Albert of Adelaide-Howard Anderson

Albert of Adelaide


Howard Anderson

Hachette/Twelve, Jul 10 2012, $24.99

ISBN 9781455509621



Bored of captivity, Albert the duck-billed platypus escapes from Adelaide Zoo. His objective is to find the Old Australia in the Outback. However, Albert begins to miss his ennui incarceration as he arrives severely sunburned in the place where he believes modernization has not occurred.



However, the human towns are no longer filled with people, but instead a crew of animals who behave differently from those he knew in Adelaide. He meets Jack the elderly arsonist wombat in the gates of Hell. Albert also encounters gay alcoholic bandicoots. To his surprise he adjusts to the nightmarish land that is nothing like his utopian fantasy by committing roadside robberies. When he is arrested and convicted to hang, Albert meets the legendary Tasmanian devil Muldoon.



This is a terrific parable in which the protagonist learns the Thomas Wolfe mantra You Can’t Go Home Again as it does not exist outside your memories or in Albert’s case his mythological dreams. The storyline starts leisurely introducing readers to Albert in Adelaide, but once the hero goes on the road and encounters life in the wild, the plot accelerates into a coming of age anthropomorphic action thriller.



Harriet Klausner

Adventures of the Almighty One-Joe Dieckman

Adventures of the Almighty One


Joe Dieckman

V-Wind Publishing, Jul 21 2012, $11.50

PO Box 1031; Elgin, Il 60121-1031

ISBN: 9780982877326



“Adventures of the Almighty One.” Basher leaves his motorcycle mom to hit the road on a too small moped. At a secluded diner, Basher meets an overweight woman who he calls his lady love. They leave together only to run into violent bikers before Handlebar Hank joins their odyssey.



“The Message.” Tridoan the Messenger claims “God is Love” and without the “spirit of love”, man does cruel things whether it is Nazi Germany or the early Christian Church, or loses sight of love like prideful Nebuchadnezzar. Tridoan follows this up with a plea to the scribe’s home America where slavery in many forms still exist instead of “love thy neighbor”.



“Handyman: A Day With The Hot Fox.” The widower raises his six year old child alone working as a handyman. A frantic woman demands he make repairs before her daughter’s fifth birthday bash. His customer is a hyperactive lunatic who treats him with disdain, keeps adding chores to be done and changes her clothing into increasingly provocative outfits. Finally he flees without the money he earned. Oddly, not long afterward he and his son are invited to attend her daughter’s bash.



This is an odd but well written intriguing short story collection about love. “Adventures of the Almighty One” and “Handyman” star fascinating protagonists in weird somewhat comedic yet also grave situations; both are engaging shots that readers who appreciate something entertainingly different will appreciate. “The Message” is an inspirational poem imploring people to love one another. Though well written that feels out of place with the other two entries.



Harriet Klausner

Ravishing the Heiress-Sherry Thomas

Ravishing the Heiress


Sherry Thomas

Berkley, Jul 3 2012, $7.99

ISBN 9780425250877



In 1888, the wealthy sixteen year old daughter of the tin sardine king Millicent Graves and the new Earl of Fitzhugh marry as he desperately needs money to keep his destitute family from ruin and she obtains a noble title though his late thirty-something predecessor was had dad’s first choice. They share their first kiss but Millie persuades her nineteen years old husband to wait eight years before they consummate their vows as she hopes to win his heart, which belongs to Lady Isabelle Pelham; her rationale is she is only sixteen. He accepts her request.



They have lived together as best friends but the couple live separate lives until 1896 when the time to make their marriage real has arrived. Millie has loved Fitz since she first saw him, but believes his heart belongs to the widow Mrs. Isabelle Englewood, who has returned to London with two small children to claim him as hers. The offspring of a manufacturer knows she cannot compete with the lovely widow who is her mate’s peer, but though she knows he will fulfill their vow, she will do the right thing for him even though her heart will break.



This is a charming Victorian romance summed up nicely by Millie’s friend Venetia when she says “friendship is what gives love its wings.” Sub-genre readers will enjoy this tender tale of love as Millie and Fitz distrust their love is reciprocated so hide how they feel out of fear of losing their friendship. Sherry Thomas provides a wonderful historical.



Harriet Klausner

Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues-Diana Rowland

Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues


Diana Rowland

Daw, Jul 3 2012, $

ISBN: 9780756407506



Angel Crawford has come a long way in a short time from her felonious teen life in the Louisiana Bayous as a poor white trash delinquent living in a dumpy old trailer. Instead she has overcome her addictions, adapted to dining on brains ever since she became a zombie and survived a serial killer assault (See My Life As A White Trash Zombie). She even has a job as a coroner’s van driver that enables her easy access to take out fast food and shockingly has friends including a romance with her zombie trainer police officer Deputy Marcus Ivanov.



However, her perfect life turns ugly when someone with a gun aimed at Angel steals a corpse from her. Before the kidnapping, Angels sensed something weird about the victim as her olfactory skill failed to smell any brain smoothie. The media rips her head off due to what she claims as farfetched and her criminal history. Distrusting Marcus as she fears he is a double agent working for the Zombie Mafia, Angel investigates the case of the seemingly brainless corpse that got away only to end up in a top secret lab.



Angel has come a long way from when she was a living loser; for as a dead head she has become a productive member of society. This tongue in cheek zombie thriller is much more serious than its jocular first entry as the courageous protagonist comes across some frightening things including the press vilification that have her wanting to throw up the last brains stew she chomped on. Urban fantasy fans will enjoy the latest Diana Rowland take on zombie fever.



Harriet Klausner

The Buffalo Hunter-Peter Straub

The Buffalo Hunter


Peter Straub

Cemetery Dance, Jul 2012, $19.99

ISBN: 9781587672361



Thirty-five year old Bob Bunting has not seen or spoken to his parents in three years until they call to wish him a happy birthday. They use letters to communicate as his relatives live in Battle Creek while he resides with his tall Swiss executive girlfriend Veronica in New York. In fact Veronica is fiction he created as a cross between Sigourney Weaver and a woman on a bus ad. Simply put Bob is petrified of women, but uses a made up GF to keep his parents, his co-workers and his neighbors at a light-year distance from his inner soul. Bob imbibes his coffee and cognac by sucking them from baby bottles and makes up a life of female girlfriends like Veronica who he claims attended the first two acts of Cats with him. His other escape is into novels where he becomes part of the cast.



This is an odd psychological drama of a psychic increasingly losing his tenuous grip on reality. The novella, which was part of the House Without Doors collection, is not for everybody as the protagonist is a weird phobic with crippling obsessions and grotesque fantasies that blur reality especially his use of baby bottles. Sort of having James Thurber’s Walter Mitty fantasizing about life in a psychotic nightmare, fans who relish something radically different will want to read the bizarre strange world of The Buffalo Hunter.



Harriet Klausner

The Soul Consortium-Simon West-Bulford

The Soul Consortium


Simon West-Bulford

Medallion Press, Jul 1 2012, $14.95

ISBN: 9781605423937



Death has been conquered by medical science; when the host body expires, the memories are placed inside a clone. However, an undesired second order effect occurs as ennui leads to indifference which leads to species extinction instead of eternal artificial reincarnation.



Eighty-four quadrillion years since he was a child, Salem Ben is the last existing human because he fears the unknown of death. He lives in the Soul Consortium warehouse where every soul that ever existed is filed. Qod the AI who manages the Soul Consortium operation is his only companion. Qod informs him there are odd aberrations appearing in some of the digital soul records that should not be there. Using WOOM technology that enables him to explore the memories of those dead souls stored in the archives, Salem Ben enters the lives of these oddities that should not have happened. There he encounters Keitus Vieta who is turning the dead souls’ existence into eternal nightmares. Salem Ben must find a way to end the abomination’s spreading infection before the Soul Consortium becomes a chamber of horrors.



With a nod to the Zager and Evans’ song 2525, this is an entreating science fiction starring the last human whose travels into someone else’s history make for a strong tale thriller. The hero witnesses first-hand the horror, but is unsure how to stop the evil from distorting the memories of the souls. Readers will relish journeying with Salem Ben as he becomes a twentieth century serial killer, a sixteenth century Lombard spiritualist, a Castor World monk and the Soul Consortium Creator. However, what grips the reader is the mystery of the malevolent being who is changing humanity’s future by creating a hellish afterlife instead of the cyclical rebirth.



Harriet Klausner

Shadow's Edge-J.T. Geissinger

Shadow's Edge


J.T. Geissinger

Montlake Romance, Jun 12 2012, $12.95

ISBN: 9781612183312



Jenna Moore spent her childhood on the run with her parents who always seemed to look back over their shoulders. She never knew why they hid only her mom became an alcoholic of sorts and her dad seemed always frightened by the shadows. Now she has neither of them as her mom died and her dad vanished and she presumes he is dead too. Never alone before, the scared young woman also is confused by her recent paranormal abilities.



In the forests of England, the Ikati shapeshifters survive in secrecy by deploying a strict code of behavior; those who betray the law die. They recently learned that an offspring of traitors lives in California. Their chieftain Leander McLoughlin heads to the American Pacific West Coast to either kill the “innocent” as most of the tribe prefer or bring her to her people to test whether she can be educated in their customs. When they meet, they are attracted to each other, but she is a chip off the paranoid block of her parents and trusts no one; while he considers invoking the death penalty. Meanwhile in the shadows hides a stalker waiting to pounce on Leander and Jenna.



The first A Night Prowler romantic urban fantasy is an engaging romantic urban fantasy filled with suspense as readers will wonder whether Leander can execute his beloved. The affected dialect of the Ikati anchors the Geissinger mythos with a freshness that needs some adjustment to accept from the audience. The conflict boils down to assimilation as Jenna’s DNA may be Ikati but her nurturing is American while a third party waits to pounce. Fans will enjoy this exciting paranormal romantic suspense.



Harriet Klausner