Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

 

   
This book was a pleasant surprise. Who knew working for a Super Villain could be such a tough job. 

Anna Tromedlov, the temp that could, would have been one of the faceless clipboard holders in the background if you’d been taken to a supervillain’s lair while they plotted your demise. But Anna caught the attention of her boss, The Leviathan, with her strong work ethic and a devious plan that brought bad press to her boss' arch enemy. Superglider. 

   it was a great listen if you want to go the audiobook route, The performance of the book by Ales McKenna was a big part of the pleasure I had experience as I travel back and forth this month on the Skytrain , listening to the tale of Anna as she balanced life and work. A sequel is planned to be publish in May of 2026, 

Singularity trap by Dennis E Taylor.

 

        I had this title since 2015 and a funny thing happened. I began to hate the word "Singularity." as certain right wing-nut began to talk about the "Singularity." Like all the time. And had no idea what he meant by that other than it became a word that ended any discussion on any subject. 

       So this book just sat there on the App for nearly a decade. Now I am a bit mad at my  not so sub-conscience mind for the delay in the listen. A great book about a down on his luck family man trying to strike it rich in the field of space mining. But a mistake on an asteroid changed all that. 

      As a member of First Contact genre, this is about as original as they come. And at the time of this review 3/1 Atlas is making a drive by in our system and to read a this book in November of 2025 felt so right.

     I have yet to not love a single Dennis E Taylor book. If you are a fan of Andy Weir or Douglas Adams, you need to add Dennis E Taylor in your reading rotation. Plus his audiobooks are performed by the fabulous Ray Porter, one of the best in the business. Also,  Dennis E Taylor's  books are  incredibly cheap. Take a chance on an author who keeps his ebooks below $7 as a rule. 

Warlord Chronicles : An Arthurian Myth Re-Telling by Bernard Cornwell

    I have decided to spend the last half of 2025 to do a read of all the latest takes of the King Arthur myth. First up is the always reliable Bernard Cornwell, someone who I spend last year reading his Last Kingdom, figuring it would take 4 months to get thru. It took me 2 months to read the  13 books in the series, Mr. Cornwell write in a very readable way, I want to say literary popcorn. 

     So I headed out to Big Bad Wolf  Book Fair here in Bangkok, Thailand,  My main goal was to find some Graphic Novels in the Thai language, I was successful in that, but they also had table upon tables of books in the English language,  And they had all 3 books in Bernard Cornwell Arthurian tale. I took that as a sign. 

     The tale is told thru the eyes of Derfel, In the series Derfel goes from an orphan taken in by Merlin to a Lord in the service of King Arthur. Hey, I am a sucker for the orphan does good trope, Defer is the POV that is used to spend the tale. Mr. Cornwell write in his afterword that he sought out the earliest tales of Arthur to find characters who have drop out of the story with the passage of time. One such character is Nimue, who play a major role in the life of Derfel. More than Merlin.   If your a fan of Lancelot, be forewarned, Lancelot is portrayed as the greatest traitor in English history. 

     Next up in the reading list will be Giles Kristain's take of the Arthurian tale. 

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

    I will put it out there that I am one of Joe Abercrombie's biggest fans, I have read every book published by Joe and have been pre-ordering his books since Half a King, the YAD Viking inspired Shattering Seas series. I have met Joe at a signing and he was a nice as could be, so nice I thought He was going to pitch me a timeshare. 

     The Devils has a simple plot, one of the oldest literary tropes there is, The Quest. Now, the quest plot combined with the collection of a rag tag group of heroes are right in my reading wheelhouse.  Joe turns the trope upside down by inserting a highly unlikely group of questers. This is kind of a hallmark of Joe's books, he take previous character types and turns them on their heads.  

     The Devils  worldbuilding is fairly simple. Troy did not fall, and Rome did not ascend. Hector beat Achilles  and Troy did not fall for the wooden horse trick. And the Messiah was a woman killed on a wheel. The story takes place after a split in the church and the heroes are enlisted to install a Princess on the breakaway empire in a bid to unite. 

    As the series continues you will get more backstory on the the devils. Joe has brought us character most readers are familiar with, a Vampire, Cursed Knight, a mercenary Pirate and friend to the knight, an Elf, Werewolf. Necromancer aka magician and a bookish monk. Each charged with the duty of getting a street urchin to  Troy and install her as princess. Joe writes in his fabulous humorous style, bringing life to the characters.

     If you liked The Devils and wish to find similar authors who write with a humorous style, I recommend Davis Wragg and  J. .Zachary Pike. 

   

Barkskin by Annie Proulx

     This book took me back to my young reading years,  Yes, before I had even graduated High School. For I was a big fan of James A Michener and doorstop sprawling novels  on Alaska, Chesapeake, and Hawaii to name just a few. Fell in love with those stories that spanned centuries and gave you a sketch of how it was and came to be.. I do not know if these books hold up today, but back then those book filled up a lot of my reading time.

     Annie Proulx's Barkskins  take two Frenchman who are one of the first in New France AKA North Atlantic Coast America,  The tale takes you from the first beaver pelt traders to climate change scientists, The tale spans centuries, mostly focused on Forestry and the exploitation of that natural resource, Some time spans are given short shift, but the time periods seem to be tied to innovations or explorations of the Forestry industry, The readers follows the two sides of the family tree, the French side and the Native American side, The two side share in heartbreak and tragedies, but the Native American side gets the worst it, losing both land and culture. While the French side gains wealth with each century, 

    Ms. Proulx's writing style is always first rate. Beautifully written, the reader experiences both the hopelessness and the hope of each character, Both the chapters and the decades quickly passed as I devoured the book dur to readability and story arcs. 

    I first gain interest in reading this book due to the  National Geographics TV series of the same name. So a Shout out to NG for greenlighting a the TV series and alerting me to this fine story, 

     

  M.R. Carey is one of my favorite authors. Every book Carey has written I have truly enjoyed. This first foray into Fantasy is no exception. The plot is a very reliable trope in the hands of a skilled writer, A Mage is threating a village, and the villagers seek help from a rat tag team of misfits, What Carey has done is expanded the misfit tags. 

  The tale starts first in a very episodic nature. In fact, it put me in the mind of Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales, the grim ones, not the cleaned-up versions.  The setting is England during the shaky reign of King Stephen, no relation. This Mage has a plan to move up in the world filled with chaos. He discovers an ancient magical source buried under a newly conquered castle. To harness that power for himself requires things to get rather nasty. 

    That one of the things I loved about the book, It keep surprising me in the direction it took. I can't tell you too much because most of the joy is in the reveals, which are quite interesting. All the sources Carey uses to bring the tale to the reader is simply amazing to me. 

   If you are a fan of M.R, Carey, be sure to put this on your reading radar. IF you have not read any of Carey's works, you need to correct that oversight. 

Are the Dodgers Ruining Baseball? Short Answer, NO. Long Answer, See Below.

     First, a bit of History. I know that there is a large portion of the baseball community if it hasn't happened within a week ago, it does not matter. But bear with me, First, Ohtani announced He would opt out of his Angel's contract., the Dodgers sat on their wallets for 2 years in 2022 and 2023. Despite the fact they had needs. Dodgers got bounced from the first round both years in the playoffs because of this. 

     Dodgers were going to sign Ohtani no matter what. They had set up the roster with a load of expiring contracts in 2024 just so no matter how high the bidding went; the Dodgers would match and go beyond. Before you go all " Dodgers deferred all his salary" it was Ohtani who offered that. Why? Because Ohtani in a Unicorn. He was the only player who along with his ability to play baseball at a high level, Ohtani brought along a Market to expand to. Ohtani has off field endorsements that more than what the 70 million a year the Dodgers own. You combine Ohtani's New Balance contract with his Calvin Klein, those alone goes over the 70 million mark.

  

     The Dodgers did not invent the deferred contract. Check out the New York Mets and who gets deferred payments this year, I hope you all celebrate Bobby Bonilla Day. Mid-season the Mets will cut 62-year-old Bobby a 1 million dollar deferred check from his Mets playing days. And will continue to do so until 2035 when a final payment will be made to a 72-Year-old Bobby.  But there are two other player who get deferred payment in 2025. Adam Ottavino will get 500k this year until 2031, then Adam will get a final 1 million dollars. The last is the great Bret Saberhagen who get a cool 250k in 2025 until a final payment in 2028. I hope that 250k is not really needed by Brett, but if he had made a couple of bad financial decisions that 250k might come in handy, 

      The Dodgers are signing everyone one and it is not fair to the other teams seems to be the rallying cry on the internet. First to the idea there is not parity in baseball. Last year there was 3 team that were out of it mathematically in August. The Rockies, the White Sox and the A's. Everyone else was a hot win streak away from the last Wildcard slot. I remember in August the Reds got to within 3 games of the Brewers for the division led going into a home and away set of games. If the Reds had just gone 4-2 in the stretch the Reds would have been division leaders. But for some reason the Reds can't beat the Brewers when it matters most.  0-6 and dropped out of the division race and lost valuable ground in the Wildcard race. My point is that in August 3/4 of MLB teams had a chance to get into the playoffs in late August of 2024. 

    Don't blame the Dodgers for having a plan and executing it. The Padres were arguably the second-best team in the MLB last season and had the 4th best attendance record in 2024.  Do you think the Padres had a plan to build on that success in 2025?  I think the plan was for the Padres owners to pocket the profits from 2024, what do you think?  The Dodgers were the #1 team in attendance both at home and on the road. What better way to reward the fans who supported the Dodgers than by getting better and fixing the flaws in the 2024 team. Don't you wish you could see the plan your team has in place to become successful? 

     

 Because I can see the Dodger plans fairly clearly. First, the Dodger built redundancy into the roster, If August rolls around and the injury bug has not hit the Dodgers as hard as last year, they will have players to trade at the August deadline when teams are willing to give up prospects out of desperation. Second, the Dodgers have a lock down bullpen because every pitcher in the starter's rotation will have inning limits. The whole staff will be 6 innings at most, 5 2/3 innings will probably be the average, The Dodgers don't have one inning eater in the whole staff. 

   

     Well thank you for reading my rant. To all the fans of other teams I beg you to figure out what your team plans is to at least get that last wildcard slot. Because once you get in the post season anything can happen. I remember in 2023 Mookie Betts and Freddy Freeman combined for 1 hit in the series lost to the Padres which got them bounced out of the playoffs despite the Dodgers 107-win season. Nothing is written in stone yet.