It’s hard to believe it’s been more than 15 years since Timothy Zahn’s first original Star Wars novel burst on the scene and re-invigorated the Star Wars publishing line.

But all these years later, the Star Wars book have become more labrythn like and self-referencing. It’s fun to have contiuity, but when it becomes so dense that casual readers can’t figure out what the hell is going on or who is who, it fails to engage. I’m not sure even the most devoted fan could keep up with all the Star Wars novels hitting the market today.

Which is a shame because I think if I’d read and memorized who every minor character from every Star Wars novel was, Zahn’s Outbound Flight would have been better. It’s set in the prequel era and features some of the characters from Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy. But it also features a cast of minor characters from other Star Wars prequel era books. The problem is—they’re all easily forgettable and you end up not caring about the fate of any of them, esp. the Jedi who we all know are going to red-shirt it Episode III anyway. Hard to muster up much concern for characters who are doomed.

The story is one that sets up the Thrawn trilogy with some of the characters moving into place.

But in the end, it’s a wholly unsatisfying Star Wars novel and one that makes me wonder—why do I bother with them anymore?

I remember when this novel first came out, I thought it was some kind of tie in to the TV series, 24.

It’s not.

But it’s still a good book. Jim Hickey and his family have a scam they pull every year. They target a rich doctor’s family—kidnapping the child and putting Jim with the wife and Jim’s wife Cheryl with the husband. Jim’s half-brother who is mentally challenged holds the child at a remote location and they check in every half hour. Should the call not come in, the victim is killed. Hickey gets away with it by threatening to come back and kill the child if the couple reports the crime to the police.

It’s an almost perfect crime and one he’s pulled four times before.

The fifth victim is Will and Karen Jennings and their daughter, Abby.

Iles sets up the story from the first page, showing us the successful end to Hickey’s scam in the first eight pages, before introducing the Jennings. But unlike previous years, Hickey has a deeper stake in targeting the Jennings, one that slowly unfolds over the course of the book. It’s an entertaining cat and mouse game as the Jennings try to find a way out of the scam that Hickey is pulling. Extra intensity is added by the fact that Abby has juvenile diabetes.

It’s a fast-paced thriller that works better if you don’t think too much about some of the huge leaps required to tell the story. It’s not as strong as Iles’ “Turning Angel” but it’s still an entertaining read and one that you won’t regret.

There’s been a lot of buzz for Greg Iles’ latest novel “Turning Angel” and after reading it, all I can say is that it deserves every bit of it.

Dr Drew Elliot seems to have it all-he’s the trusted doctor in the small town of Nachez, Mississippi. He’s successful professionally, he’s married with a family, he’s got the big house and all the trappings. But he has a dark secret-he’s been carrying on an affair with a 17-year old cheerleader and tennis phenom, who is bound for Harvard. When the girl’s body turns up in the river, Elliott’s love for her comes to light and he’s the prime suspect in the killing.

Elliot asks his good friend (whose life he saved), Penn Cage for help in representing him and finding the real killer.

But what could have been a simple who-done-it thriller becomes something more. Iles not only documents the mystery of who killed the girl but rips off the innocent veneer of the town of Nachez. We come to understand how Elliott could fall for the girl, carry on an affair with her and even plan to give up his life to be with her. There are no heroes or villians here, just real, breathing characters painted in shades of gray.

The case is pushed through by oportunistic politicians, one of whom wants to use the case as a springboard to the mayor’s office and beyond. Along the way, we find out about the underbelly of a small town and the frightening implications of the death of one girl.

Iles pulls no punches in his harsh, frank examination of the murder and the consequences and fallout from it. The book is close to 500 pages but it feels shorter than that becuase Iles prose is compelling and his characters fascinating. This is an absolute must read and it’s made me into a huge fan of Greg Iles.

I picked up Ray Blackston’s first novel a few years ago just because the title was so great. I mean, titling your first novel Flabbergasted is a great selling point and I will admit that I came away from the first book feeling just that. Blackston’s story of Jay Jarvis, a single guy who visited various churches to meet single women and found the girl of his dreams who turned his life upside down was a hoot.

So, I quickly read it and then its sequel. Now, come the latest entry in the series that finds Jay still dating Allie and moving toward taking the new step in the relationship. And the thing is—three books in, Blackston still makes all of his characters feel authentic. Jay struggles with his faith journey, but it never feels contrived or predictable like you get in other contempoary Christian fiction stories, such as any book with the name Tim LaHaye on the cover. The book starts off slowly as Jay and Allie, Steve and Darcy all take a trip to the Outback of Australia. Jay intends to propose to Allie while Steve has planned the same. But, as is typical for a Blackston book, things go a bit awry. OK, they go a lot awry. Before you know it, Jay and Ally have wrecked their Land Rover and are stuck in the Outback with no way to communicate and call for help.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a stretch, but the thing is Blackston says—just go with me here and as a reader, I can. Because he makes the characters so interesting. Also, the question of will she say yes does keep you turning the pages.

Anyway, to say more would be giving away much of the later portions of the book, but I will say this—the momentum picks up in the second half of the book. My only real complaint is the ending which is a bit contrived. Blackston takes his characters to a crisis and gives them an almost fairy-tale like ending that just doesn’t quite ring true. But hey, it’s not enough to make you not enjoy the overall book.

Give this series a try—I think you might like it.

For a man who retired after he finished the Dark Tower saga, Stephen King sure is working hard. Not that I’m too upset about it, mind you since I’m a big fan and every new book by King is like crack with pages to me.

King’s latest novel is an end-of-the-world type thriller similiar to “The Stand” in that things go to hell in a handbasket and a group of rag-tag survivors must band together to figure out what happened and survive. Instead of a deadly plague, this time the end of the world comes from cell phones, which all send out a deadly pulse that turns users into zombies. The world descends into chaos as the zombies take over, but instead of just running around undead and eating brains, the zombies begin to organize and follow a group-mind mentality ala the Borg from Star Trek. We meet a group of people, led by Clay who are struggling to stay alive and for Clay to get back to his family.

King does a great job, as usual, with taking an every man character and putting him into an extrodinary situation and seeing if and how he’d cope with things. The overriding arc of Clay’s wanting to get home to his family drives the story and the story does end on a Twilight Zone like moment. It’s not so much an ending where everything is neatly resolved so much as it’s that this part of the story has reached a conclusion. King recognizes this and doesn’t let the story over stay its welcome, though I imagine some readers may be disappointed by that.

I wasn’t.

While it’s not as great as “The Stand” or “Bag of Bones”, “Cell” is still an example of why Stephen King is one of the best writers we’ve got working today.

Until a few years ago when Marvel inflicted that wince-inducting clone arc on us, this was one of the forgotten eras in Spider-Man history. Taking place after the huge events of the death of Gwen Stacey and before the Hobgoblin emerged on the scene, this era of Spider-Man is good but mostly forgettable.

The thing is—this is an era I grew up with reading in Marvel Tales and in the Spider-Man books. So, it was a fascinating journey down memory lane for me (at least the later tales) and rediscovering old friends. The stories are, for the most part, good and indicative of their era. Spidey faces some of the classic rouges gallery such as Sandman and Doc Ock and he faces down some forgettable new villains such as the Grizzly and Mirage.

I’m sure a lot of guys read or saw High Fidelity and thought—I could do that, it seems to easy. In fact, Love Monkey by Kyle Smith references this fact early on in the story with our narrator, Tom, saying that book was nothing more than top ten lists and a way to get girls’ phone numbers.

But the thing about Nik Hornby’s book is that it was so good, he made it look easy.

Not so much here.

Not that book isn’t good, but you never got the feeling Rob was as self-aware as Tom is.

Anyway, onto Love Monkey. Tom is in love with Julia, who he works with. Julia has a boyfriend who she may or may not be in the process of breaking up with. The story follows that romance as it were as well as Tom’s other conquests and attempts to get some action. There are times when the book is staggeringly funny and realized and times when Tom is too much a bore to garner much sympathy. The whole books reaches a crossroads with 9/11 and how those events shape our hero. Not sure it’s a great way to end a book.

A re-telling of the origin of Superman that in some ways mirrors what’s being done over on Smallville, though without making the characters quite as compelling or interesting. The time is the late 30s and we see the creation of Superman from Clark Kent. An interetsing start quickly peters out into a rather tedious storyline that features few, if any characters, wroth caring about. Clark’s transformation into Superman takes forever and by the time it came around, I was more bored than interested.

Not a great book.

The Hitchhiker’s radio adaptations continue with the fourth installment in the trilogy, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.

This one is funny and amusing, but the weaknesses inherint in the book are on display here—namely too much focus on Arthur. Part of the fun of Hitchhhiker’s is all the zany characters and you get the feeling Adams was tiring of the series at this point as characters such as Ford, Marvin and Trillian only have glorified cameos at best. This radio adapation does slim things down a bit and it does have some absurdly funny moments that work better in audio than they do in print.

Jessica Culter rose to fame when her kiss and tell blog went mainstream, creating a huge uproar both on and off line. Now Cutler turns her story into a poorly written novel that’s a thinly veiled autobiography.

Cutler is obsessed with the use of the f-word and seems to deriv a great deal of pleasure from spending entire pages talking about how hot her protagonist is. If this is intended as a defense or explanation of the events that led to her infamy, it only makes her come across as a crass, shallow woman.

Don’t bother. It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.