About Joe Murphy

It's pretty sad when you're 33 years old and the highlight of your year is when the next new children's book is finally out on the market. Deciding to skip the ridiculous lines and midnight ?parties,? I pre-ordered my copy online, and only had to chew the tablecloth for four hours from when I woke up at eight o'clock, till the postman finally delivered my book at noon on Saturday.

And, just like last I did with Order of the Phoenix, I forgoed (forgew? forwent?) everything, and did nothing but read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (stopping for the occasional bathroom break) until I finished Sunday afternoon.

God, I love being a geek.

Before I get into it, I'd like to share something I've noticed about the Harry Potter books since, say, The Goblet of Fire. Imagine buying a jack in the box. A big one, say two feet by two feet by two feet. The instructions tell you that the longer you crank the handle on the side of the box, the bigger the ?jump? at the end. So you test this out. You crank the handle a few turns, and just lifts the lid and says, ?not worth my time!?

So, you decide to turn the crank for one full minute. ?Pop Goes the Weasel? begins to play, and Jack gives the standard jump at the end. You try it for five minutes, and this time he jumps out and yells, ?Tequila!?

So, what would happen you wonder, if you cranked it for a whole day? So, you begin to crank.

And crank.

Stop for a bathroom break.

Go back to cranking.

Stop cranking at one in the morning, wake up at eight, and resume cranking.

Till two in the afternoon.

Then you open the door, make sure no cars are coming, hit the button, and run across the street. You faintly hear the organ monkey music in the background till the time comes.

And then trumpets blair!

Angels come down from on high and lift their voices in praise!

The house explodes in a barrage of sound and heat and light!

And, at the same time, you have a spontaneous orgasm.

That's what reading a Harry Potter book is like.

The Gist: It is year six for Harry and the gang at Hogwarts. And the wizarding world is at war (crank). The students read the Daily Prophet every morning to learn if anyone they know has gone missing, or been found dead (crank). Dumbledore is leaving the castle for extended periods of time, however, when he does return to the castle, Harry starts taking private lessons with him, lessons that will hopefully prepare Harry to face Voldemort (few hours of cranking).

Soon, the students of the school fall under attack (I feel the springs tensing). Harry is convinced, though he has no proof of it, that Malfoy is responsible on two near fatal attacks on Hogwarts (must? keep? cranking!). He believes them to be small occurrences in a much bigger plot.

A plot grows into one climatic night, when the Dark Mark is conjured over Hogwarts (Cue the trumpets! Cue the trumpets!).

The Good: Trying to be as non-spoilery as possible, let me list some of the plusses:

We learn why the Avada Kadavra curse does not kill Voldemort after it rebounds off Harry.

We learn who the Half-Blood Prince is.

We know for once and for all which side Snape is really working for? or do we?

The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year?Damn!

Harry learns what he must do to finally defeat Voldemort.

The Bad: I will have to admit, this book is nothing, NOTHING like what I expected. Like the other books, it still centered around life in Hogwarts, when I thought the scope would have branched out much more by now. I was hoping for a little less conversation, a little more action, please. Though the war is full on in the wizarding world, we actually see very little of it, until the end.

However, that is obviously because the purpose of this book is purely to set up book seven. The ending of Half Blood Prince guarantees that book seven will be nothing like any of the others. So, while the book wasn't all I wanted, it did it's job. It makes me want to read the last book all the more.

And, no, I'm not going to tell you who dies. Sorry.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
Published by: Arthur A. Levine Books; July 16, 2005
ISBN: 0439784549
Genre: Fantasy
Author's Webpage: www.jkrowling.com   [Read more...]

I've heard it said that the fear of death so permeates us as a species that all of our endeavors serve as distractions intent on keeping us from thinking about our eventual deaths.

Sometimes, when the clock clicks over at two thirty in the morning, and I can't sleep, I wish I could come up with more distractions.

Some people apparently decide that rather than distract themselves from thoughts of death, they will turn a brave face into the wind and speculate on the landscape of the undiscovered country.

Gregory Bernard Banks has done this in Phoenix Tales: Stories of Death & Life, a collection of short stories examining not only death, but how it influences our perceptions of life.

Banks engages death from every imaginable angle. The first story, Escape Velocity, examines a future in which western medicine has advanced to such a degree that the human body can survive almost any calamity, whether the person who lives in that body wants it to or not.

In the story Escape Velocity, death represents a release some wish they could embrace. In A Cup of Time, everyone wants to avoid death at all costs. In Avatar, a man sees his death as the possibility to change his life for the better.

Science fiction, fantasy, the commonplace, young, old, willing, afraid, good, evil. This book provides everything but distractions.

I knew from the first story I would rate this book high, but struggled with the exact number. Then one day at work, after my last appointment had gone, and my area supervisor (hello Andrea) had left for the day, I read Living with Mrs. Klase, and I wept. I bawled. My eyes became red, my nose transformed into a waterfall. Vulgar, staccato sobs echoed in the empty office. I prayed in earnest that the DHL driver wouldn't walk right through the door at that moment, or I'd have to kill both him and myself out of embarrassment.

Any book that can do that deserves the highest marks.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Phoenix Tales: Stories of Death & Life by Gregory Bernard Banks
Published by: Lulu Press; March 1, 2005
ISBN: 1411620356
Genre: Science Fiction, Short stories
Author's Webpage: www.phoenixtalesbook.com   [Read more...]

So there I am at Ice Escape, and a young man starts chatting me up about his book, Crater County: A Legal Thriller of New Mexico. It's a slightly supernatural legal thriller, he says. And I says, "A slightly supernatural legal thriller? I don't think I've ever read something like that." And he says, "How'd you like to review the book?" I says, "Sure, why not?"

We said a lot.

I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt, and believe that we just had a miscommunication over the content of the book, because it turns out that the book doesn't have any supernatural aspects to it at all. It does have a medicine man, some talk of spirits and being guided by winds, and some nods to Native American beliefs and philosophies, which I bet makes it unique among legal thrillers in and of itself.

But supernatural?

Sci-fi?

Fantasy?

Magical realism?

Anything remotely like what we normally review on the Dragon Page?

None of the above.

I can't help but feel I wasted my time, reading what I thought would be speculative fiction, and ending up reading a typical thriller, which is not a genre I enjoy. However, I told the guy I'd review his book, so here it is, short and sweet.

It's almost a good book. Not quite, but pretty damned close.

Crater County has recently become the murder capitol of New Mexico with a triple homicide. And Luna Cruz, the assistant attorney who'd rather be an Olympic triathlonist, has to prosecute the megalomaniac pip-squeak who did it. Cryin' shame she's falling for his defense attorney.

So, like any thriller, more people die, herrings rojos are paraded before us, and it's all a bewildering mystery until the action-packed climactic climax... and the clean-up afterwards.

This is the second novel by Jonathan Miller, and as small press fiction writers go, he's not bad. I'm not a thriller fan by any means, but he tells a coherent story with interesting characters. And while the plot may be ordinary, the setting certainly isn't, and it adds a nice flavor to the story.

So why don't I recommend it? The prose, while far better than many self published fiction authors', just isn't quite there yet. He makes small errors in style that, if corrected, could make big houses interested in his work. The small author intrusion here, the jarring point-of-view shift there. The running gag repeated just a little too often. Every so often something would jump out that said, "amateur."

I have no doubt that Jonathan Miller has the talent to become a fine author. He just needs some more practice.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Crater County: A Legal Thriller of New Mexico by Jonathan Miller
Published by: Cool Titles; April 2004
ISBN: 0-9673920-4-7
Genre: Thriller   [Read more...]

Well, this is a new one for me. I'm not reviewing a book or a movie, but a gadget.

Bookhugger makes reading books a bit easier. It looks like some sort of mechanized insect, so it's perfect for science fiction fans. You strap the book in, spread it open, and slide the pages behind its? wings? And voila! Hands-free reading. As the book just sits in its stand, you can read it and do whatever else needs doing at the same time. When you need to turn a page, you just slide it out from under one wing, and into the other. Imagine how much easier it will be using, say, a cookbook while making your favorite Carne Asada dish (Tucson is growing on me.)

If you're on the go, lift the Bookhugger off the stand, close the book, wrapping it into the wings to keep it closed (it can be done quite easily) and go. When you get the chance to read, you have the book spread wide open, holding it with only one hand. Not bad.

Everything is telescopic, so it easily adjusts to any size book. But before I get to sounding like a paid advertisement, the product does have its drawbacks. The first is that the Bookhugger is great for mass market paperbacks, and thin trade paperbacks and hardbacks. Get much bigger than that, though and you start to strain the arms that hold the book open. If the book is any bigger than a mass market paperback, use the stand, as I found trying to hold a heavier book by the handle became a burden a bit too quickly. The creator of this device said that he had some future designs for bigger books.

Also, there is one aspect in the design that I think should change, and that is how the book is strapped in. Basically, you open the book to the middle, and an elastic band is strung between the pages and hooked at the top. It is effective, and isn't too difficult to do. But, when you unstrap the book, be sure to have a good grip on that strap, or else it'll snap back, and that isn't fun.

Still, if you have need for hands-free reading situations, or you hate trying to hold a paperback open with the fingers of one hand while holding your fork with the other, this may be your solution. You can find pictures of Bookhugger and order it from its website.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Webpage: www.hugabook.com   [Read more...]

This may be the first intentional satire I've gotten to review for the Dragon Page.

The chapbook Necronomicrap: A Guide To Your Horoooscope, by Tim Frayser, mixes astrological "facts" with obvious lampooning. For example, while you can use the book to learn the names of Saturn's moons, I highly doubt you should share Frayser's interpretation that the moons regulate "various aspects of human flatulence."

About half of the book... teaches? various aspects of astrology: the planets and their influences, the four basic elements, the zodiac, etc. The last half consists entirely of a yearly horoscope.

My birthday falls on July 10, so my horoscope for July reads thus:

"You will read something that will remind you of something completely different and unrelated, and you will spend an inordinate amount of time this month trying to figure out what it was about the former that reminded you of the latter, exploring all options, at least coming to the conclusion you must be nuts. When invited to appear as a guest on a daytime talk show alongside all your former intimate partners, give it a pass."

Now, if I ever go on a daytime talk show, I'm sure as hell not cutting off my right hand, but you get the idea.

Now since I had to review the book, I had to pretty much read it straight through like a novel. If you buy the book, I can't recommend doing that, reading straight through the horoscope one entry after another after another got to be quite dull, and I honestly started skimming and jumping pages to get to the end.

However, I can see this book being great for when you have guests over. Looking up people's horoscopes and personality types via their signs would make for some fun. Plus, I'm sure there's a drinking game in there somewhere, and what more do you need than that?

Rating: 3 out of 5

Necronomicrap: A Guide to Your Horoooscope by Tim Frayser
Published by: Yard Dog Press; December, 2002
ISBN: 189368735X
Genre: Satire
Author's Webpage: tapestry3.home.mindspring.com
Publisher's Webpage: www.yarddogpress.com   [Read more...]