Tag: Crime

Jane Harper’s Force of Nature

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

When I write book reviews, I often mention the level of realism. Imagine a scale from 0 to 10. 0 is complete BS, things that can’t happen, heroes that can’t exist, and a path from start to finish that’s like a fairy tale. 10 is a boring autobiography by a boring person who doesn’t lie to put themselves in a good light. Realism is not required to have fun, a good story can be 0 or 10 on the scale.

Let’s rank some pop culture on the realism scale.

  • 0: Avengers: End Game – a complete disconnect with reality, written entirely to be like that. The characters are only visually human
  • 1: Star Wars Episodes 4-6 – a complete disconnect with reality but some of the characters make sense, like Jabba the Hutt. I’d put here most of the fantasy I read like Thraxas, Joe Abercrombie, Raymond Feist, the LOTR universe, Robin Hobb, Brandon Sanderson, Harry Potter
  • 2: Matthew Reilly, often featured here, writes about cars flying at a speed of 700km/h and crashing with no harm. Not far off from F1, although the characters are inhuman. I feel like he deserves the number 2 spot for himself.
  • 3: Stephen King plugs in plausible humans and outcomes in impossible fantasy settings. His work is incredible and diverse work but let’s average it to 3. 3 would be fantasy with a possible story or with possible characters but maybe not both
  • 4: The Foundation, Andy Weir – the classic sci-fi where the people look real and the events could eventually happen
  • 5: Song of Fire and Ice – lots of that happened in medieval times, or at least people imagined it did. Not the dragon eggs but the other stuff that fills 95% of the pages. Realistic fantasy, dystopia
  • 6: Alexandre Dumas. The Three Musketeers has a solid foundation in reality and the characters are likely based on real humans, perhaps from later periods
  • 7: Cinderella. That probably happened and was later decorated with some magic
  • 8: OMG ❤️, Stephanie Plum, Harry Bosch’s universe, Harlan Coben, the true crime stories
  • 9: Historical fiction, books like Wolf Hall that are as connected to the real events as they could be, autobiographies with some level of commerce
  • 10: Boring autobiographies

On that scale, Jane Harper enters the territory of boring autobiographies. There’s “No way” and “Oh, that’s why, yeah, damn”. Reading it is like reading the continuation of Cinderella, the happily ever after where the prince turned into a king, and the king was drunk and cheated.

So, I won’t tell you what the Force of Nature is about, but it’s sad and depressing in a beautiful way. Do not touch if you want an orthodox crime story.

4.5/5

Stephanie Plum – books 7 to 10

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

I achieved my goal of reading the first 10 books in the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. The series is about a hot formerly unemployed bounty hunter who chases evil folks and loses them 10 times per book to only capture them on the 11th attempt. This is usually funny and low-risk, with no drama.

The story evolved over the last 4 books.

  • Criminals are no longer inviting themselves to Stephanie’s apartment at the same rate. The ability to break 3 of the top 10 locks out there is not that common and people breaking in at a whim started getting annoying. I’m glad this part is gone, hopefully, to never be seen again
  • Characters who were captured in previous books reappeared either as allies or as adversaries
  • Janet Evanovich started developing some wicked love for donuts and cakes. All female characters eat sugar like their life depend on it. Truckloads of donuts, chips, and cake. On one occasion, truckloads of bacon.
  • Stephanie’s sidekick Lula developed the sit-jitsu battle skill where she would sit on a criminal and squash them as a bug
  • Stephanie’s two love interests Joe Morelli and Ranger are no longer translucent. Morelli is the cop and Ranger is the mysterious millionaire in love with the clumsy nerd. Both didn’t add anything to the story over the last 4 books and I wish they get assignments in Venezuela. They were better when they were translucent.

All in all, books 7 to 10 are all in the 4/5 territory. They’re fine and I may read a few more because reading about Stephanie Plum is comforting. I just hope she stops eating donuts. It’s bad for her and unpleasant for me. We don’t want the main characters to die from sugar poisoning.

Thraxas and the Elvish Isles by Martin Scott

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

This is the 4th book of the series for the round former battle mage Thraxas and his fierce friend Makri. I reviewed the first one here and then read #2 and #3. Part 4 felt like the best and most balanced of all. It is the best mystery and the one with the least battles. Still zero drama.

Thraxas is invited to an Elven island to help with a murder case. Elves have no crime and no detectives. Murder on their island is a big thing. Asking questions, on the other hand, is not appreciated. On top of it, it looks like people are under some kind of spell, the murderess is inadequate, and the high elves do not drink beer.

From a character development point of view, have a chance to learn about Makri’s Orkish kendoka origins. She will wield some wooden swords this time.

5/5. The book on Goodreads.

Stephanie Plum – books 4 to 6

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I keep reading the Stephanie Plum series. My original plan was to get to book 5 but I’m going to extend that to book 10. The series keeps being cool and I consistently award high scores.

Stephanie Plum is a headhunter who does more and more PI work and less and less headhunting. She somehow manages to trigger events that lead to flying dead bodies and crashing criminal enterprises. She’s far too lucky though, the cars would always explode when she wasn’t inside and the bullets would miss. I think this is turning into a main positive feature of the series – you can rely on her having some Ring World-style extreme luck and that it will all be okay.

There’s a lingering love story between her and a few gigachads. Janet Evanovich doesn’t let that stand in the way of a good thriller. It’s more of a reminder that Stephanie Plum is a human and has feelings than an actual love story. Both men I’ve previously described as translucent – they are like imaginary resource-rich and powerful genies, essences of some dominant male-ness, and are almost as good as ghosts. Unlike these two, all the other characters, new and recurring, keep being fresh and vivid.

Thanks to this series (and blogging about it), I’m on track to have my best month for reading in years.