Rex’s reviews of anything (but mostly books)

As boats glide across a lake, their passage is marked by wakes; twin ripples forming a spreading vee beginning precisely where a bow cleaves the water’s surface. The twin wavelets the craft generates grow rounder and less distinct as they spread, seemingly disappearing altogether beyond some arbitrary distance. Just as boats leave their wakes behind on the surface of the water; so, too does the passage of a life through the greater volume of humanity. A small, unstable craft might capsize in the wake of a large, fast-moving boat – just as the force of one life’s nearby passage can wreak havoc in the life of another…

It seemed to have begun with a few hundred feet of videotape. When it was over, lives had been ruined (and worse); the reputation of Avery Academy was changed forever; and tabloid television had found yet another titillating tale over which to wring its collective hands (while poking at the coals of scandal in hopes of increasing advertising dollars). Lies were told. Truth was forgotten. Walls were erected.

It seemed to have begun with a few hundred feet of videotape; but in truth it had started weeks, months, years before. A life, two lives, three lives moved within the closed community of a Vermont preparatory school; and in their wakes ruin followed. Was it those youthful (and not-so-youthful) hormones? was it the alcohol? was it just fate? What is the meaning of rape, of sexual assault? Why do the boundaries that were once so clear now seem blurry?

It might have ended with a few hundred feet of videotape, but one man became fearful; fearful for reasons that would eventually become clear. It might have ended but for lies; might have ended but for betrayals – betrayals before and lies after.

Sometimes when two wakes meet, the point at which they intersect becomes a wave larger than either individual ripple. At Avery Academy on a cold January day, the passage of half a dozen lives reinforced one another in just such a way, and the result might as well have been a tsunami… Read the rest of this entry »

There aren’t many people who spend their entire lives in pajamas and a robe – even if it is a silk robe. One of the few who seems to is a guy saddled with the unlikely middle name of “Marston,” a name that becomes (only) slightly more interesting once you learn that it’s the “M” in “Hugh M. Hefner.”

Considering that Hugh Hefner – founder of the Playboy empire – is credited (by some) with single-handedly fomenting the sexual revolution, one might expect his autobiographical musings to be somewhat more… substantial. But insubstantial is a most accurate term for Hef’s Little Black Book, the memoir penned by Hefner (allegedly) with Bill Zehme. The book is insubstantial in physical terms, massing fewer than 200 pages in its paperback-sized format. It’s insubstantial in textual term, since at least a quarter of the pages are given over to photographs (though very few of them show as much skin as the average music video). But worst of all, it’s just plain insubstantial; a memoir penned in a grating third-person style, overflowing with hubris, and jammed full of unctuous adages about as pithy as the average copy of “Highlights for Children” – say, was this book actually written by Goofus and Gallant? Read the rest of this entry »

Life has not recently been kind to Cason Statler. Once a Pulitzer-nominated Houston reporter, Statler wasted a promising career on an overactive libido and too many Jim Beams with beer chasers. An Army hitch in Iraq didn’t straighten him out; it just left him with an aversion to hot, dry places and an unsavory buddy known only as “Booger.” Time to start turning his life around with a new job…

Lo, how the talented have fallen: that new position is writing a column for the Camp Rapture Reporter, the tiny newspaper in his east Texas home town. Yep, he moves back in with Mom and Dad – at least temporarily. Among his predecessor’s notes on key lime pie recipes and beauty pageants, Cason finds a short column about a history major at the local college, missing and presumed dead for the past several months. Fodder for a follow-up column, he wonders? but is it the tragedy of Caroline Allison that piques his interest, or the accompanying photo of a woman of astonishing beauty? Whichever… the column gets written.

The “Caroline is still missing” column is well-received – too well-received in certain quarters: an anonymous DVD dropped in his mailbox reveals quite juicy blackmail material involving Caroline and… well, let’s just say that the contents hit close to home. All of which pulls Cason right down the proverbial rabbit hole after a blackmail plot that takes an insane segue into a dark world of murder, assassination, and unspeakable brutality. Cason’s only hope for survival is a well-timed visit from the cavalry: cue the bugles! Read the rest of this entry »

Freya Nakamichi 47 is about as close to perfect as a woman can get, at least in certain, more hedonistic circles: she’s beautiful, willing, uninhibited, and readily available. Of course, Freya isn’t actually a human woman, she’s a robot concubine designed and programmed to become whatever the man she’s with desires (as long as it’s a beautiful woman who’s liquid dynamite in the sack). Heck, Freya’s even been programmed to fall in lust with whatever man she meets. Or woman, for that matter – she’s been… ummm… biprogrammed…

But Freya has one big problem: there hasn’t been a living human, male or female, around since before she was made a couple of centuries ago; which leaves Freya and her sibs (a vast harem of 200-year-old sexbots essentially identical to the pneumatic Freya) about as obsolete as you can get. That’s not to mention that Freya is getting pretty bored after a few decades with nothing but robots to scratch her intrinsic itches. But that’s a perfect setting for an adventure, right?

And, boy! is Freya about to have herself an adventure! It’s an adventure that spans the solar system, finds the luscious femmebot stalked by what seems like a million nearly identical dwarf assassins, and just might mean the resurrection of human life. But the forces arrayed to stop Freya from stopping – or is it allowing – the crucial events to happen are shadowy, powerful, and – above all – confusing. For a none-too-bright blonde (at least some times she’d blonde), Freya has her work cut out for her… Read the rest of this entry »