden Howard (aka, John Hayden Howard). Howard had 73 stories published and a Science Fiction novel, The Eskimo Invasion, was nominated for the 1968 Nebula Award for Best Novel. The novel is based on “Arctic Invasion”–included in this collection–and the short story “Arctic Invasion” was nominated for the 1967 Hugo Award for Best Novelette and the 1967 Nebula Award for Best Novelette.

Hayden Howard wrote a variety of stories in different styles with different themes. He explores the life-altering choices and dark surprises that confront a professor in “The Tragedy of Henry Diddoh.”

Hayden Howard blends a 1940s prize-fighter and time-traveler in “Ten Rounds for the All-Time Champ.” The dangers of becoming too reliant on narrow rules show up in “We Specialists.”

A Canadian Arctic researcher is baffled by the bizarre villagers in “Arctic Invasion.” Hayden Howard could write classic SF action stories, too. I loved the wild anti-gravity battle in space between rival spaceship crews in “Mutiny in the Orbit of Uranus.”

Hayden Howard’s fine stories have been pretty much forgotten, but this wonderful collection may attract a whole new audience. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword By Laurie Winslow Sargent — 11

PART 1: WHAT IF — 17

The Tragedy of Henry Diddoh — 19

Ten Rounds From the All-Time Champ — 45

We Specialists — 60

PART 2: STRANGE ENCOUNTERS ON EARTH — 65

Gremmie’s Reef — 67

The Butcher — 86

Arctic Invasion — 95

PART 3: INTERPLANETARY TALES — 127

Haranu –129

Mutiny in the Orbit of Uranus — 146

AFTERWORD: HIDDEN FACTS ABOUT HAYDEN — 174

For fans of the 1981 movie Time Bandits, this new AppleTV+ version of 10 EPISODES makes a lot of changes in the plot, characters, and themes.

“[This TV version of Time Bandits] comes from three collaborators on the delightful FX vampire comedy series What We Do In The Shadows – -Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, and Iain Morris. That series too was adapted from a cult movie, and this team really knows what it’s doing. Each of them contributes as writers on the TV version. Clement and Morris are showrunners, and Clement and Waititi not only direct a few episodes, but appear in them too, playing the respective embodiments of good and evil. The major change this time is in the casting of the team of misfit marauders known as the time bandits themselves. In the new TV version, they are no longer played by dwarfs. This already has proven a bit controversial. Some have accused the producers of taking away roles for little people or erasing a key ingredient of the original narrative. Later in the series, though, new roles emerge as little people are featured as a sort of celestial detective squad, and the new Time Bandits makes its change very easy to access.”

After just two episodes, I’m hooked on this tale of a band of scruffy bandits traveling through Time to steal stuff. A young kid, Kevin, obsessive about History, joins their group by chance and together they visit the Battle for Troy and explore the Mayan pyramids. My favorite character is Lisa Kudrow (from Friends) who plays Penelope, the de-facto leader of bandits. If you’re looking for a fun, quirky Summer TV series, give Time Bandits a try. GRADE: Incomplete, but trending towards a B+

“My first year of college, I attempted suicide and was promptly hastened home by an ominously smiling administrator.” (p. 98)

“…I first navigated to Rachel’s profile, knowing that she was the person for whom Adam had left me.” (p. 139).

Becca Rothfeld doesn’t hold anything back in her collection of essays, All Things Are Too Small (2024). She writes about her suicide attempt, she writes about her online stalking the woman who Adam left her for.

And then there’s sex. “Most sex is mediocre, and the measure of its mediocrity is that it leaves us unaffected.” (p. 75). Rothfeld ruminates on relationships, marriage, infidelity, and pornography.

Yet, my favorite chapter in All Things Are Too Small is “Murder on the Installment Plan,” a deep dive into Rothfeld’s interest in murder. She starts the chapter with Hannibal Lecter and moves on to Poe and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” She defends Wilkie Collins from T. S. Eliot’s criticisms. Rothfeld likes W. H. Auden’s “A Guilty Vicarage.” She quibbles with S. S. Van Dine’s “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories.” But her greatest admiration is for Raymond Chandler’s “The Simple Art of Murder” (1950). “Chandler’s novels are among my favorites, but I recall almost nothing about their plots.” (p. 95)

I came away from All Things Are Too Small with a sense that Becca Rothfeld is a very complicated person who needs to consider cutting back on her excesses. GRADE: B–

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

All things are too small — 1

More is more — 12

Ladies in waiting — 41

The flesh, it makes you crazy — 56

Murder on the installment plan — 82

Wherever you go, you could leave — 98

Other people’s loves — 139

Having a cake and eating it, too — 151

Only mercy : sex after consent — 168

Normal novels — 228

Two lives, simultaneous and perfect — 241

Our true entertainment was arguing — 253

Acknowledgements — 283

Bill Crider would have been 82 years old today. But, sadly, he died in 2018. I think of Bill frequently and wish I could still email him about books, politics, and movies.

Bill Crider and I were both college professors so we completely related to the problems and trials and successes of the classroom. We emailed each other daily. And, we were both passionate collectors of paperback books. Bill had TWO storage units for his collection, I have a basement full of thousands of books. Bill encouraged me to start a blog and at Christmas 2008, Patrick set up my blog. But my blog, with its single post per day, was nowhere near Bill’s blog with as many as a dozen posts per day! Bill’s blog was funny and lively and reflected his amiable character.

I miss Bill. A lot…

In her review of Deadpool & Wolverine movie critic Katie Walsh writes: “Plot? Nonsensical. Characters? Thin. Motivation? Eh. But get a load of these cameos!” Yes, Deadpool & Wolverine is full of other Marvel Cinematic Universe characters popping up all through the movie. Kyle Smith of the Wall Street Journal wrote “…meta-jokes in Deadpool & Wolverine are for the most part very funny, but they’re also pretty much all the movie has to offer. After a while it feels like a series of fan-service sketches with a parade of guest stars.”

My favorite character in Deadpool & Wolverine is the beautiful, powerful Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) who wants to totally wreck all Universes. And, she has might to do it. But Deadpool and Wolverine are too busy fighting each other or generating piles of bodies of Bad Guys who are dumb enough to take them on to pay Cassandra much attention. When not fighting, Deadpool is cracking his snarky jokes and Wolverine is growling.

Kyle Smith also points out a glaring weakness with Deadpool & Wolverine: “Disconcertingly long stretches of the movie are devoted to explaining [the plot] in a script by Mr. Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb, and the film’s director, Shawn Levy, that at times seems like an operating manual for heavy machinery.”

Since Deadpool & Wolverine is the only Marvel movie of the Summer of 2024, beggars can’t be choosers. Diane and I found Deadpool & Wolverine mildly entertaining. The streak of weak and silly MCU movies continues. GRADE: B–

Gil Brewer wrote noir novels where events plunged the characters into an inferno of danger and deception.

Lee Baron returns to his hometown in Florida to take over his father’s private detective agency. Unfortunately for Baron, his first client is Ivor Hendrix, his old girl friend. She begs Baron to help her deal with her abusive husband.

When Baron enters the Hendrix trailer, he finds a dead body. Here’s a sample of Lee Baron’s thoughts on his situation:

“I never knew what trouble was until she came back into my life and started fanning the flames on an old torch. ‘I need you, Lee,’ she said. Then she looked up at me with those wonderful, burning dark eyes of hers and I fell into them just like I always did – like it was yesterday and we were crazy in love on Cloud 13. Only it was today. Only she already had a husband. Only he was missing. She wanted me to find him before he found her – and killed her. There were holes in her story. There were holes in my head, too. Because I bought every word of it. Bang! The next thing I knew I was head over heels in a mess of corpses, killers, and wild, wild women.”

Baron finds himself threatened by the police for his involvement and tempted by his old flame’s sexy sister. Wild takes the reader into a world of betrayal, lies and deceit, where everyone is hiding something and death is just a bullet away. GRADE: B+

MY OTHER GIL BREW REVIEWS:

FORGOTTEN BOOKS #185: REDHEADS DIE QUICKLY & OTHER STORIES By Gil Brewer

FLIGHT TO DARKNESS/77 RUE PARADIS By Gil Brewer

FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #497: THE RED SCARF/A KILLER IS LOOSE By Gil Brewer

With the new political spirit, I started listening to my Dance Music CDs. One of my favorites is Only Dance: 1985-1989 from 1995. From the grammatically incorrect “Take On Me” by a-ha to Bananarama’s “Venus” to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” to Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” there’s plenty of energetic music to get you up and leaping around!

Are you a fan of dance music? Any favorites here? GRADE: B+

TRACK LIST:

It’s hard to believe Stark House has been publishing great crime and mystery paperbacks for 25 years. To celebrate their quarter century in publishing, Rick Ollerman and Gregory Shepard have assembled The Stark House Anthology. Check out the wonderful 30 stories in this book!

I’m hard pressed to pick favorites from these quality stories, but I really enjoyed “Chester Drum Takes Over” by Stephen Marlowe, a tale of murder and betrayal. Frank Kane’s “Sleep Without Dreams” involves Johnny Liddell in a deadly love triangle. Day Keene delivers a noir thriller in “The Geek-Girl.” I really liked Bill Pronzini’s story of a hit-man who finds himself hunted in “Night Games.”

The Stark House Anthology stands as a sterling example of the excellence Stark House maintained over its 25 years of publishing quality books by outstanding writers! Don’t miss this marvelous anthology! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Stark House Press: The first 25 Years/Gregory Shepard — 7

Introduction/Rick Ollerman –10

1. Hangover/Charles Runyon — 13
2. A Matter of Balance/Peter Rabe — 24
3. Invitation to an Accident/Wade Miller — 35
4. The Tormented/James McKimmey — 48
5. Murderer #2/Jean Potts — 64
6. To Kill a Wife/Lionel White — 75
7. So Curse the Day/Jada M. Davis — 89
8. Art for Money’s Sake/Dan J. Marlowe — 198
9. Chester Drum Takes Over/Stephen Marlowe — 204
10. Sleep Without Dreams/Frank Kane — 216
11. The Memory Guy/228
12. Nothing in My Way/Orrie Hitt — 241
13. Preventive Medicine/Harry Whittington –250
14. Die, Darling, Die/Gil Brewer — 256
15. The Geek-Girl/Day Keene — 275
16. Woman Missing/Helen Nielsen –297
17. Backbite/Lorenz Heller writing as Fredrick Lorenz — 218
18. Angie/Ed Gorman — 323
19. Night Games/Bill Pronzini — 336
20. The Silent One/Fletcher Flora –343
21. Beware of the Dog/Fredric Brown — 349
22. Hit Me/Rick Ollerman — 354
23. Axe/Gregory Shepard — 370
24. Last Night at Skipper’s Lounge/Timothy J. Lockhart –378
25. Barbarians/Robert W. Chambers — 390
26. Politics Pays Best/E. Phillips Oppenheim — 402
27. Secretaries Make Such Nice Wives/A. S. Fleischman — 415
28. The Dead Man’s Eyes/Robert Silverberg –418
29. Disorderly/Barry N. Malzberg — 432
30. Instruction for Murder/Bruno Fischer — 436

While Jeff and Jackie Meyerson were enjoying the Santana concert at Jones Beach this weekend, I was watching Santana: Supernatural Live, a DVD from 2000. Santana also invited some “friends” to participate in this concert: Carter Before, Dave Matthews, Sarah McLachian, Everlast, Cee-Lo, Lauryn Hill, The Product G*B, Wayne Shorter, and Rob Thomas.

Supernatural celebrates its 25th Anniversary this year. “It reached No. 1 in eleven countries, including the US for 12 non-consecutive weeks, where it is certified 15× platinum. The first of six singles from the album, “Smooth” featuring Matchbox Twenty singer Rob Thomas, and co-written by Thomas and Itaal Shur, was a number one success worldwide and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 12 weeks. The next, “Maria Maria“, featuring the Product G&B, was number one in the US for 10 weeks. Supernatural is Santana’s best-selling album to date, the best-selling album by a Hispanic artist in music history, and one of the best-selling albums of all time, selling an estimated 30 million copies worldwide.”–Wikipedia

Are you a Carlos Santana fan? Do you have a favorite Santana song? GRADE: A

TRACK LIST: