Neil Edrick từ Pilar, Abra, Philippines

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12/22/2024

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Neil Edrick Sách lại (10)

2018-06-14 18:30

Kiểm Toán (Tập 1) Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi:

Twenty-one year old Holly Constantine’s idea of fun is reading historical works while lounging in her favorite pair of sweatpants and relishing a bowl of peach ice cream. She’s only come to Paradise Plaza, a ritzy health spa in Santa Barbara, in order to satisfy her domineering mother. During an early morning hike into the mountains, Holly and another guest of the spa are pepper-sprayed, tied up and whisked away by strange assailants. Before long, an obscure organization called Parks for the People posts a ransom demand on the Paradise Plaza website. The kidnappers’ instructions, while peculiar, are clearly spelled out: three public parks must be developed in three separate California towns. Recovering quickly from the initial shock of her daughter’s abduction, Holly’s mother, Connie, shifts into high gear. An extremely competent and high-powered entertainment lawyer, Connie will stop at nothing to ensure that her daughter is returned unharmed. To that end, Connie takes charge of raising the $8 million stipulated by the kidnappers to fund the park “projects.” At the same time, the FBI, local cops and the prying media all struggle to hold on to their turf as the race to find the perpetrators and their victims heats up. As the narrative shifts from various third person points of view, we learn that underneath Connie’s tough exterior, there may beat a genuine heart. We also learn that at least one of Holly’s captors is genuinely concerned about her welfare, and that of her “roommate.” Vanessa Wyatt, a less than talented television actress, is as uninhibited as Holly is shy and not above using her sexuality to suck up (no pun intended) to a very willing abductor. The fact that Vanessa is blindfolded and tied up does little to cramp her style. When the bad guys disagree about tactics and strategies, their scheme quickly unravels. As the situation becomes increasingly dangerous, the usually timid Holly is forced take considerable risks in order to save herself. Taffy Cannon describes this book as her lucky thirteenth novel, and I agree; it’s a real winner. The book’s characters are multi-dimensional; no one’s perfect and the criminals’ motives and personality traits aren’t what the reader might expect. Cannon skillfully describes the complexities of relationships especially that of the introverted Holly and her go-getter mother as well as the unspoken alliance that forms between Holly and one of her captors. The final test of a good book is the author’s ability to tie up loose ends believably, which Cannon does with ease. The bittersweet tone of the epilogue also rings true. All in all, a smart, funny and intriguing book. The above book review was published in CrimeSpree Magazine.

2018-06-15 00:30

Sáng Tư Duy, Tạo Ý Tưởng Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi: Bernhard Schroeder

"Swords of Mars" is the 8th of 11 John Carter of Mars books that Edgar Rice Burroughs gave to the world. It first appeared serially in the "Blue Book Magazine" in six parts, from November 1934 to April 1935, and is one of the best in the Carter series. For the first time since book 3, "The Warlord of Mars," Carter himself takes center stage, rather than making a brief cameo appearance, and his return as the lead character is perhaps the best single element of this book. This time around, Carter goes to the Barsoomian city of Zodanga to put an end to the assassins guild that is thriving there. In the first half of the novel, Carter goes undercover to infiltrate this Murder Inc.-type of organization, and this segment is extremely tense and exciting. In the second half, Carter's wife, Dejah Thoris, in what to any reader of this series must come as an instance of Dejah vu (sorry...couldn't resist!), is abducted again, and Carter follows her kidnappers to one of the Martian moons, using one of that planet's first spaceships. His subsequent adventures on the moon propel the reader into the realm of pure fantasy. Both parts of the novel are as fun as can be, although very much different in tone. This novel features very few of the inconsistencies--both internal and with other books in the series--that mar every previous Carter novel. There are some, however. For example, the great Scarlet Tower of Greater Helium is referred to in this book, whereas in previous novels, this tower was referred to as being in Lesser Helium, and besides which, was destroyed in book 5, "The Chessmen of Mars." More of a problem in the current volume are the book's implausibilities. For example, Carter & company jump out of their spaceship on that Martian moon, without bothering to check on the moon's breathable air. Fortunately, the air is just fine, thank you, although Burroughs makes nothing of this...surprising, given the pains he had taken in previous books to explain the breathable air on Mars itself. The invisibility-inducing hypnosis that the moon people use against Carter is a bit much to buy, but that's alright; it's all in good fun. But Burroughs' theory that a person who lands on this 7-mile-wide moon would be the same relative size that he would be on Mars--in other words, that he would shrink in proportion to the planetoid's mass; his so-called "compensatory adjustment of masses"--is, as Carter puts it, "preposterous," though, as it turns out, such is the case in the book. Like I said, it's all in good fun. And this book IS as fun as they get. Oh...one other nice touch. As pointed out in the ERB List, a fine Burroughs Website, if you take the first letter of each first word of each chapter in this book, you will find a secret message that Burroughs incorporated for his new bride. A nice touch.

Người đọc Neil Edrick từ Pilar, Abra, Philippines

Người dùng coi những cuốn sách này là thú vị nhất trong năm 2017-2018, ban biên tập của cổng thông tin "Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn" khuyến cáo rằng tất cả các độc giả sẽ làm quen với văn học này.