Way back in the 1994, my son Patrick and I bonded while playing a computer game called X-COM: UFO DEFENSE. By today’s standards that first X-COM game was crude, but it was an effective strategy game. The sequel, X-COM: TERROR FROM THE DEEP (1995), was even better with upgraded graphics and an improved AI. It was also a challenging strategy game. Several other lame X-COM games appeared in the years that followed, but none of them had the right balance of strategy and design until XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN appeared last fall. It harkens back to those original X-COM games with its strategic elements: building a base, equipping your troops, deciding on which Research to pursue, and what items to manufacture. However, this X-COM game is also the most annoying computer game I’ve ever played. There is no user’s manual. Going online to find information about the game is tedious. Much of the game, I had to resort to trail-and-error to figure stuff out. For example, it took me a couple of weeks to find out how to build a satellite (essential component to defend Earth). Satellites were stuck in the menu for building interceptors for some weird reason. However, that being said, I’ve found XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN an entertaining game that has eaten up too many hours of my time as I defend you all from those dastardly space aliens. But, I can’t wait for the next XCOM game! GRADE: A-

About a month ago, I read an article in the New York Times Magazine about fabulously successful Gerard de Villers who writes a series of spy novels (you can find it here). I remembered that in the 1970s and early 1980s, Pinnacle Books published English translations of some of de Villers’ books but then dropped the series. I dug around in my basement and found Checkpoint Charlie, Number Nine in the series (de Villiers’ spy series is now over 200 novels). Malko is a contract agent with the CIA. His assignment in Checkpoint Charlie is to get a Nobel Prize winning scientist past the East German guards into free West Berlin. The Berlin Wall, with all its minefields and obstacles, presents a bit of a challenge, but Malko is up for the job. The New York Times Magazine article stresses that de Villiers does intense research before he writes a book. It’s obvious in Checkpoint Charlie, especially East German border procedures. I’ll be looking for more of these Malko adventures.

Imagine the Whoopi Goldberg movie, Sister Act, with all new music and plenty of dancing. There, you’ve just grasped the concept of Sister Act: The Musical. A lounge singer witnesses her gangster boyfriend murdering an informant. The police stash the lounge singer in a convent until the trial. The lounge singer, who pretends she’s a nun, teaches the real nuns how to sing disco and fill the church with enthusiastic parishioners. The nuns are going to sing for the Pope! But the gangster finds how where the lounge singer is and… Anyway, you get the idea. Take a listen below. Fun and frothy entertainment. GRADE: B+
SET LIST:
1. Sister Act, musical: Prologue
2. Take Me to Heaven
3. Fabulous, Baby!
4. Here Within These Walls
5. How I Got the Calling
6. When I Find My Baby
7. Do This Sacred Mass
8. I Could Be That Guy
9. Raise Your Voice
10. Take Me to Heaven (Reprise)
11. Sunday Morning Fever
12. Lady in the Long Black Dress
13. Bless Our Show
14. Here Within These Walls (Reprise)
15. The Life I Never Led
16. Fabulous, Baby! (Reprise)
17. Sister Act
18. The Life I Never Led (Reprise)
19. Sister Act (Reprise)
20. Spread the Love Around

The New York Times Book Review had a positive review of The Devil in Silver and my local public library just happened to have a copy. If you’re read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest then you know what you’re going to be in for with The Devil in Silver. A man named Pepper finds himself admitted to a mental health facility after an altercation with police. But his 72-hour stay for “observation” turns into weeks and then months. Pepper becomes a permanent resident of the mental health system with all of its bureaucracy and its callous treatment. Very frightening and Kafkaesque! GRADE: B

Somehow, Blood Diamonds slipped past me in 2006. My brother lent me a copy of the movie so I finally had a chance to watch it. The movie is set in Sierra Leone in the late 1990s when civil war made the country a killing ground. Into this hellish chaos appears Leonardo DiCaprio who plays a diamond smuggler, Jennifer Connelly plays a feisty and intrepid journalist, and Djimon Hounsou plays a victim of the civil war. The title refers to diamonds mined in African war zones and sold to finance the conflicts. Psychopathic warlords train children to become murderous soldiers. Djimon Hounsou’s character discovers a rare “pink” diamond that DiCaprio covets. Jennifer Connelly’s character wants to expose the blood diamond jewelery companies that work with the warlords. After you watch this film, you’ll never want to visit Africa. GRADE: B-

There are few contemporary novels set in Western New York so when Stephen Talty’s Black Irish came to my attention, I read it for St. Patrick’s Day. It was fun to read about local sites like the Skyway, Mighty Taco, the Peace Bridge, and Chippewa Street. Much of the action of the book is set in Irish-dominated South Buffalo. Troubled Buffalo Detective Abbie Kearney finds herself investigating a series of ritual murders. The victims all were members of a secret society called The Clan which had links to the IRA in Ireland. This is Stephen Talty’s first novel so there are some excesses. Talty’s heroine, Abbie, has an ex-husband, a demanding retired father (who used to be a cop), and she suffers from depression. That’s a little too much to burden a character with. But I’ll be looking for Talty’s next novel. GRADE: B-
I want to thank the Youngstown Free Library for providing this book

Today is “Selection Sunday” on CBS where the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament determines the participating teams and their brackets. The matchups are always surprising and confounding. As an alumnus of Marquette University, I’ll be rooting for the Golden Eagles to go deep into the 2013 Tournament. What teams will you be rooting for?

I’ve read all of Phillip Lopate’s previous collections of essays and enjoyed them. Lopate presents himself as a common man and his essays reflect this stance. The first part of Portrait Inside My Head concerns Lopate’s family, his wife, his ex-wife, his sick child, and the common annoyances of Life. In later sections, Lopate writes about movies, books, and celebrities. If you’re in the mood for a wide-ranging collection of intelligent essays, look no further than Portrait Inside My Head. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction: In Defense of the Miscellaneous
I. The Family Romance
Tea at the Plaza
The Camera Shop
The Countess’s Tutor
My Brother the Radio Host
Wife or Sister?
The Limits of Empathy
The Lake of Suffering
II. The Consolations of Daily Life
Memoirs of a Wishy-Washy Left-Liberal
Why I Remain a Baseball Fan
Novels and Films
On Changing One’s Mind About a Movie
Laws of Attraction
Duration, or, Going Long
Warren Sonbert
III. City Spaces
Brooklyn the Unknowable
Robert Moses Rethought
City Hall and Its Park
Walking the High Line
Getting the South Wrong
IV. Literary Matters
“Howl” and Me
The Poetry Years
The Stubborn Art of Charles Reznikoff
The Improbable Moralist
James Agee
On Not Reading Thomas Bernhard
Worldliness and Regret
Coda: The Life of the Mind

The past few FFBs, I’ve been reviewing faux-Jack Vance novels from Matthew Hughes (the best practitioner!) to Ray Aldridge to L. Warren Douglas. But this week, I’m reviewing the Real Deal: Magic Highways: The Early Jack Vance, Volume Three. Most of these stories were published in the 1940s and 1950s when Jack Vance was learning his craft. I’m a huge Jack Vance fan, yet half of the 16 stories in this wonderful just published collection were new to me. Subterranean Press and editors Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan should be commended on publishing these collections of Jack Vance’s early work. The glimmers of Vance’s genius appear on every page!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Phalid’s Fate
Planet of the Black Dust
Ultimate Quest
Men of the Ten Books
The Planet Machine
Dover Spargill’s Ghastly Floater
Winner Lose All
Sabotage on Sulfur Planet
The House Lords
Sanatoris Short-cut
The Unspeakable McInch
The Sub-Standard Sardines
The Howling Bounders
The King of Thieves
The Spa of the Stars
To B or Not to C or to D

After shelling out $24,000 for a new roof we decided to get new gutters as well. I never liked our old gutters. I didn’t think they were pitched right (they weren’t) and lately the gutters leaked at the seams. Our new gutters don’t have any seams. Diane and I plan to stay in this house for the next 20 years so we decided to invest in home improvements. How much do new gutters cost, you might wonder. In our case, $3200.