I found Young Dillon in The Halls of Shamballah (by Derrick Ferguson) hard to follow due to the constant description of minor details of the story. Various characters and locations that have little or no significance to the story were constantly described in detail and I found myself trying to find the end of the description to continue with the story. The descriptions were wonderful and detailed but would have been better if the intricate descriptions were left only for the important locations such as the temple where the Phoenix Council meet, The Andarran Tower where the Sunn Room where the Warmasters meet, Kerenos’ home, Shamballah, and the main characters of the book, except for a few eccentric characters where you would want the imagination to really take you away, introductions and descriptions would have been better off short and sweet because of everything that is going on in the book. With the constant descriptive words, I found my imagination going into overdrive and it was almost impossible to stay connected to the story.
However, I did enjoy how the characters were connected and loyal to each other and their society. Even though some of the characters in the book were skeptical of Dillon, others had faith in him because of who his mother was and the respect they had for his mother. As I read on, I found it heartwarming that so many people wanted to keep Dillon in Shamballah, even though he was an outsider because his mother left Shamballah, he was not born in Shamballah, and his father was not from Shamballah, they wanted to keep him close because his mother meant something to the Warmasters and people of Shamballah. Kerenos’ blind faith and the faith of others in Dillon ultimately paid off as Dillon followed in his mother’s footsteps and became a part of Shamballah.
About halfway into DOMAIN by Mike Baron, I was wondering if maybe Mr. Baron hadn’t gotten two versions of the same novel mashed-up together and mistakenly published them as one. Give me a minute and I’ll explain.
In the first version, we have Kendall Coffin, a moderately successful comic book artist who due to an unexpected financial windfall is able to purchase an extraordinarily lavish and baroque Los Angeles mansion that looks like a cross between 1930’s Art Deco and a Mayan temple. It’s a mansion that was built by an eccentric architect and owned by an even more eccentric Hollywood producer. As in any good haunted house story, the mansion is rumored to have been the location of depraved sexual acts, rampant drug and alcohol abuse, Satanic rituals, pedophilia, necrophilia, and Great Cthulhu himself only knows what all else went on in that joint. That’s why Kendall is able to buy it cheap.
He settles down to his new life, meeting new neighbors, engages in romantic and business relationships and even gets himself a dog. But as he explores his new house and finds new rooms full of Hollywood memorabilia and remnants of the former owner’s depravities it begins working on his conscious and subconscious mind. Are there spirits of the dead infesting the house and subtly influencing Kendall? Maybe even to the point where he is committing murder without being aware of it?
In the second version Kendall Coffin goes to work for a thinly disguised Disney knock-off as a storyboarder. The studio is moving in a new direction and their latest production is an erotic thriller. While the job pays extraordinarily well, the subject matter is distasteful. And it’s in this version that Coffin wryly and cynically observes and muses on pop culture, comic book culture, Hollywood, TV, The Cult of Celebrity that has infected this country, video gaming, religion, the pros and cons of drug use, mortality and The Meaning of Life.
Don’t get me wrong, the two versions co-exist side-by-side and at times I actually found myself wanting to see more of the version with Kendall navigating his way through Hollyweird, wondering if this is truly the life he wants. There are chapters that are nothing more than Kendall going through his day and rather than being boring they do indeed enhance the story, providing characterization and doing something that a lot of horror stories don’t do; remind us that even though horrible things are happening around us, life does indeed go on. We still have to feed the dog, put out the garbage and make a living. We still have to deal with loss and we still want to find love and have sex.
This is the fourth novel of Baron’s I’ve read and as always, I enjoy his freewheeling, don’t-give-a-damn prose. Baron writes as if he’s out to entertain himself first and foremost and it’s a tactic I wish more writers would adapt because if the writer is enjoying himself then it can’t help but translate into an enjoyable reading experience. I also like how he’s not afraid to use brand names, the names of real and made-up rock groups, movie and TV actors, song titles, movie titles. There’s a name for this, y’know. It’s called “The Fleming Effect” named after Ian Fleming, the creator James Bond. A good case could be made for him inventing Product Placement since he name dropped left and right in his James Bond novels. I like it myself. It gives a novel an added layer when I’m reading about characters eating in the same restaurants I do, reading the same books and watching the same TV shows I do.
If you’ve read Mike Baron’s other books then you know what you’re getting and I don’t have to twist your arm. If you haven’t, then I’d recommend you sample “Helmet Head” (which reads like the best John Carpenter movie John Carpenter never made) and “Skorpio” before diving into DOMAIN. But no matter which of his books you decide to start with, you’ll be entertained, trust me. Mike Baron writes in a highly cinematic style that puts me in mind of the best of 1980s grindhouse movies. True, his books have a lot of build-up but it’s there for a reason and the payoff is always worth the wait. Highly Recommended.
{This review was previously posted by the author on another site.)
Truth to tell I’m not much for books about cooking as I’m a fairly basic cook. I’m no Bobby Flay but I can throw together an edible meal that’s reasonably tasty. I’m also not much for books about leadership and teaching you how to be more assertive and focused in life. Self-help books really turn me off. So how did I end up not only reading but reviewing a book entitled Gumbo Warrior: Recipe Of A True Leader which is exactly what it sounds like: a cookbook about the skills and tools of leadership, using the writer’s family recipe for gumbo as the template for acquiring and learning those skills and tools?
Same way I usually end up reading and reviewing a book: it was recommended to me by a friend and my friends usually have good taste and I trust that they wouldn’t recommend a book to me unless they thought for sure there was something in the subject matter that would interest me. And there is a good deal in Gumbo Warrior: Recipe Of A True Leader that did interest me.
Mr. Mayfield’s prose is a bit rough at times and he tends to stray from time to time, zig-zagging from his family reminisces to his career as a Marine to make his point. The effect sometimes gives the impression of a stream-of-consciousness style of writing. But it’s more than that. It didn’t take me long to get into the book to realize that Mr. Mayfield feels intensely about the subject he’s writing about and it truly does come across in his writing. His deep love for his family, his country, his service in The Marine Corps and yes, his cooking is strong enough to overcome the roughness of the prose.
Mr. Mayfield takes the highly unusual notion of adopting his family gumbo recipe that he learned from both his grandmothers to apply the various ingredients of gumbo and how they go together to create one delicious dish to the various ingredients that go into the making of a leader. Mr. Mayfield recounts many incidents from his life as a youth growing up in New Orleans and his time in the Marines to illustrate these ingredients and how they made him the leader and the man he eventually developed into.
It works a whole lot better than my rather clumsy synopsis would lead you to believe. As I said earlier, Mr. Mayfield believes and cares deeply about his subject and he communicates that belief very well indeed. I like how he always uses his own personal history to illustrate the points he’s making. As a result, in reading this book I feel I got to know Mr. Mayfield as a person. At times while reading the book I felt as if we were having a conversation. Not an easy thing to pull off in prose, I assure you. I’ve tried.
Mr. Mayfield has a simple, relatable style of writing that works for him and makes reading his book entertaining. Gumbo Warrior: Recipe Of A True Leader has a lot going for it in terms of being a positively inspiring and uplifting read that will give you a lot to think about if you decide to give it a chance. May make you even think about learning how to make gumbo.
GUMBO WARRIOR: RECIPE OF A TRUE LEADER By Morris Mayfield III 2018 ISBN-13: 987-0-692-07687-3 Johnson’s Publishing Co.
I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and I’m number 8 out of 13 children. If that sounds like a lot, well let me tell you that it is. Eighty percent of my wardrobe had consisted of hand-me-downs that were either too long or too short. Growing up, my siblings had to share pretty much everything, except toothbrushes, that’s disgusting. I’ve found out in my adulthood that my mother named most of us from characters from movies and television shows. My first name is Darin and you guessed it, she used to enjoy watching “Bewitched.” My only question is whether I was named after Dick York’s or Dick Sargent’s version of the character?
2020 marked twenty years of marriage and my wife and I have been blessed with two teenagers – a boy and a girl. Over the years I’ve posted many stories on social media about raising my children… I’ll rephrase that, I’ve shared many posts about how my children helped raised me. After all, I’m just an adult-sized kid at heart. Being a parent isn’t easy, but there are more positives than negatives and I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, there was that one time my family went bowling and my son’s bowling ball stopped rolling after a couple of feet on the lane. I tried calling myself a hero and stepped out onto said lane, and well… Have you ever seen those cartoons where the guy slips and does a triple somersault in the air and lands hard on his back? That… that, I would change.
As a child growing up in a house with absolutely no privacy, I would find a corner with pencil and paper in hand and worked on creating characters and stories for my comic books. As I submerged myself into these stories, I drowned out the rest of the world and found solitude in an otherwise crowded space. So, whenever I’m asked why I write, I always tell people it’s because it pulls me out of the real world and permits me the freedom to express myself in ways I couldn’t in the real world.
Where do you live and what do you do when you’re not writing?
Currently, I live thirty minutes outside of Detroit. I work full-time in the Information Technology field. I’m perhaps one of those rare people who actually enjoys their job. Because of COVID, I’m been working remotely working from home and still somehow manage to be late for work occasionally.
When I’m not writing or working, I like to play video games. I’m into first-person shooters (FPS) — Call of Duty, Wolfenstein, Doom, and Serious Sam types of games. I’m also a big movie buff. I enjoy classic film noir detective and low budget science fiction movies. My kids used to tease me about why I still watch old movies. I would make them sit there and explain it. They don’t pick on me much about it anymore for some reason.
What keeps you motivated to write?
My motivation to write is easy, I enjoy it. I love storytelling. Also, I get to revisit some of the ideas I came up with during my comic writing days. I get a kick out of introducing heroes and villains into my novels that everyone is clueless about except for me.
How long have you been writing and what have you learned about yourself through your writing?
My writing adventure started when I was a kid. As I mentioned previously, I drew comic books from my preteen years all the way into young adulthood. While I served in the Army, I got into reading paperbacks and it sparked my interest in writing novels. But it wasn’t until after I’ve completed college that I took writing books seriously. What I’ve learned about myself is that as much as writing takes me out of reality, it doesn’t let me forget my past. In all my books, a part of my history has been inserted into the story, it may be one of the character’s traits or it might be the setting or it may be the product of watching too much television growing up.
What audience are you trying to reach with your work? Is there an audience for Keith Gaston?
The audience that I had written for originally has changed over the years. In the beginning, I tried to be wide-ranging to pull in readers who enjoyed different genres. XIII, my first novel was a thriller with elements of horror, action, humor, and a diverse cast of characters. My next book was Lost Hours, a murder mystery featuring a private detective going through mental hardships while trying to solve a twenty-three-year-old murder case. I bounced around between genres with each book, which made it difficult for readers because they were expecting a mystery but got a supernatural thriller instead.
Later, I wrote under two pen names (Keith Gaston and D K Gaston) to try to be less confusing. It helped for a while, especially when attending book conferences. If the conference was about mysteries, I brought only my mystery novels and if the subject was speculative fiction, you guessed it, all the supernatural books came out. Currently, I write for myself. If I write with an intended audience in mind, it takes the joy out of writing.
How would you describe your style of writing?
I write my books in a cinematic movie telling fashion with broad visual strokes, full character building, and a well-paced tempo. What I do not do, is spend too much time on certain details that you might find in other books in the same genre. By details, I mean, filler information, this being what variety of perfume a character sprayed herself with or the exact brand name clothing someone is wearing. If it’s not relevant to the story, I don’t tend to include them because I believe it slows the pacing of my stories. A great example of my cinematic style would be in The Friday House. I tried to put the reader into every scene and have readers go through the story, discovering the conspiracies and threats as the protagonists uncovered them.
Tell us about your latest book.
Wicked & Preternatural: Awakening is about monster hunter Zoe Daniels. The setting is in Detroit. For some, monster hunting can be a lucrative lifestyle for those bold enough to battle the forces of evil, for others… not so much. She speaks with a potential client, a mysterious elderly woman named Ms. Olson about a job that other monster hunters had passed on. Down on her luck and desperate for work, Zoe accepts the work which is to find Ms. Olson’s grandson, E. Ms. Olson cautioned Zoe not too underestimate E. The child is far more than he seems, she warns. It turned out she was right. E has uncanny abilities, and its growing by the hour.
Zoe pursued an uneven trail of chaos and destruction left in the child’s wake. At first, she thought the boy aimlessly drifted the streets. But as she closes in on her target, she discovers E has a mission that he’s dead set on finishing, and he won’t let anyone stop him no matter the cost.
What are you working on now?
I’m currently working on a sequel to Wicked & Preternatural called Bitter & Demonic.
Anything else we need to know?
The audio of Wicked & Preternatural: Awakening will be coming out in September 2020, narrated by a fantastic voice actor, Kylah Williams.
Abby E. Murray published this slim volume (29 pages) of poetry in 2018. You can find it at www.finishinglinepress.com.
The poetry inside is by turns gentle and brutal, not in a physical way, but mentally, in the tension between reality, beliefs, and custom. This book has many moments where the rigid expectations of military culture smash against the poet’s solid beliefs and personal integrity, like waves crashing on recalcitrant boulders.
The poet writes a sharp hook, drawing you into a poem and keeping you there to its end:
By the time we move to a seventh city I am portable as a jug of water,
Another one, I hand it to you like a single potato chip:
To sit in the simulated living space at Ikea is to know what sand knows as it rests inside the oyster.
You must continue where they lead you.
The poet paints in colors muted by time and despair and switches palettes to whimsy and joy.
They paint vignettes, portraits in miniature, and the insides of heads.
Page to page this book surprises you, and that’s the best thing poetry can do.
Abby E. Murray is the 2019-2021 Poet Laureate for the city of Tacoma, Washington. They are the editor-publisher of Collateral, an online journal about violent conflict and military service. Their latest book is Hail and Farewell, published by Perugia Press.
