Category Archives: Cool Things

Cool enough to be a category and a tag.

Cool Things: Raiders From the Rings

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Time for a classic sci-fi tale. Raiders From the Rings is a space opera of limited scope that is none the less of excellent quality. Written by Alan E. Nourse and published in 1962 this story is both entertaining and purposeful and, to an extent, it holds water today.

Which is not to say it doesn’t suffer from zeerust, that peculiar brand of datedness that accompanies pretty much any work of science fiction published more than ten or fifteen years ago. Ben Treffon’s space ship runs on atomic fission and antigravity generators, but it’s mother computer reads magnetic tapes and takes commands from punch cards. So before we start, yes, not everything here is bleeding edge scifi. But, if you remember your space opera basics, that’s really not the point.

Plot summary time: Ben Treffon is a member of the Spacers, a group of interplanetary colonists. Ben calls Mars home but the Spacers are scattered everywhere within the Sol system.

Everywhere, that is, but Earth. Earthmen shut the Spacers out a long time ago, casualties of a Cold War that lasted much longer than the one we know. While the vastness of space provides plenty of room for the Spacers, there are some things you can’t get in space. So periodically the Spacers gather together and launch a Raid, diving recklessly through layers of defense satellites and ground based missiles to reach the ground and grab valuable supplies of grain and meat.

The Spacers are very humane, armed with web guns and striving hard not to hurt anyone on their way in or out, and they insist that given the chance they would trade for what they need rather than fight for it. The Earthmen aren’t buying it, however.

Because on ever raid the Spacers also make a point to abduct women.

Not just one or two, but dozens.

Ben Treffon is about to set out on his very first raid and his assignment is mauki recruitment (read – kidnapping duty). After months of careful study, consultation with agents on the surface and analysis of previous Earth response patterns, Spacer High Command have conceived of the following plan:

  1. Crash the Earthling’s singles night.

  2. Abscond with females.

  3. Profit!

Unfortunately, like most plans, this one does not survive it’s encounter with the enemy. In fact, by the time Ben gets back into space, he’s juggling not one but three distinct problems:

  1. He’s abducted a girl but she hates his guts. So much that she’s kneed and elbowed him in them repeatedly.

  2. The girl has a brother, who has come along for the ride in an attempt to rescue his sister. While abducting women is totally kosher, taking men of Earth into space without their consent isn’t just frowned on, it’s illegal.

  3. Decades of raids have allowed Earth to crack some agents and feed the Spacers false information, setting them up to get hit hard this time around and giving Earth time to launch their own fleet and hit the Spacer fleet as it lands. Now, most of the Raid fleet is wreckage and the space between Earth and Mars is crawling with hostiles.

Problems? Ben’s got them. And did I mention the invisible spaceship that’s stalking them?

Nourse is actually kind of leisurely in dealing with all his plot threads, carefully explaining one thing at a time until we have all the pieces and we just have to wait for Ben and company to decide what to do with them. In fact, what Ben and his Earthman companions choose is the hinge of the plot on more than one occasion.

This is where Raiders holds up. As a genre about ideas, science fiction also presents us with the choice of what ideas we will choose to operate under. Nourse goes to a great deal of trouble painting a picture of two conflicting ideas of thought, how they came to be and what people might do about them.

Unfortunately, at the same time, one of his schools of thought, and how that school of thought might become dominant over it’s opponent, are a little naïve and fail to take into account important aspects of human nature. In the world of the Raiders, all that’s needed for peace is less ignorance and more music. While that’s a noble sentiment, and may take your part of the way to achieving your ends, I’m afraid I don’t think it will actually usher in an era of human peace.

But that’s okay! While some aspects of human behavior in this book may look unbelievable, Spacer society itself is quite fun looking, especially once we understand all the dynamics behind it (such as those that lead to the constant kidnapping.) Many of Nourse’s ideas for what might be done with the outer solar system remain in discussion today, a sure sign that he was on the right track with his technological innovations, even if he did wiff on some of the details.

On the whole, if you’re looking for a quick, fun, kind of light-hearted space opera that’s both meaningful and classic, Raiders From the Rings is a good choice.

Cool Things: The Way Things Work

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Let’s talk about the way things work.

Excuse me. Let’s talk about The Way Things Work.

Much better.

This book is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. Neil Ardley wrote and David Macaulay illustrated this excellent tome to take many of the pieces of technology we encounter in the day to day and explain to us, well, the way they work. Done wrong, this process could turn out to be incredibly boring but, thanks to Arley’s conversational writing style and Macaulay’s whimsical illustrations, we find ourselves being interested and engrossed instead. Sure, the books are crawling with wooly mammoths (mimmoths?) and the gizmos aren’t always drawn to perfect scale, but the scientific principles the book engages with are surprisingly deep and thorough.

The book is broken into sections ranging from the very basic mechanical principles up to electricity and primitive electrical devices and, if you pick up the updated version, basic computing ideas. Don’t remember how buoyancy works? Treat yourself to a quick refresher and a chuckle as you watch a hapless mammoth try and keep its balance in a too-small boat. Never understood how a nuclear power plant works? There’s a basic primer here that will leave you with a better understanding of the process – and profoundly grateful that mammoths never got their hands on enriched uranium.

Now there’s not really a whole lot new or unique going on in this book. If you’ve been to a high school physics class you’ve probably seen half or even all of this before, but that’s kind of the point. The Way Things Work takes high school level material and breaks it down to a level that even a young grade school student could easily understand it. In fact, I was in first or second grade when I first read this book and I loved it. Not because I was unusually smart (although I’m not so humble as to deny that I might have been) but because the material was presented in such a simple, straight-forward and engaging way.

The mammoth motif is a great example. Do we need woolly mammoths (and the attendant theories of extinction) on nearly every page to appreciate the ideas presented? No, of course not. But it’s these added touches of whimsy and fun that make the book engrossing and they succeed in making advanced ideas accessible to younger minds. For that alone the book would be worth the price of admission. That the book holds up well to age, continuing to engross and teach us slightly more chronologically advanced folk just adds to the value of the book.

Whether you’re looking for a quick, fun primer to physics and mechanics for a young person(s) in your life, or you just need a quick, fun refresher on the same for yourself, The Way Things Work is the book for you.

Cool Things: The Mark of Zorro

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Okay, that is not actually the plot of The Mark of Zorro but from the moment they meet each other on screen you know it’s what must happen. The razor sharp intensity of Basil Rathbone as Captain Esteban and Tyrone Power as the verbose, lacksidasical Don Diego Vega could not be more at odds with one another. We see the steel under Diego’s façade  for a moment during their first meeting but the shrewd don is quick to hide his dislike for Esteban and his partner in crime, the Alcalde, or governor, Luis Quintero. Instead of public displays against the powers that be, Diego adopts the persona of El Zorro, or The Fox, and becomes one of the first superheroes to grace the silver screen.

While not equipped with superpowers in the traditional sense, or even the advantages of masked geniuses like Batman, Zorro quickly strikes fear into the heart of the corrupt officials of California and, in doing so, rode into the minds of the American people. Zorro is charming, skilled and mysterious and, while things look bleak for a time, he never looses.

You may have noticed that this post begins with a spoiler. But, if you’re at all familiar with swashbuckling films or you’re paying any attention at all to the incredible tension between these two characters you’ll quickly realize that the battle between Power’s Zorro and Rathbone’s Esteban is more than a plot point. It’s an inevitable law of nature. The two must clash, and it will be a battle for the ages.

In fact, more than anything else, it’s the power of these two actors that makes the movie something more than basic swashbuckling fare. Power depicts Zorro with such panache, such flair, such incredible ease of attitude and motion that you can’t help but believe this dashing rogue is really the most shrewd plotter and deadly swordsman in all of California. Rathbone’s signature glare, supreme self-confidence and air of constant readiness is a brilliant contrast. It feels almost as if the two start their duel from their first meeting, only escalating to actual steel when verbal barbs and crafty schemes fail to get them what they want.

Oh, there are other brilliant moments in the movie. At any moment with Zorro or Esteban on the screen, they dominate it. When they share a scene we cannot tell where to look. There literally isn’t room for both of them there, and sooner or later one of them will have to go. For a study in well crafted rivalry there really is no film better than this one (although there might be some just as  good.)

The greatest tribute to any black and white film is to say it’s still worth watching today. For most swashbucklers, even some only a decade or two old, this isn’t the case. The acting tends to be mediocre, the action dated.

It’s true that the sword battles in The Mark of Zorro could be shot better, with better cinematography or special effects. But in terms of actual sword work these two actors are peerless and they demonstrate their skill with little of the flare or embellishment you see in action movies today – there’s nothing here but pulse pounding action.

The acting, as you’ve hopefully already gathered, is incredible.

The plot is timeless. We’ve all heard this story a million times before, but we don’t care because it’s such a fundamental tale. Sure, it’s not the greatest script, but sometimes it doesn’t have to be.

The Mark of Zorro. Watch it. You won’t be disappointed.

Cool(?) Things: The 48 Laws of Power

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Here in the US we’re starting to boot up our presidential election cycle, a two year political circus we endure after a very brief two year vacation. It’s about this time in the four year cycle that I revisit a book that has been very influential in my thinking and writing, Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power. While not exactly ‘cool’ in the sense that it makes you go ‘wow’ or inspires you to shove it into the hands of random people on the street, this book is still a must read for anyone who intends to live in a theoretically free and democratic society like a constitutional republic.

The 48 Laws is nonfiction and, like most nonfiction, it’s pretty much what it says on the tin. Greene opens his book with an introduction to power, why people seek it and why they keep it, and offers some basic warnings to the casual reader. This is not a book of right and wrong, not a thing of moral imperatives, but a book of things people have done in the past and that have resulted in those people amassing or keeping hold of power. It then plunges into each of the 48 laws, each with a short chapter on how the law has been proven, both by people who obeyed it and prospered and those who disobeyed it and suffered, and how the law might be implemented practically. Each chapter is packed with amusing anecdotes, cautionary tales and useful memory devices. The book ends with a bibliography of sources, in case you want to delve deeper into examples of any of the laws of power you’ve just studied. The book doesn’t need to be read in any particular order, and could just serve as a handy guidebook on manipulating people.

If you’re into that kind of thing.

Greene doesn’t waste any space in The 48 Laws. Each law is quickly explained and it’s implications explored thoroughly but succinctly. A powerful person will only spend as much time as is necessary on a thing, after all. For all that, it’s very informative and engrossing. The pages are populated by historical figures, well known and obscure, who’s cunning and wisdom has ensured that they find and stand in places of power. It’s much like entering an exclusive club and finding it full of witty, gregarious people who are willing to tell you anything you want to know. They probably realize that if you can understand what they’re telling you, you’d have figured it out on your own. So why not share? They’re not around for you to bother any more.

Why read The 48 Laws of Power? For starters, it’s a great villain’s guidebook. Both Circuit and Senator Brahms Dawson, the primary antagonists in my Project Sumter stories, use gambits or adopt policies that are derived from reading this book. Of course, Helix and others also demonstrate some of the laws but they rarely do so deliberately.

There’s also a goldmine of human psychology here. You don’t have to actively seek to amass power to glean lessons about how your mind and the minds of others works and benefit from them. And, of course, as you may already realize from reading this blog, I don’t think power in itself is a bad thing. Getting power for it’s own sake will undoubtedly make one a villain and advancing the wrong causes with your power can easily do more harm than good. But simply because you’re armed with the strategies and techniques of power doesn’t make you a bad person.

And that brings me to why I’m recommending this book at this time. Politicians are all about power and manipulation. They use the laws of power frequently and shamelessly. Reading Greene’s book will ready you for those techniques and equip you to see past them and analyze what lies behind the power. Is it selfishness? An unworthy cause? A worthy one? These are things worth knowing. And once you know, well, that’s half the battle.

And that’s very cool, indeed.

Cool Things: Noir

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Noir is a genre pioneered in the nineteen twenties and thirties that focuses on the seedy underbelly of society and those that try to make their way through it. The name is derived from the French word for black. Since this is not Genrely Speaking, we’ll leave the background information at that. The subject of this post is an anime series by that name.

Anime, for those not in the know that don’t feel like wading through the Wikipedia page, is an animated story, either of TV length or movie length, produced in Japan. Following today’s theme, the word itself is borrowed from French.

Noir is a 26 episode TV series that aired in 2001. It is primarily set in Europe and focuses on the activities of a pair of assassins for higher that operate by the codename Noir. Our protagonists are Mireille Bouquet and Kirika Yuumura, two assassins who are connected by family, history and conspiracy. Most of the series focuses on the characters, slowly developing them from fairly generic killers for hire into characters that stick with their work for reasons we can almost sympathize with – if they didn’t require piles of bodies.

Like most noir stories, our protagonists are strongly principled; keeping to codes of conduct that are as strict as they are alien to most people. And, like most noir characters, they also hope to get out of the game once they reach their goal. In the case of Mireille, revenge, for Kirika, the truth. These motives become clear only slowly and our understanding of them only comes as Mireille and Kirika learn to trust each other, a process that takes most of the first half of the series.

The second half of the story revolves around the way our heroines pull themselves out of the twisted circumstances that made them what they are.

Noir relies heavily on themes of irredeemable sin and unlooked-for grace. It’s no accident that one of the series two leitmotifs is Salva Nos, a Roman Catholic funeral mass set to a pounding techno beat. As cold-blooded killers, Mireille and Kirika have little room to expect a fulfillment of their goals. But, perhaps out of a desire to find some measure of redemption, they’re far more forgiving than you might expect of assassins. In turn they both manage to find moments of grace even in their dark circumstances.

The pacing of Noir is a bit slow, probably because they had to fill an entire 26 episode season, but the story feels very fulfilling when it ends. Like most noir stories the ending isn’t exactly happy, but it is hopeful. You can find some measure of hope that the survivors can finally set the darkness they’ve lived in behind them – though where they might go from there is a bit of a troubling question.

As a show that focuses on girls with guns, action sequences are a pretty important part of the series and Noir delivers hand over fist. The fight choreography will definitely remind dedicated action movie watchers of movies like The Matrix or The Book of Eli. Cante per Me and Salva Nos embody Noir‘s conflicting senses of wistfulness and pounding adrenaline and serve as the backdrop of some  artfully executed gun battles, highlights of one of pro composer Yuki Kajiura’s early works.

Looking for a show that mixes thoughtfulness and action, a dark plot with a dash of hope? Willing to take “cartoons” with a more serious bent to them? Noir might be a thing for you.

Cool Things: Witness For The Prosecution

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Sometimes you talk to people about black and white films and you get the sense that they somehow feel that they were… naïve. That early Hollywood was too constrained by censors and the studio owners to make films that really grappled with the hard issues of life.

When you find these people, make them watch this film.

Witness for the Prosecution is a courtroom drama set in London, England, and staring Charles Laughton as Sir Wilfrid Robarts, Barrister. (An aside: If you don’t know what a barrister is, suffice it to say that they’re English trial lawyers, which is to say they specialize in courtroom cases and legal briefs. They don’t to wills or contracts, that’s a solicitor’s job. If you want more than broad, vague generalizations you can follow the proceeding links to Wikipedia.) Wilfrid is approached by Leonard Vole (the debonair Tyrone Power) who is seeking a lawyer to defend him from charges of murdering a rich older lady who had made him the main beneficiary of her will. Wilfrid is in poor health and has a nurse, Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lanchester), who says trying the case will be bad for him. Wilfrid shows his sharp, argumentative mind by somehow turning his health into a reason for Miss Plimsoll to serve as his girl Friday and we’re off to the races.

Like most tales of love and money, this one winds through many strange paths on its way to the resolution. It is, in fact, less about who committed the murder than how the trial will turn out, much like the John Grisham novel The Runaway Jury. It’s based on an Agatha Christie story but, unlike many Agatha Christie stories, it doesn’t hinge on complicated timing or who is or is not left handed. Rather, it hinges on human nature and psychology. These things alone would make it a good movie, but not a great one.

However, the actors are all excellent, the screenplay moves briskly and, more than anything, the final plot twists are stunning. I’m not going to explain them here because, not only are spoilers generally a bad thing, the movie actually comes with a voice-over at the end warning the audience not to discuss the ending with people who haven’t seen the movie! You can tell they didn’t have the Internet back then.

Perhaps more than anything, what comes through in this film is clear insight into the darker side of human nature. While it’s not always pleasant viewing it certainly isn’t naïve, either. Whether you watch it for the story or the acting, I assure you that you won’t be disappointed.

Cool Things: Elemental Blessings

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Okay, let’s just get this out in the open right now – I’m not a big fan of romance novels. They’re typically predictable and unrealistic not to mention the fact that, put bluntly, I’m male and not the target demographic. That said, it’s not like I dislike romance per se, just the way a lot of romance novels present it. An in depth analysis of this, and why I dislike it, might be the topic of a Genrely Speaking post one day, so we’ll let that subject lie.

Instead, let’s look at a romance series I have taken a liking to – Sharon Shinn’s Elemental Blessings novels.

These novels fall into a subgenre I’ll call fantastic romance, though that term technically applies to 99% of everything in the romance genre,  and it’s set in a totally fictional world. While Chialto lacks magic in the sense that most fantasy readers are familiar with, it does have an interesting way of breaking down the people who live there.

The people of Chialto are classified into the five elements of Chinese alchemy (well, very nearly as Shinn chose to replace metal with earth). The classifications of fire, water, air, earth and wood, and their attendant characteristics, will sound very familiar to anyone who’s ever taken a personality quiz, but they also serve a more philosophical purpose, helping people decide on courses of action and also embodying blessings people can expect in life.

Shinn builds a world full of culture and myth. It’s not just the elemental take on personality assessment. The blessings the series takes its name from is an interesting kind of fortune telling, with people pulling coins stamped with their blessings from baskets or barrels to get some hint of what the future has to bring – everything from travel and change to power and triumph and, of course, love. Add in the significance of the numbers three, five and eight, a chaotic and stormy political situation as king and queens fight over throne and succession, and powerful noble families falling in and out of favor and it all starts to look quite dizzying.

Not to worry. While Chialto is an incredibly rich backdrop for stories it is still just that – the backdrop. Each of the two stories (so far) set there is careful to keep the attention firmly on much more familiar things. A devoted daughter who has just lost her father. A man too stoic to speak plainly and loyal to a fault. A woman with great compassion in difficult circumstances. A boy who never quite found a reason to grow up even as he approaches his third decade of life.

These are the kinds of people who inherit Shinn’s world. They bounce off of each other in odd and surprising ways. There is little of fate at work, and a lot of the chaos and unpredictability of day to day life. Rarely are there breathy speeches or banal flirting. But the connections between the characters are no less deep or convincing for it – in fact, I would venture to say that they are much, much stronger.

Oh, and one of the girls calls on the river to flood a city. That’s pretty awesome, if you’re in to that kind of thing.

But if it’s not, don’t worry as that’s not a major focus of the books, either. If you like romance, political intrigue or fantastic world building, I would highly recommend this series.

Cool Things: RWBY

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For those who are wondering, RWBY is pronounced “ruby” which also happens to be the name of  the main character. Just thought I should get that out of the way so it wouldn’t be bothering you as we dive into things.

So what is RWBY? Well, in short it’s an original animated series concepted by Monty Oum, who was also the animation director. If you’re not familiar with the work of Monty Oum his early video Icarus is a good primer to his style (although it’s a bit dated). Check it out via the link or watch below if you want.

Now RWBY has a lot more going for it than just a few minutes of intense, artistic, acrobatic action – although if that’s all your looking for I assure you that it will deliver in spades. It also has some things in common with other works from Rooster Teeth studios, namely humorous characters with strong, if somewhat stereotyped personalities. The voice acting cast is fair and it delivers truly stellar music across the board.

This isn’t to say the series doesn’t have weaknesses. For example, it’s very short. The first sixteen episodes, which more or less constitute a season, have a total running time shorter than many feature films. With a cast of eight central characters and a robust gallery of supporting characters it feels like both plot and characters are slow to develop, and sometimes it feels like they’re wasting time trying to hit all the school/magic monster hunter tropes when they should be focusing on other things. Like the previously mentioned plot and characters. After all, they don’t have a whole lot of time to work on these things to begin with…

Also, the world everything is set in feels kind of bland. If you’ve ever read any manga or watched any anime – and RWBY is highly influenced by Japanese entertainment, as you might expect from a series who’s creator is best known for his video game fan videos – the structure of the series will be terribly familiar. No, he’s not just ripping off Harry Potter, the ‘school for people with incredible abilities’ trope has been done quite a bit and RWBY’s Beacon Academy is just another take on the trope. Toss in magic rocks, monsters quietly gnawing away at the edges of civilization and humans jockeying for personal power while the empire burns and you get – at least 40% of all fantasy aimed at young adults in the last 20 years. More or less.

BUT it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, and all those tropes are just tools anyways. The real question is, Does RWBY deliver?

Well, fact is it’s early to tell but so far things look promising. For starters, the series as a whole doesn’t take itself at all seriously. It brims with fun, from the way everyone packs heat (I mean, seriously, middle schoolers with SNIPER RIFLES?!) to the hilarious antics of the shamefully underused Nora there’s never a dull moment on Beacon’s campus. The bumbling Jaune Arc (subtle, no?) provides comic relief while still hinting at good things to come while Ruby herself has a number of promising avenues for character exploration and growth.

A lot of the opening episodes are spent on world building, exposition on politics, powers and the like. We still get to know some things about our characters but there’s a definite sense that, once all this pesky worldbuilding is done, the plot can really get going somewhere. Of course, the limited amount of time to present things doesn’t help things any, but that’s probably just part of the format we’re going to have to live with.

What it boils down to is, if you want an animated series that is fast paced, fun and a bit different than the typical fare, RWBY might be for you. Sure, it’s not Pixar quality, but then, what is? At the very least, check it out to support the small, independent studios out there. If you do like it, stay tuned. I’m sure I’ll find the time somewhere for more analysis of it once further episodes come out…

Local Theater: The Princess and the Goblin

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Your local arts community deserves your support. Sure, unless you live in New York, L.A. or Chicago, or some other large city, it’s not likely that you have a world class arts scene available. But there’s still a lot of very high quality stuff out there if you’ll only take the time to look for it.

Now I can’t say how much of a local theater scene your town has, but here in Fort Wayne there’s a number of impressive local theater groups to choose from. As longtime readers of this blog know, one that I’m very fond of is all for One Productions, and whenever they stage a new show I make it a point to tell you about it. Their latest show is The Princess and the Goblin, based on the book by George MacDonald, and it’s a bit different from their usual fare. For starters, it’s all one act – there will be no intermission in this show. Okay, okay, nothing earth-shattering about that.

Another big thing is that The Princess and the Goblin is aimed at a younger audience. But, perhaps the biggest difference of all, it will be the first afO production to make extensive use of dancers, who will not speak, both as extras and as set pieces (trust me this will make sense when you see it.) While hardly a musical in the traditional sense, it still promises to be an experience for all the senses.

If you’re not familiar with the story, a quick teaser goes something like this – long ago men fled the kingdom above and hid in tunnels under a mountain. Now they scheme revenge against the king and his daughter, and the miners who’s mines grow ever closer to the borders of the goblin’s lands. Princess Irene, the strange lady who claims to be her grandmother and Curdie the miner boy will all ultimately have a part to play in keeping the kingdom safe. Expect lots of humor and rhymes, with a touch of mystery and the bizarre to liven things up. It’s a show suited to the whole family.

Ticket prices and showtime information can be found here. Hope to see you there!

Cool Things: Nicholas Lenoir

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E.L. Tettensor’s debut novel is a real doozy.

Let’s review. Has it got crime? Yes, and in spades. Grave robbing, assult, kidnapping, corruption – it’s all there. Has it got a trouble protagonist? Inspector Lenoir has run away from his job twice, once by literally leaving town and again by giving up on doing things right in his adopted home. Has it got weird, paranormal stuff going on in a vaguely Victorian alternate world? Yeah, I guess it kind of does.

So Darkwalker is a lot of stuff all rolled together. Fortunately for readers, Tettensor does an excellent job of balancing it all and making it work. Like most crime novels juggling a multitude of plot threads, Darkwalker features a number of crimes, some of which dovetail together and some of which point the investigator towards future cases. And some of which just serve to give us insight into the detective who investigates them.

Nicolas Lenoir is the man who investigates, and he’s an interesting mix. On the one hand, he’s clearly a man of strong principles. He’s a member of the police, after all, and once upon a time he was successful enough to gain a reputation. But at the same time his own standards of justice don’t seem to do much against the reality of pervasive corruption and power-broking that is typical of any society larger than two people. He’s old, disillusioned and haunted.

Quite literally, in fact. At some point in the past Lenoir made a compromise and wound up being hunted for it. The Darkwalker that stalks him is just as remorseless an agent of justice as Lenoir himself, but its task is above all human laws and immune to the power of human influence. No corruption, bribery or threat will have sway against it.

Too bad it wants Lenoir dead.

The one point in Lenoir’s life that isn’t defined by apathy and regret is his mentoring of an orphan named Zach, who aspires to be a policeman himself one day. When Zach goes missing while helping Lenoir with some inquiries the old copper will have to dust off his skills and slap some life into underused muscles. If he’s clever and lucky maybe, just maybe, he can save the kid before his own reckoning comes.

While there’s not much in Darkwalker that hasn’t been done elsewhere the book does have a charm all its own. For starters, it doesn’t try to do too much in a single volume. Lenoir clearly has a significant history and deep personal convictions, but other than a few hints we don’t really see any more than the plot needs to progress. That keeps things moving and our interest firmly on the present. It also has a society that manages to be full of realistic problems of social standing, political corruption and discrimination without preaching about it at all, a feat rarely accomplished by any author. But most of all it treats all its characters with understanding and heart, even when it doesn’t hesitate to bring it’s criminals to justice.

If you like paranormal investigations or just a good pulp adventure, Darkwalker may be for you.