Rabid Reviews

2011-11-28T07:41:00.001-08:00

Where to Connect with TK Kenyon -- Google+ and Goodreads and Twitter, oh my!

2011-10-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

Google+ is the hottest new site, right? https://plus.google.com/114092439743576593278/posts

If you’re into science, connect with me here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tkkenyon

Great blog for creative writing tips. http://tkkenyon.blogspot.com/

My Amazon profile. http://www.amazon.com/T.-K.-Kenyon/e/B001JP4HK4

Here I am at BlogCritics. http://blogcritics.org/writers/tk-kenyon/

I even MySpace, occasionally. http://www.myspace.com/tkkenyon

Tweet with me! I tweet links to free e-fiction on the web and happy thoughts! https://twitter.com/#!/TKKenyon

A great place to see what I’m up to, writing-wise. http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/malachitepublishing

Shelfari is another great book site: http://www.shelfari.com/tkkenyon

All my reviews on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2QSSNUGVG5II8?ie=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&%2Aentries%2A=0

This is a great science fiction anthology, and I gave it 5 stars because it deserved it. http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/08/guest-review-tk-kenyon-on-the-best-science-fiction-and-fantasy-of-the-year-volume-five-edited-by-jonathan-strahan/

Connect with me on Goodreads: A great site for readers: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/202809.T_K_Kenyon

All my blogs: Gluten-Free, creative writing, other stuff. http://www.blogger.com/profile/13756031460622964015

Fuel for Diesel Ebooks: http://search.diesel-ebooks.com/author/Kenyon,%20TK/results/1.html

Like to blow things up? Here’s a guy who did it for a living. Now that’s job satisfaction! http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/magazine/articles/26-4-science-and-celebrity.aspx

Do you #kindleboards #KB? I do! http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php?topic=71383.0

Having trouble with your overprotective parents? Try being Indian, in the theater, and lesbian. http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/66664 http://www.amazon.com/Nag-Hindi-Cobra-ebook/dp/B0055WXKDW

Think you can beat Las Vegas? Frank thought so. http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/68208 http://www.amazon.com/Law-Large-Numbers-ebook/dp/B0057AFHJC

In 1942, Nazi subs hunted ships off the US East Coast. Read more: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/79924 http://www.amazon.com/Hooligan-Navy-Short-Story-ebook/dp/B005GL8V1S

Review of Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/09/review-cryoburn-a-miles-vorkosigan-novel-by-lois-mcmaster-bujold/ Only 4.5 stars?

TK Kenyon Reviews Cryoburn by LM Bujold at SF Signal

2011-09-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

I gave it 4.5 stars (of 5). Is that enough for a Hugo-nominated book?

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/09/review-cryoburn-a-miles-vorkosigan-novel-by-lois-mcmaster-bujold/

Where to Connect with TK Kenyon -- Google+ and Goodreads and Twitter, oh my!

2011-09-27T08:27:00.001-07:00

Google+ is the hottest new site, right? https://plus.google.com/114092439743576593278/posts

If you’re into science, connect with me here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tkkenyon

Great blog for creative writing tips. http://tkkenyon.blogspot.com/

My Amazon profile. http://www.amazon.com/T.-K.-Kenyon/e/B001JP4HK4

Here I am at BlogCritics. http://blogcritics.org/writers/tk-kenyon/

I even MySpace, occasionally. http://www.myspace.com/tkkenyon

Tweet with me! I tweet links to free e-fiction on the web and happy thoughts! https://twitter.com/#!/TKKenyon

A great place to see what I’m up to, writing-wise. http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/malachitepublishing

Shelfari is another great book site: http://www.shelfari.com/tkkenyon

All my reviews on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2QSSNUGVG5II8?ie=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&%2Aentries%2A=0

Connect with me on Goodreads: A great site for readers: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/202809.T_K_Kenyon

All my blogs: Gluten-Free, creative writing, other stuff. http://www.blogger.com/profile/13756031460622964015

Fuel for Diesel Ebooks: http://search.diesel-ebooks.com/author/Kenyon,%20TK/results/1.html

Like to blow things up? Here’s a guy who did it for a living. Now that’s job satisfaction! http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/magazine/articles/26-4-science-and-celebrity.aspx

Do you #kindleboards #KB? I do! http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php?topic=71383.0

Having trouble with your overprotective parents? Try being Indian, in the theater, and lesbian. http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/66664 http://www.amazon.com/Nag-Hindi-Cobra-ebook/dp/B0055WXKDW

Think you can beat Las Vegas? Frank thought so. http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/68208 http://www.amazon.com/Law-Large-Numbers-ebook/dp/B0057AFHJC

In 1942, Nazi subs hunted ships off the US East Coast. Read more: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/79924 http://www.amazon.com/Hooligan-Navy-Short-Story-ebook/dp/B005GL8V1S

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2011-07-24T12:06:00.001-07:00

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2011-07-24T12:05:00.001-07:00

Wrabid Writer

2011-06-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

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2011-06-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare: A Bard By Any Other Name

2009-02-08T16:12:00.000-08:00

'Shakespeare' by Another Name by Mark Anderson is the best book that I've read in years. It was fascinating. I left it on the passenger seat of my car, open, so I could read it at red lights. The designation of "Red Light Book" is my highest honor for a book.

More to the point: I like Shakespeare's works. I took two Shakespeare classes in undergrad. When I watch a play, I tote along my big, red Bevington (dog-eared, written-on, and wrinkled with coffee, wine, and tears,) to read along.

During one undergrad class, one professor noted in passing that some people didn't think the guy from Stratford on Avon (the town) wrote the plays, but it didn't matter, really, who wrote them. The play's the thing that matters.

I didn't realize that the authorship issue was so hotly debated. (Read some of these other reviews, not to mention the websites and books and forums and conferences dedicated to debating this issue. Wheesh!) I just assumed that there was ample evidence that William Shakspeare (no typo, that's how the guy from SOA spelled his name,) went to London, became an actor, and wrote the plays. It was only 400 years ago. The year 1600 (a round number within the Shakespearean era) isn't the Iron Age. We have many records and books from the era of Elizabeth I. It's just not that long ago.

A few years ago, I saw a special on PBS about the Shakespeare authorship question. I've been hooked ever since.

*'Shakespeare' by Another Name* by Mark Anderson is a convincing compilation of the Oxfordian side of the argument. At almost 600 pages long, it is indeed quite complete. As I stated above, I read every word avidly. I read the appendices.

Anderson does indeed write a biography of Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, and parallel events, characters, and situations from de Vere's life with WS's works. It's exhaustive but hardly exhausting. With each new tidbit, I became more convinced that de Vere indeed adopted a pen name and stuck to his story. Even his heirs stuck to his story.

While there is, ultimately, no smoking gun, Anderson presents a convincing case. Let's go with the classic structure of a murder case: means, motive, and opportunity.

While Anderson does not stoop to such a crass outline, he nevertheless explains in deep detail *how* de Vere pulled off the Shakespeare hoax, *why* he used a pen name at all and why that one, and *when* the hoax was first perpetrated and then canonized.

Anderson's writing is amusing, lucid, and strong. There are laugh-out-loud lines and paragraphs that made me gasp, astonished.

Here's a little preview: as a young lad, de Vere lived with a guardian after his father died, received a world-class education, and had access to a phenomenal library. This library included, at the time, the only extant copy of Beowulf. Beowulf, though well-known today, was almost lost to the ages, but for *that one copy.* De Vere's tutor, an old English scholar, signed his name in the copy (a common thing, back then, kind of like a check-out slip.) Consider, if you will, the obvious plot and character parallels between Hamlet and Beowulf. The author of Hamlet clearly had read Beowulf and understood deeply. (Any other explanation is like denying the literary relationship between "Heart of Darkness" and *Apocalypse Now.*) De Vere was one of very few people in England or elsewhere with access to Beowulf, let alone that his tutor signed it at the time he tutored de Vere.

That's one small example. There are hundreds. De Vere signed his ancestral home over to his three daughters while he was still living (like King Lear.) Hamlet appears to be very thinly veiled autobiography.

I also really liked the statistical analysis of the Biblical quotes in Shakespeare's works vs. the underlined passages in de Vere's Bible. While this sounds dry, Anderson keeps this short and pithy. Just enough math to support the conclusions.

Anderson is so convincing that from now on, when I watch Shakespeare, I plan to tote not only the big, red Bevington, but also Anderson. De Vere's life informs the plays and makes them more poignant and brilliant.

I'm an Oxfordian convert. With conversion, as anyone who knows an ex-smoker is aware, comes zealotry. If de Vere wasn't Shakespeare, he should have been.

You have to read this book. It's a literary mystery wrapped in reimagining of history. Even if you're a die-hard Stratfordian, you should read Anderson's book.

TK Kenyon
Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous

Review of Daniel Silva's The Unlikely Spy

2008-09-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Daniel Silva's books. I heartily enjoy them.

This, his first novel, is more uneven than his previous books, as first novels often are (On the Road, for example,) but it's a fun WWII spy vs. spy suspense with great, deep characterization.

Arthur Vicary, a professor, is somewhat impressed into service in intelligence by his friend, Winston Churchill. His enemy, though he does not know who she is or even, at first, that she exists, is Catherine Blake, a deep-cover mole who has been inactive since the beginning of the war. She's also been coerced to serve, though with the ruthlessness one would expect from the Nazis. This makes her an ambivalent villainess, which makes for a far more interesting book than if she were merely a Mauser-toting, stiff-arm-flapping, knee-jerk honey trap.

Here, Silva begins his explorations into the damage that a human psyche must acquire before the person can truly become a spy and a murderer. It's an interesting question more fully explored in Silva's later books about Gabriel Allon.

The plot is a basic one: can the Axis discover whether the D-Day invasion will be at Calais or Normandy, and can the Allies stop them from discovering it? No one ever went wrong with a strong plot.

Because this is not billed as alternate history (like *The Plot Against America* by Roth,) you can kinda figure out the ending. Luckily, this book is about the ride, not about the end point.

Highly recommended.

TK Kenyon Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel

Contest: Review the Reviewers

2008-08-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

http://tkkenyon.blogspot.com/2008/08/book-review-review-contest.html

Over at my author blog, I'm holding a contest for the best mock review that mocks book reviews. Enter by leaving your own mock review in the comments.

TK

A Writer's Review: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

2008-06-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

When I was researching material for my next novel, which has a serial killer/psychopath in it, I read other novels with Sk/psychos as major characters so I know what has been done.

Ellis has obviously done his research, and did it shockingly well, on what it is like to live inside the head of a serial killer. He has perfect pitch for characterization, even for this cacophony of a character. Patrick, Ellis's POV character, is a psychopathic serial killer living in 1980s NYC.

The book opens with an absolutely fabulous first page: Patrick riding in a cab with a friend, listening to his shallow friend, and noticing the scenery in NYC, including a quote from Dante's Inferno spray-painted on a wall. It's one of the best first pages I've ever read, and I've read a lot of novels. It perfectly painted the scene and dropped us into the head of the character. I could have forgiven a lot after that first page, but I didn't need to.

Patrick Bateman is a psychopath and a high-functioning paranoid schizophrenic. Less than half of serial killers who are caught are later diagnosed with (or, perhaps, falsely display) schizophrenia. (That was a statistical note. I think the book is better for Patrick's schizo disorder.) Ellis paints a perfect portrait of a psychopath: paint-deep. That's all the deeper that psychopaths are. Inside, they're just an imperturbable deep blue hole of sterile water. There's nothing alive in there. Ellis uses materialism and fashion-consciousness as Patrick's cover for his deep hole of nothingness. The ephemera of brand names and fashion clothes and shoes and jewelry and fashionable restaurants and fashionable foodstuffs (endive!) and quippy comebacks and one-up-man's-ship concerning hipness and coolness were exhausting, which were exactly how they were meant to be.

The sadistic violence, at first, was almost a respite from the banality of Patrick's life, until it, too, became repetitive and boring, which is exactly how Patrick sees it. That's the brilliance of this book. It's a deep, deep portrait of what it's like to feel nothing. Ellis is Jane Austen, delving into the lack of soul.

The note that I found absolutely rang true was when Ellis's POV character, Patrick, has a rare event: an adrenaline rush. Recent research into psychopathic personalities indicates that they have very low arousal levels. Nothing scares them. That's the problem. The fact that Patrick has it when he's trying to get reservations as a trendy restaurant highlights Patrick's inane, shallow character.

One caveat: I can't watch Sex & The City anymore, because all 4 characters now seem as shallow as Patrick Bateman with their shoe and restaurant preoccupations. Or eat endive.

TK Kenyon
Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous

Kunati Book Publishers Wins Enormous Award

2008-05-31T07:46:00.000-07:00

The book publisher publishes my two novels, RABID and CALLOUS, has won one of the largest awards for indie publishers.

Kunati Book Publishers was honored with INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR AWARD at BookExpo America in Los Angeles, California on May 30, 2008, by FOREWORD MAGAZINE, one of the five dominant trade magazines in the book publishing field. Joshua Corin, a Kunati author, accepted at BEA on Kunati's behalf.

The new honor was created to celebrate ForeWord's tenth anniversary and to recognize Kunati's innovation and fearlessness.

Kunati, a year-old publisher, produces book trailers for every new release, maintains a blog, and encourages its authors to blog and actively participate in marketing their books. The publisher currently has several movie deals in the works, and its roster of authors includes Pulitzer Prize winner John E. Mack.

Read all of Kunati's "fearless" books at http://www.kunati.com/kunati-bookshelf-main/ .

Amazon Jumps Pub Date!

2008-04-28T20:19:00.000-07:00

Amazon jumped the ol' gun and is offering my new novel, CALLOUS, for sale ahead of its May publication date ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601640226 ) . When RABID was released last year, Amazon sold out and even sucked dry its wholesaler, so they had to backorder the book from the distributer and it took a couple weeks to get the fresh meat.

If you want to read CALLOUS any time soon, muscle your way to the head of the line and snatch a copy from some milquetoast's virtual shopping cart now!

TK Kenyon
http://www.tkkenyon.com

Here's a review for you: Callous Book Trailer

2008-04-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

Philip Roth: The Plot Against America

2008-03-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

This well-written book is an interesting diversion in the course of the 20th century in America.

In Roth's alternate history (though I'm sure he would despise that genre term as much as TC Boyle rails against "science fiction" in his preface to "A Friend of the Earth,) Roth imagines what if Charles Lindbergh had run for and won the presidency in 1940. Lindbergh was reputed to be a vicious anti-Semite, and in this piece of fiction, Lindbergh subtly sets out to assimilate the Jews into pork-eating, Saturday-working Americana.

The story is told from the POV of young Phil Roth, the author's doppelganger. Roth has done this in other books, and it's an interesting conceit. It certainly answers that question that all writers occasionally get, "Is {insert a character's name here} really *you*?"

The only thing that it obfuscates is that Roth is, of course, *all* the characters. All characters require, as Marge Piercy so nicely put it, a "blood sacrifice" to bring them to life.

The end of the book is, IMHO, problematic. While there may be some historical support for the tactic Roth imagines, I found it a too convenient motivations to explain away some of the preceding events. And, while it might explain the imagined actions of a fictionalized character, it does not explain why people (fictionally) followed him. I don't find it startling that Hitler was a murderous anti-Semite and conceived the Final Solution, but I find it horrifying that so many Germans blithely allowed it to happen. I think the end of the book could have delved a little deeper into Lindbergh's Willing Collaborators.

TK Kenyon
Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel

All TK Kenyon's Blogs

2008-03-19T09:39:00.001-07:00

http://science4non-majors.blogspot.com/
http://fictionlessons.blogspot.com/
http://tkkenyon.blogspot.com/
http://celiac-maniac.blogspot.com/
http://rabidfictionreviews.blogspot.com/
http://rabidatheists.blogspot.com/
http://www.tkkenyon.com

Review of New Journal "Neuroethics"

2008-03-18T17:43:00.000-07:00

There is a marvelous new online, free, open-access journal that everyone should read: Neuroethics.

The first issue includes an unflinching look at the field of neuroethics (as distinct from Bioethics,) and the way that the brain determines ethics and morality.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/120989/?p=ff72daa10e7b435fa42eb31b7bcd5e20&pi=0

In the first issue, editor Dr. Neil Levy has written an elegent overview of the field, including a neuroethicist's view of the notorious Trolley Problem, namely, if a trolley is hurtling toward five people on a track, and you hold a lever that will change the track so that the trolley is shuttled onto a track where it kills only one person, should you pull the lever.

Most ethicists and ordinary folks say "yes," for the greater welfare is at stake.

However, if the problem is changed subtly so that your choice is between allowing the trolley to crush the five people or pushing a large, beefy man onto the track to obstruct and stop the trolley, most ethicists and ordinary people will say no, that this violates the man's rights, and you should allow the trolley to slaughter the five people.

Neuroethicists have identified where the real problem is: the difference between these two scenarios is not merely “action,” as the Kantian folks dissemble, but emotion. We do not want to be actively responsible for the death of a human being, and a particular human being (the large, beefy man) at that.

The real problem is: since it is emotion that informs our ethical choices, ethical choices are not rational.

The journal also has a lovely article on “The Popular New Genre of Neurosexism” by Dr. Cordelia Fine, comparing recent mommy-brain books to the painfully terrible science of the 1800’s, in which eminent scientists actually promulgated that women’s education should not be too rigorous because it would divert energy to their brains and away from their ovaries, rendering them sterile. (Testicles, apparently, had an independent energy source.)

This excellent new journal deserves bookmarking. Do it now to avoid the rush.

TK Kenyon

Author of RABID: A Novel and CALLOUS: A Novel, where neuroscience, morality, and murder intersect.
http://www.tkkenyon.com/

http://science4non-majors.blogspot.com/

http://tkkenyon.blogspot.com/

Hari Kunzru -- Raj, Bohemian

2008-03-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

Hari Kunzru (My Revolutions) has written an intellectual but ultimately dry short story for The New Yorker (March 10, 2008.)

His main character is a first-person, nameless New York trend setter, a la Patrick Bateman, but without the interesting killing sprees of American Psycho. The character discovers that many of the people in his consumer-driven, shallow, trendy lifestyle are actually something like Buzz Agents who "monetize their social networks" because they are "early adopters," and spout buzz lines to their friends whenever appropriate.

Protag feels betrayed because he thought he was hip. He takes a knife to go kill Raj, the first person who he figured out was a buzzer in his social circle, but when he gets there, ennui overcomes him, and he instead succumbs to habitual trendiness.

This is ultimately unsatisfying because Kunzru ends his story with The Shrug. The story falls into numb and mindless violence, or violent and mindless numbness, or whatever.

While I'm no fan of epiphanic fiction, where a story's climax can be summarized as "And then I realized...," or "And everything was blue feathers," a story must end; it cannot merely peter out.

"Raj, Bohemian" is interesting, but essentially numbing. It does not shake you with emotion, which is what the best stories do.

TK Kenyon
Author of RABID: A Novel and CALLOUS: A Novel

Rabid Reviews

Where to Connect with TK Kenyon -- Google+ and Goodreads and Twitter, oh my!

TK Kenyon Reviews Cryoburn by LM Bujold at SF Signal

Where to Connect with TK Kenyon -- Google+ and Goodreads and Twitter, oh my!

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Pics

Wrabid Writer

Pics

Shakespeare: A Bard By Any Other Name

Review of Daniel Silva's The Unlikely Spy

Contest: Review the Reviewers

A Writer's Review: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Kunati Book Publishers Wins Enormous Award

Amazon Jumps Pub Date!

Here's a review for you: *Callous* Book Trailer

Philip Roth: The Plot Against America

All TK Kenyon's Blogs

Review of New Journal "Neuroethics"

Hari Kunzru -- Raj, Bohemian

Here's a review for you: Callous Book Trailer