Book Review: Rider

This is one of the few Romantic or rather erotic fiction stories I have read. I chanced upon this book while playing with the Kindle app on my smartphone and it was free, and related to my favorite topic - motorcycles so decided to read it.

The book tells the story of a former marine (Fang aka ) who has returned wounded and physically broken from Afghanistan. Doctors at the VA are unable to provide him adequate pain relief with prescription drugs which sends him into the world of illegal drugs and into addiction. As he gets deeper and deeper into addiction he also gets entrenched into a motorcycle gang - The Damned. The only difference between this 1% motorcycle club and other outlaws is that this is an organization of ex-military people.

At some point Fang comes to realize the futility of addiction and living the biker life and decides to become a FBI informer. Things start heating up when an actual FBI agent, pretty Claire Powell is assigned as his partner to take down the drug dealing outlaw motorcycle gang that Fang is part of. Not only Claire is stunningly beautiful and sexy, she is also Fang's late friend Greg's wife. Even though Claire and Fang are drawn to each other they are both unsure of where this operation will lead them to. The rest of the book deals with some explicitly smoking hot sex and how the villain "Fatman" is taken down by FBI.

Author Helen Lucas has written a gripping, fast paced, and highly erotic tale of two wounded people, but the lack of attention to spelling and grammar comes as a surprise and in places shock. According to the biography page on Amazon, Lucas is a High School English teacher who writes "trashy books for classy people". I would definitely expect better quality of proof reading and editing from an English teacher or maybe in the era of mobile phones and texting, anything goes so long as the content is gripping enough to hold the reader from cover to cover.

This book is a easy and quick read. I was able to finish it in one sitting over couple of hours on my cellphone as I waited for my car get serviced. If you have some waiting to do in the doctors office or at the car repair place it may not be a bad idea to read this book. Be warned though, parts of this book is heavily punctuated by erotica and may leave you wanting to jump into bed with your significant other for a passionate love making session.

Book Review: Pudd'nhead Wilson

Image Courtesy: Simon & Schuster

I read this book some time ago in an effort to reconnect to reading good quality fiction writing. What better author to start with than Mark Twain, whose The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer had enthralled me with visions of adventure in my childhood. So I picked up this book titled Pudd'nhead Wilson a work of satire by the said author and started reading. This book deals with three main themes that were prevalent in pre-Civil War America - Slavery/ Racism, southern aristocracy and human nature.

This book is quite similar to another work by Twain The Prince and Pauper in the sense it deals with the swapping of identities at childhood and the revelation of truth at the end of the story. The book set in a little town named Dawson's Landing, Mississippi, USA, starts with the description of the arrival of a new individual to the town - David Wilson. The simple towns folk gather around to talk to him and there is a dog barking in the background. Out of frustration Wilson says: "I wish I owned half of that dog. I would kill my half". The simple towns folk did not get the satirical humor and at once decided that this guy was a fool and named him "Pudd'nhead Wilson" and it remains his name till the end of the novel when he demonstrates his ingenuity and commands the admiration of all.

The main characters of the book are Judge Driscoll, his brother Percy Driscoll, Roxy the slave who is only 1/16th African and looks like a white person but because of the little black heritage she is a slave. As the story progresses we learn the someone steals money from Percy Driscoll and he threatens his slaves that if the culprit did not confess he would sell all of them down the river. That puts the fear of god in them and they all confess to stealing it. He retracts the threat and records the incident in his diary as a humane deed done by him.

Meanwhile Driscoll's wife and Roxy give birth to a son each. Unfortunately Mrs. Driscoll passes away after childbirth leaving her baby in the charge of Roxy, who has become a mother herself. Roxy is worried that her son will be sold down the river once he grows up. Not wanting this to happen Roxy decides to switch the babies and make her son (1/32nd Black) the master's son and vice versa. Meanwhile Wilson has started a new hobby of collecting palm prints and he collects prints of both the babies during various stages of growth.

Nobody learns about the switch and the slave grows up as the master and the master as the slave. The slave who grows up as the master unfortunately gets into trouble in school, can not complete college, and develops a bad gambling habit which leads him into serious trouble. Meanwhile Percy Driscoll dies and sets Roxy free and the son goes into the guardianship of Judge Driscoll. Things progress till there is a twist in the story and the switch is revealed.

Pudd'nhead Wilson is an easy read and a short novel of 100-odd pages. While not thrilling like a suspense but good enough to sustain readers interest to completion.

Movie Review : A Walk in the Woods

Image Source: Wikipedia

The great outdoors have been my passion since childhood and hence when this movie was released I naturally wanted to see it. This movie is about two senior citizens (men) attempting to hike the 2,000 mile plus long Appalachian Trail. The story starts with famous travel writer Bill Bryson (Robert Redford) being interviewed on TV once again.

He comes home and is informed of a funeral of one of his peers. He is a successful published writer with a great wife Cathy (Emma Thompson) and grandchildren who have come of age. He feels this void in life... something like a senior life crises. It makes him decide to embark on a one-in-a-lifetime hiking trip across the Appalachian. He shares the idea with his wife and children and is met with shock and surprise. They all try to dissuade him but he is persistent. Bill asks his son to help him shop for gear and of course they go to America's best outdoor store REI, where he outfits himself for the hike. As he continues preparations his wife realizing the futility of her attempts to dissuade him agrees to let him go only if he is accompanied by someone. He asks every one of his friends and contacts, most of them tell him that he is crazy to even think about such an adventure. Either his friends are not healthy enough or willing to join him on his odyssey.

Unexpectedly Bill gets a call from a long-lost friend Katz (Nick Nolte) who wants to accompany him on the trail. Even though he has his reservations about going with Katz, Bill is forced to agree simply because nobody else has expressed interest in the journey. Katz on the other hand is going on this trip to escape prison, and experience another adventure before he dies. Unlike Bill, Katz does not have any savings, career, retirement or family. As they progress on their sojourn they discover more about each other and learn to accept their flaws and idiosyncrasies.

The rest of the movie showcases the spectacular natural beauty of the Appalachian Trail and demonstrates to the world that despite all the modern advancement and development, there are parts of America that still host pristine natural beauty. There are few places in this world that offer such natural beauty. This movie is definitely worth watching at least once and for the fans of the Appalachian Trail, Nick Nolte or Robert Redford, it may be worth watching several times.

Movie Review: The Martian

Image Courtesy: Dankslate

America and China dominate Mars Exploration and Colonization

There are three predominant messages the producers seem to disseminate to the movie watchers:
1. America has colonized Mars and the red planet is their territory now!
2. American astronauts are not only brilliant space engineers but also agriculture experts and can grow potatoes in Martian soil with human feces.
3. China has better space technology than NASA

The movie starts off with an American Mars mission collecting specimens on the red planet. A mega storm hits them and in the process of evacuation they leave one of the astronauts (played by Matt Damon) behind thinking he is dead. But of course American heroes are immortal and nothing can kill them, be it a storm in Mars or a breached suit in outer space!

The protagonist of the movie goes through a variety of emotions, despair, anger, pain, and finally arrives at a resolve to live. Conveniently the man left behind in Mars is a botanist, so he decides to grow his own food and converts the space station into a green house, uses his own feces as manure with Martian soil and voila has a crop of potatoes.

He persists in his efforts to get in touch with earth and finally NASA decides to launch a mission to rescue him. But it takes 4 years for anyone to reach Mars from earth and our man doesn't have enough supplies to last him those many days. Meanwhile NASA attempts a mission to restock him with food which of course fails and that is when Chinese step in. They offer to give America their technology which will speed up the rockets and enable them to rescue the hero.

The rest of the story is how it is accomplished and how Matt Damon finally arrives back to earth and continues teaching budding astronauts. It is a novel concept and a good movie, but I wouldn't watch it twice.