ULTRA HIP GLORIFIED WRITER

The Blog of Joseph Lewis Szabo III Writer, Reader, Geek

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You know how you ask a family member or someone to go the store and bring back something specific and you just know they’re going to screw it up.

Once, my mother asked my father for sliced ham at the deli and good bread.

He came home with a live yak named Terry.

Terry needed a place to live.

After the divorce of course.

— Joseph Lewis Szabo III

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Things you don't want to hear your Chief Engineer say:

"Oh Shit, The Antimatter!"

- Joseph Lewis Szabo III

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Things I wish I didn’t accidentally overhear:

“I’m taking my kid to see the new Lars von Trier movie.”

- Joseph Lewis Szabo III

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“Have you ever brushed your teeth with Preparation H?

“It cleans your teeth just fine but it shrinks your gums. Anyway, you’ll just end up looking like a jackass.”

- Joseph Lewis Szabo III

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Did you know “Koon-ut-kal-if-fee” from Vulcan translates to “Hitched or Boner Death Match”?

Vulcans: Endlessly Fascinating People.

- Joseph Lewis Szabo III

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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo My rating: 4 of 5 stars Jesus Christ, this book is entertaining! I didn’t know Netflix had adapted Six of Crows into a series until I was halfway through the book. I knew there was a show called Shadow & Bone on TV somewhere, but I wasn’t interested in seeing it, and I’m still not. Given this book’s title, Six of Crows instead of Shadow & Bone, how could I know those characters’ appearance in that production? This series has seven books, all connected in The Grishaverse. Were prior books essential to liking Six of Crows? Hell no! It made sense without it, and I still enjoyed it. A few years ago, I tried reading Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, and I wasn’t into it. I had to stop reading because it felt like a chore. Whatever greatness may have come in the unread chapters stayed ungreat. But I knew Bardugo had talent, so I made a point of reading something else in her bibliography. And here we are, Six of Crows, and I made the right choice. Imagine, for a moment, something like a Dickensian/X-Men/Heist Film, and you've got yourself Six of Crows. The prose does not draw attention to itself. There is no fluff or dandelion language. The characters talk quite a bit, which takes up most of the book's space. While there is no original voice here, they are fascinating to listen to and each backstory and the way they see the world singular way is deep. The best one, if I had to pick, would be Kaz Brekker. He’s a man barely out of boyhood who has seen too much, felt great pain, and has the respect of the people he gathers for a very dangerous mission. The task will make him and those he’s chosen to follow him rich and able to live better lives. Kaz can love, although he sees it as a weakness. He secretly loves Inej Ghafa, another member of his gang called The Dregs, whom he bought out of slavery, and who is a member of The Crows. Another character, Nina Zenik, is a Grisha, meaning she can alter matter at the molecular level and perhaps the atomic. She is a lovely woman in appearance, smart and witty. She and everyone with her gifts are persecuted by the Drüskelle. And what better way to create tension, sexual or otherwise, than having her fall in love with one: The hunk's name is Matthias Helvar. He is icy, surly, and at the start of the novel wants to kill Nina for having him put in prison. So…a lot is world-building, and it’s handled through these people, because they, after all, live in this world. It’s a world that breathes, and much of it is cold, because where Kaz, Nina, Matthias, and others go is called The Ice Court. It's the stronghold for The Drüskelle’s forces, and there, The Crows need to escape with a scientist who has developed a drug able to amplify a Grisha’s power. Six of Crows was a very good, very commercial, and very fun book. I’ll be reading more in this series and then whatever works Leigh Bardugo’s works on next. View all my reviews

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“…You gotta look at the big picture. You gotta grab life by the lips and YANK! as hard as you can.”

- "Weird Al" Yankovic (From UHF)

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It's my 13 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

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My Pretties by Jeff Strand My rating: 3 of 5 stars Jeff Strand’s My Pretties is awfully damn vile. It reminds me of, say, the early or middle period of Dean Koontz’s novels, which is a compliment because I love his novels The Vision and Intensity. Imagine those books with a slight dash of John Hughes movies. Like those books, there’s a sickness that seems to run through it, which will turn off most people who aren’t used to horror in the extreme, and it's told in a light, breezy tone, as John Hughes would. However, if you’re accustomed to subtler, eerie, atmospheric dread without all the details, letting your imagination fill in the blanks, then this is not the book for you. However, if you enjoy gore, POS characters who like to watch their victims suffer excruciating pain before they die…well, you hit the motherload here! Strand’s book is fun and flippant about its subject, as he is in nearly all of his books. Even though the plot of My Pretties isn’t particularly original, with a character’s loved one snatched by a serial killer and who prioritizes finding the perpetrator, the way the story is told makes it interesting, even if it’s not always compelling. And boy, is it told, rather than shown, but if it works, then why use that shown writing advice? One can and should break rules in certain situations and styles. Now, there is not one killer in this book but three, of absolutely sick fucks: a whole damn family! And if you take away their propensity for murder and cruelty, they act like a damn family. These people aren’t stupid (okay, the kid is a little stupid, but kids can learn and grow, even if it’s about how to torture and kill someone). They plan their murders, taking every precaution not to get caught, using modern means to stalk their character and have a flair for manipulation. The father, Ken, likes to kidnap women, hang them in cages, and watch them starve to death. His wife, Vivian, is a reformed serial killer who likes to pick up men and stab them to death after sex, but she is jealous of Ken, not allowing him to have sex with any of his victims. She wants to pick up her old habits again. Their son Jared likes pot, video games, hates school, and there are hints that he tortures animals. Also, he wants to learn the family business. I will not be joining them for Thanksgiving dinner. Now, the heroines of the novel are Gertie (yes, nicknamed after Drew Barrymore’s character in E.T.) and her coworker/new best friend Charlene. Gertie lost her cousin to Ken and has no hope of finding her alive. Smart. Freaking sad but smart. Here, the old cliché—the cops aren’t finding the asshole—is displayed, and it’s often correct in real and imagined situations, so Gertie takes it upon herself to find the murderer. Charlene, a good-hearted smartass who is brave as hell, helps Gertie look for her cousin. Charlene is definitely the best character in the book. The events in the book indeed traumatized her, but she makes no complaints about it. It’s life, and it sucks, and she has to move on, and she always does the right thing, even if it annoys her. Eventually, this all comes down to a showdown with The Family From Hell, and yes, there is a lot…A LOT OF GORE! While Strand has been one of my favorite writers for a while now, especially with what I consider one of the best horror novels of the past 20 years, Dweller, this is just one of those just-off-the-printer-and-then-forgotten-about books. It’s not terrible, but it is pedestrian. I finished My Pretties in under a week, and it didn’t impress me as much as it should. It did, however, entertain with its smart characters, both sickos and good people, and the blood, while I wouldn’t want to eat my spaghetti after reading it, seemed realistic even in its abundance. I am happy to say Jeff Strand is still a brilliant writer. I just hope his next book leaves me with deeper clarity. View all my reviews

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“Now I'm telling these son-of-a-bitches that we respect the Japanese of this country, who are honest businessmen. And yeah, this is the land of opportunity for legitimate business, not for death merchants who distribute drugs to our children through schools and on the streets. Now I'm telling these motherfuckers that if they continue killing our children to make their precious millions that they deposit in their secret Swiss bank accounts, counselor, before your last suit even gets off the court clerk's desk, I'll have their stinking bodies in garbage bags and ship them back to Japan for fertilizer. Got it?”

- Joe Marshall (Samurai Cop)

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Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir My rating: 3 of 5 stars There is a reason I sometimes finish a novel, even if I disliked the beginning or middle, and Gideon the Ninth is one such example. The book’s opening chapters were mediocre while the middle sections were annoyingly overwritten, with a cast of extremely unlikeable characters, who were also, at their core, pompous asses. The best character in Gideon the Ninth is Gideon Nav herself. She is rude, temperamental, and a lot of fun to read about and listen to. But, and I can’t fathom why, the author Tamsyn Muir made the cavalier Gideon take a vow of silence, bestowed upon her by her necromancer Harrowhark Nonagesimus. That was not a good creative choice. Then, when Gideon speaks later, a group of stuck-up, snotty, boring, and frankly a bit doucie people from other houses overwhelm the story. They were called to a haunted castle to see if they had the stuff to be a lyctor to the King Undying. Now, I can forgive a book if most of the characters are a bunch of dicks, so long as they are interesting. This did not happen. Somewhere in the middle of this book, I thought of putting it down. I wasn’t having a good time. I found Muir’s style of description (and there is a ton of it) tedious, and which I felt needed a chainsaw rather than a scalpel to cut away sections and just get to the point. But somewhere in the last hundred pages, I began to get into it quite a bit, and hence the reason I rarely put a book back on the shelf even when I’m tempted. It was the scenes between Gideon and Harrow that made up for most of the book's faults, their relationship that went from hate into something less hateful, and then the action, which I found hard to follow at the beginning and the middle, really pulled me in. Sometimes a book can be good, and I just don’t get it. It’s a kind of resistance where the author and I are just not on the same wavelength, and that’s for many reasons. It happens a lot, where people recommend a book to me, saying it’s the best thing to come out in years, and yet, when I finally read it …meh. Was Gideon the Ninth any good? Yes, and no. Will I read Tamsyn Muir’s next book in this series? No. But, for the little joy I found in this book, I thank her. View all my reviews

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There is not a single media in the free world that exists that I trust, not on the TV, newspapers and definably online. Not Fox News, not CNN, not MSNBC, none of it. A large percentage of it seems to be opinions, panels, talking points and utter trash.

Online, it’s even worse. Hate and hate, lies, lies, lies. Or maybe some truth, there is some nuggets of honest but those are the worst.

Even Satan told the truth if it meant achieving his goals.

YouTube videos and social media sucks. Everyone has an agenda.

All I want is news. And I know everyone can’t be objective, I understand, but can you at least try.

It’s is all propaganda. It designed to either piss you off or scare the shit out of you. And people wonder why mental heath is problem these days. I’m not saying it’s the main cause but it’s certainly not helping.

It’s psychological warfare directed at its own citizens, and people believe it because they’ve lost the ability to think for themselves. It’s not enough to gain knowledge but you have to question it too, and that brings wisdom and individuality.

Does this mean I want things to be censored? Forced to go back to a time when news was news?

No. I believe in the First Amendment. But just because you can do or say something doesn’t mean you should.

And for a long time, we’ve been paying the price.

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America is The Greatest Country in the World…and isn’t that just fucking sad.

- Joseph Lewis Szabo III

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Just a quick FYI, if you’re taking your Driving Exam, after you and The Examiner get in the car, you and he put on your seat belts, you check your mirrors and start the car, don’t shout out:

“This is the Nightrider, and we ain't never coming back! I'm a fuel-injected suicide machine! I am a rocker! I am a roller! I am the out-of-controller! I am the Nightrider!”

You will fail.

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“When I was a kid, it took me two hours of watching Superman to realized Clark Kent was Superman?”

- Joseph Lewis Szabo III (I wasn’t a bright kid.)

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In The Land of the Blind Danny DeVito is People Magazine’s Sexist Man Alive!

- Joseph Lewis Szabo III

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I gained sixty pounds in six hours! Somebody help me!

Happy Thanksgiving.