Book Report: “Veracity” Followup

I’m a bit late with this followup but the gist of it is that the villain of the story, a female psychopath, was behind the attempt to not only off the inventor of the technology but was planning to give the technology to the Chinese so that their power-hungry leader could subjugate his people… and take over the world.

It turns out that she was able to beat the perfect lie detector despite being a psychopath: She reprogrammed the software to ignore the fact that she was lying and had been all along. But the hero of the story figured it out and exposed her plot and made a deal with her: Help him rescue his father, who’d been snatched by Chinese operatives, and he’d let her go free and with a promise not to hunt her down like the mad dog she apparently was.

The rescue was messy but successful and as the hero was taking the villain to a vehicle to complete his end of the bargain, his wife – who, let’s say, via a lie of omission – double-tapped the hussy and, as she told her husband and psychopathic bad girl, everyone else agreed to let her go… but she didn’t and couldn’t.

Throughout the rest of the story, it was debated heavily about whether the world was ready for this technology – should it be released or suppressed? They decided to release it to the whole world at once so that no one country could have an advantage, make it affordable to everyone, all that good stuff… and life goes on.

The author had a lot of interesting stuff at the end of the book; he likes to explain what’s fiction and what’s reality and that, all by itself, makes for some interesting reading given how much of what he wrote is based on factual data.

 

Book Report: “Veracity”

This book, written by Douglas E. Richards, is about a tech genius inventing a technology that would eliminate lying and, of course, there are some folks who’d prefer this technology to never be revealed. The book is pretty good so far but the thing that got my attention are the early chapters – and before the expected violence – where our, um, hero’s father was explaining – and in mind-numbing detail – what led him to invent the perfect lie detector and one that even the best psychopaths couldn’t fool.

Mr. Richards, via his character in the book, gives a pretty damned accurate picture and accounting of how humans behave and why, up to an including how (and why) the media and politicians behave when it comes to, ah, not really telling the truth and the impact it has on us.

I won’t even try to provide an example due to the sheer content of the hero’s father’s rather extensive dissertation; even the hero was wondering when his father was gonna get to the point and as I read, yeah, I was wondering about that myself. Still, it was fascinating and while the book is more of a techno-thriller (that’s pretty thrilling so far), I think the “history of lying” makes this book worth reading all by itself, both the pros and cons of this behavior, you know, if you ever wondered about it.

Mr. Richards even cites notable and real experts in this – I looked one such reference up and, yup, the guy was for real and did say what was written in the book so it’s not all creative license.

I’ll let you know how the rest of the book turns out but suffice it to say that, at the point I’m at, it’s not going well for the good guys. I got the book using my Kindle Unlimited subscription – it’s free for me to read (but costs $9.99/month to subscribe) and this is one of the books that makes spending my $9.99 worth the expense and more so given how much I read and I read a lot and that’s being nice about it.

 

Books Report

I read… a lot. One of my reading loves is science fiction and some time ago, I came across a nine-book series written by Ian Douglas that I just love going back and reading over and over. The nine books are broken down into three trilogies: The Heritage Trilogy, the Legacy Trilogy, and the Inheritance Trilogy. The books – in order per their respective trilogies are:

Semper Mars, Luna Strike, Europa Strike

Star Corps, Battlespace, Star Marines

Star Strike, Galactic Corps, Semper Human.

It’s a series of stories about the United States Marine Corps taking the fight to not only the other planets in our solar system but throughout intergalactic space and the action is very good, like, in one book, the ever-present enemy – The Xul – feels the wrath of humanity and the USMC after they dropped some asteroids on Earth and the Marines retaliated by literally sand-blasting major Xul hub and this, in particular, is one of my favorite moments in all of the nine books.

But as with such books, this isn’t just a story about humanity against [yet another] implacable, xenophobic super race; they are stories that tell the history of the Marines, from their inception 10 November 1775 and, for,the books, covering more than 1100 years and despite politicians trying to disband the Corps for either being redundant or too damned different from the people and government they’ve sworn to protect. If you don’t know a whole lot about the history of the US Marines, well, you’ll find out a few things and, hell, I served in the Air Force and reading these books gives me much respect for the Marines, you know, despite inter service rivalry.

One of the ongoing themes throughout the books reflects real-life attitudes: Men and women, regardless of branch of service and in defense of our way of life, lay down their lives and at the whim of the civilian government only to be dissed when all,the killing is over and these brave souls could use more and better support from those who order them to die if need be.

Just like in these books, politicians seem to forget that our service people make it possible for them to carry on the way they do – including treating those same service people like red-headed stepchildren and tossing them aside like refuse… until, of course, they’re called on once more to put their lives on the line.

These books capture this mindset quite well, just as it captures what it’s like to go through basic training; oh, man, reading the way the Marine DIs jump all over new recruits right from the beginning – and reading their reactions (and one I know all too well). The books take you to the stars but in a very human way and seen through the eyes and lives of certain key characters and their families across the many generations. Many of these families are generations of Marines, from a lowly PFC and including a Commandant of the Marine Corps. At times, the books are a bit hard to follow because you see what will become familiar names – Galloway, Warhurst, Alexander… but hundreds of years have passed since the events of Semper Mars, which shows the meaning of the words, improvise, adapt, and overcome.

These books have been around for a while but I never get tired of reading them and how the Marines, who are usually doomed to do more with a lot less, stick together as a family to carry out their sworn duty. The books speaks to the meaning of Semper Fidelis – always faithful – when the enemy seeks to wipe them and humanity from existence… and Earth politics try to accomplish a similar goal.

If you’re a fan of these kinds of books, find them. Read them.

 

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter

If you’ve never read this series of books by Laurell K. Hamilton, you should.  We have all of the books in the series and I’ve read them all and, recently, started reading them again just for the fun of it.  Laurell, wow, this chick can write her ass off and this series not only deals with vampires, wereanimals, and other spooky things, but Laurell can bring the noise when it’s time for her characters to get naked and get busy.

Anita is a necromancer by birth – she raises the dead for a living and her side job is hunting down and executing rogue vampires and is one tough, no-nonsense, gun-toting and, often, cold-blooded bitch… but not really.  Early on, you learn that the devoutly religious Anita – a necessity so that when facing a vampire, your cross will work – is also the biggest prude I’ve ever seen in a book; while she doesn’t believe in the picket fence and 2.5 kids and a dog thing, she doesn’t believe in premarital sex and is a one woman, one man kind of girl.

Until she eventually runs into Richard and Jean-Claude; Richard’s an alpha werewolf, Jean-Claude a master vampire and Master of the City of Saint Louis and from there, the shit really hits the fan for our plucky heroine.  I just love the way Laurell gets Anita into all kinds of predicaments, things that run totally contrary to what she believes and then makes her deal with them, often in rather spectacular fashion.  Anita, also known as the Executioner because she has more legal vampire kills than anyone in the country, will put a bullet in you without even thinking about it… but when it comes to her abilities, love, and sex, sheesh, she’s so deeply in denial that as I re-read the series, I keep rolling my eyes and fussing at her because she does understand what’s going on with her… but she refuses to accept it.

As a character in a book, Anita just gets on my last good nerve at times!  She’s tougher than most men… but she’s also such a naive little girl at times and, well, it’s just fun to read how Laurell makes this contradiction work – and it does work.  It’s probably chick lit… and if it is, it’s the only chick lit I’ll ever read.

Laurell brings to the table a lot of good shit, from heterosexual sex to poly relationships, with a good dose of D/s and other BDSM things tossed in for good measure and, oh, yeah, there’s gay sex in there as well and even if you, as the reader, don’t believe in such things for yourself, I’ll go out on a limb and say that you will find these particular predicaments Anita gets herself into rather delightful to read.

The one thing that stands out to me is the internal conflict she has regarding monsters.  She hunts them and kills them… but some of the monsters become her friends and lovers… and, oh, yeah, given what she does for a living and the powers she has, she’s one of the monsters, too… and she never quite gets her head around that – again, she understands that she’s never really been human in that sense… but in the early parts of the series, she just refuses to accept it, can’t deal with the true nature of her power as a necromancer and, when the powers of her lovers, Jean-Claude and Richard, are added to the mix, oh, man, I just love the way it all fucks with her!  She sees and understands the necessity of all of this… but accepting it?  Oh, man, she drives me nuts with this, and it makes me give Laurell very major props for her ability to weave a story and characters so well that it makes me want to slap the shit out of them at times.

If you’ve read the whole series, read it again; if you haven’t read it, I recommend that you do, chick lit or not.  If you like magic, zombies, vampires, werewolves, and other creepy things, you can get your fill of them by reading this series.  The only thing I have to say ‘bad’ about the series as it progresses is that Laurell tends to focus more on the relationship/sexual aspects of Anita’s life than her powers as a first-class necromancer – Anita doesn’t raise the dead enough to make me happy because the way Laurell writes it, man, it sounds so damned cool!

 

Ender’s Game

I love to read science fiction and I recently ran across “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card.  This book has been around for a while and I’m not sure how it managed to escape me – but it did.  I read the synopsis of the book and said, hell, why not – let’s give it a read.

And I’m so glad that I did.  The quick and dirty version is that after Earth had two wars with a lifeform they call ‘buggers’, the powers that be are looking for someone to command the Earth forces in an attack on the bugger’s homeworld… and the person they think will fill the job perfectly is a six-year-old genius, who is a special third child in a society where only two children are allowed.  In fact, Ender’s brother and sister are geniuses in their own right but while they failed to be selected, Ender was – and his life would change forever.

I can see why this book won so many coveted awards; it’s stunning and even shocking and kinda reminds me of the movie “Soldier” (starring Kurt Russell) in how they turned a mild-mannered kid into a highly efficient killer and such a good one that he commits xenocide against the buggers… but he thought that he was playing a game, a really good simulation that was supposed to prepare him to command Earth’s fleet in the coming attack.

I couldn’t stop reading it.  While checking out the author’s official page, I learned that Harrison Ford and a whole slew of Academy Award nominees and winners were picked to do the movie, due out 01 November 13 according to IMDB.com

I hope it’s as good as the book is…

 

A Book Review

In case you’ve forgotten, I am a prolific reader and one of the ebooks I’ve just started reading is called – wait for it – “Pussy Whisperers,” by Dean Jean-Pierre.  When I saw the title, I kinda rolled my eyes and thought, “Okay, another ‘how to eat pussy’ book…” but the title so intrigued me that I hooked it up.  Just going through the rather long preface had me wondering if I’d made a mistake but, well, fuck it – I have the book so I might as well go ahead and see what the brother’s whispering about.

It seems to be different “stories” about women and, basically, how men are doing a number on them like no one has ever done it before.  It’s rather explicit… but, well, it’s a book that a man might write and more so if he’s writing about  women as primary characters or subjects.  To me, this is pretty funny…

Anyway, I was reading the first vignette where the girl is saying that she’s dick-whipped; my mind automatically said that if a guy can be pussy-whipped, well, why not the opposite?  The girl is rather amazed that she’s addicted to this one guy’s dick and, at the risk of getting into trouble, I need to show you what was written about this:

“You Know You Are Addickted When:

1. The sound of his voice sends your already turned on body into shivers and just sucking his dick can give you an orgasm. You have never relished sucking a dick as much as you do now because every suck of his throbbing head can make you come without him even penetrating you.

2. You wake up screaming his name in a pool of your own cum and you masturbate multiple times while enjoying a picture of his dick on your computer or cell phone while sitting at your desk at work. You also made sure to send his dick pictures to your multiple e-mail accounts—just in case they somehow were accidentally deleted from one account—you will have extra copies.

3. You find yourself doing and saying things that at first make you cringe that you have become this person who allows her desires to overwhelm her senses. The words that come from your mouth shocks you but you can no longer help yourself because your body and mind are constantly on fire for his touch, his kisses…his dick that you want to mold so it can always be with you.

4. You know in your heart that you are heading down a one-way street and you can’t turn back but you are powerless to resist what you are feeling. Addictions by their very nature usually don’t end well but you don’t care—just this one time, you will throw caution to the wind as the sensual pleasure that has invaded your life makes you do so.

5. You neglect your friends just on the off chance that he might drop by or call you. You want to be ready just in case he decides to come by for a few minutes.”

At first, I was laughing my ass off… until I thought, “Hey, that sounds familiar.”  I thought about the times when I’ve actually had this told to me (no, I’m not bragging and they could have been pulling my leg, too) and, well, I stopped laughing pretty quick.  I get further into the story and while it’s no longer funny, it does have me rolling my eyes at how the man in the story broke this girl’s back and a few other things, too, like making her deep-throat his 11″ dick (oh, come the fuck on) “against her will” and licking her juices from his XX Magnum condom.

Still, as you read this one – or, as I read it – I was shaking my head over a lot of things about this story.  Not that the basic “premise” can’t be true but just over the way the author wrote it.  It didn’t offend me… but I wasn’t getting my head around it either because, as I said in the beginning, this is a man writing a book about what women think about sex and all that… and it’s still funny – it’s hard to explain why.

So, at the end of this story, they get walked-in on by the cleaning crew and the characters’ reaction to this had me rolling my eyes again… but on to the next story.

The next story just took me out to lunch – sex with fruit salad.  Okay, I’ve done it a few times in my life and sometimes it’s been fun, sometimes not… and it’s about as messy as anything can get.  Anywho, the married couple in this one is doing shit with fruit that not even I would think about doing – that should tell you something.  There’s really not a whole lot I can say about this one other than you gotta be fucking kidding me!  Food and sex, well, yeah, people do it but, oddly, I didn’t find the author’s rendition of this sex game to be all that interesting.

In the third, we have a what I’d call a monologue about how someone feels about making love… and it’s so sappy that I can’t think of anyone who’d write something like this and not sound like they’re still in the 7th grade.

In the fourth, we have a CEO who ain’t liked too much because rumor has it she fucked the previous CEO to get into the position to become CEO – even though she was more than qualified via experience and education.  Anyway, she’s fed up with the bullshit in the office about how she got her job and decides she needs a massage… and some dick.  Her “regular” masseuse isn’t there so another dude is assigned to loosen her up and, oh, yeah, he loosened her ass up big time.

I see again the theme of, “I normally don’t even think about doing shit like this!” but they’re doing it anyway – rolling my eyes again even though I know such things happen – and this dude just does a number on her like never before, extra large dick and all – but that’s not the end of it.  She goes back to the office, totally and completely well-fucked but bent out of shape because it happened – still wanna know why men think women are insane? – and decides to shower at work.

Ah, but what she doesn’t know is that the girl who’s been spreading the rumor about how our main character got her job has the hots for her, finds out she’s taking a shower and decides to join her… then helps herself to some pussy.  Okay, sure… maybe that could happen and maybe it has… but it still “smells” like some man’s idea, if you’re feeling me so far.  By the way, the new CEO revealed that while she did go to fuck her predecessor, nothing really happened – he couldn’t get it up for her.

That reminds me… has anyone ever heard of a pussy being referred to as either “pretty wings” or “sweet pork?”

I’m still reading this one and despite my opinions thus far, I think it’s an interesting read.  It does, in a way, “bother” me because it depicts women being needy and the men basically just taking what they want from them.  There’s a great deal of sex and lust in this book so far… but it’s lacking something I can’t quite put my finger on right now.  It’s modern-day porn – whether it’s at its best or not remains to be seen; I’ll have to finish “Pussy Whisperers” and remember to come back and tell you about the rest of this book…

For those with a Kindle or the Kindle app on their phones, you can find this book for $0.99 on Amazon (free if you’re an Amazon Prime member).  If you don’t have a Kindle but have an app that reads the ePUB format, gimme a holla and I’ll hook you up with a copy (in defiance of SOPA/PIPA).