Japan in the World Wars

Japan in the World Wars – by ‘Charles River Edition’

So many things come to my mind when reflecting on reading this er….um….’book’.  I found this book by accident after looking deep online for something to enlighten my learning about the nation of Japan in the early 20^th century. I was mainly curious to learn about the events that led to them foolishly attacking the United States on December 7^th, 1941.  This book was free if you have ‘Kindle Unlimited’. That, in itself, doesn’t necessarily translate into being a good thing.  There’s a lot of garbage out there, and when something is listed as ‘free’, there might be a reason. Overall, I enjoyed reading this, and I did learn an awful lot, but the style of the book was quite haphazard, and I seriously doubt that any respected publisher would touch this thing with a ten-foot pole.

Reading this book reminds me of when you’re having a conversation with someone and they begin to tell you a story. The person gets distracted as they’re talking to you, and they kind of drift away from the main point of the story.  They then end up telling you a completely different story other than what they originally intended.  I didn’t think the material was tightly related to the title, but when the author(s) wander, though, they still manage to keep the narrative fresh and engaging.  I felt, though, like I was reading a school textbook that was written by several different authors, and the authors never bothered to compare notes before, during, nor after the writing.

Few are probably aware, but Japan did fight in the first World War. Fewer maybe realize that they fought on the side of the allies.  Sadly, very little of this book is devoted to this time period. In fact, after I finished this book, I couldn’t even remember any of the details from this period. Then, the narrative shifts to post World War I. Again, not much page space devoted to this portion either. This was really what I was hoping to read about, so in that aspect I was disappointed. The next ‘phase’ would be when Japan invades neighboring China in an effort to flex their newly formed muscles. We get a bit more from this part of history, but only a bit.  Again, I was somewhat disappointed.

So there’s was very little on World War I, very little on post-World War I, and very little on China. What we do get a lot of (and boy, do I mean ‘a lot of’) is the Japan-United States conflict from Pearl Harbor through Nagasaki.  This is where this book really excels; at least in terms of detail.  It’s a bit TOO detailed for my taste, but someone wanting to know about all of the blow by blow accounts of the Pacific War, this book is a great source. Since this book is (I think) only available in electronic format, there are no page numbers.  If I had to guess, I would say that this book is about 1,000 pages long. Not bad for a freebie. About 850 of those pages, though, is devoted to 1941-1945. So again, the title of the book is a tad misleading.

On the plus side, there are lots of pictures included. There are a lot of maps as well, but it’s obvious that the same person didn’t illustrate each map.  Some of the maps are very amateurish, and probably aren’t even good enough to be included in a second-grade textbook.  Also, there are many times when we read about a famous figure of World War II, and get to see a picture of the person in the book (good), but the very next chapter would bring up the same person, and we would get the exact same picture of the person shown to us again (not really so good).

I came across one fascinating anecdote about the Kamikaze pilots in the closing days of World War II. Japan was really getting desperate and many of these young men were drugged and ‘forced’ into their planes.  Again, the very next chapter told the reader the exact same story.  For a book that features ‘Editors’ as part of its author, you can’t help but note the irony that it doesn’t appear that this book even utilized one.  Since the war ended with two atomic bombs being dropped, it’s perfectly acceptable that the book takes us on a slight diversion to talk about the history of the atomic bomb. Again, though, the slight diversion turns into a major diversion, and after the author(s) conclude their mini-history lesson on the bomb, the book suddenly ends.  It’s like “Wait…..I thought this was a book on JAPAN??”

Well, it WAS free, and I did learn an awful lot. For that reason, I would recommend this book, but really only for someone who wants a detailed account of the Pacific Theatre of Operations during World War II. If you’re looking for something pre-1941, I would advise you to look elsewhere.  Good book, but a far cry from a professional piece of literature.

The Outsider

The Outsider – Stephen King

After I finished this book, I dreamed of finding Stephen King and giving him a great big hug and kiss.  I didn’t want to do this because this book was great or anything (although it WAS very good), but because King seems to have finally cleaned up the “gross” factor that is prevalent in so many of his books.  Lately, my biggest gripe about Stephen King novels is that he doesn’t seem to have a good grasp of how adults talk to each other.  It seems like the majority of his characters have a vocabulary littered with swear words and converse like adolescent 12-year old boys with a fetish for bodily fluids.  No matter how much I might like some of his stories, I’m simply too grossed out by the end to enjoy many of them.  ‘Horror’ and ‘being grossed-out’ (by snot, spit, and/or semen) are not the same things as far as I’m concerned.

Overall, I thought this was a very good book.  It didn’t seem to have a lot of action, but King kept my interest throughout the 550 or so pages.  It starts out as a somewhat straightforward police story. A well-respected citizen is arrested for the murder of a young boy.  The evidence is overwhelmingly stacked against him.  However, a strange predicament happens.  There’s also overwhelming evidence that exonerates the accused killer as well.  How can this be?  (cue the eerie music)

Well, about 1/3 into the story, the simple police story suddenly encounters a supernatural turn.  Yes, there’s definitely something ‘strange’ going on that complicates things for the investigators.  How are these level-headed people supposed to believe in such paranormal mumbo-jumbo?  Again, though, King does a great job walking us through the story that shows us how such believable people can eventually grasp unbelievable events.

Because of the nature of the story, we get a break from the familiar setting of Castle Rock and/or Derry, Maine, and this book actually takes place in Oklahoma and Texas.  Again, King deserves a walloping amount of credit for not making his characters into moronic obliviots.  I mean, Oklahoma and Texas are RED states for goodness sakes!  Maybe King did some research and discovered that normal, smart people live in the South as well?   He does break down a few times to take a stab at Donald Trump; but at least he seems to be REALLY trying to reign in his malignant vitriol.

At some point, the detectives reach out to Holly Gibney. Holly is a character from King’s “Bill Hodges” trilogy.  If you haven’t read the trilogy, you might be a bit lost since King makes tons of references to the characters and cases from these books.  (I’ve read two of the three, and **I** was lost. I simply can’t remember meticulous details from former books.)  This was a bit of a distraction.  I felt King could have toned down this part and not used so many ‘past’ references.  Still, though, Gibney is a great character, and she manages to actually be the ‘center’ of this story even though she isn’t introduced until about halfway through. It wouldn’t surprise me if King gives Holly her ‘own’ book someday.  I would welcome it.  I really enjoyed her obsessive-compulsive tendencies. King manages to elaborate these inclinations without it seeming forced.

Although I really enjoyed this book, it’s a far cry from being a ‘masterpiece’ or anything resembling King’s best. Like many books, I will have forgotten the plot in a year’s time and the final climax/confrontation with the adversary in the book was VERY weak and lame. Still, I enjoyed the book overall and hope to see more of Stephen King being a bit more ‘clean’ as he tells his stories.  His talent is simply too great to have to always have his characters and their language infested by the sewers and stench of what makes life so particularly unpleasant.

The Black Stiletto

The Black Stiletto by Raymond Benson

I read this book for two reasons. The first was because it was one of those “Amazon Bargain Bundles”; the second was because I’ve read the author’s six James Bond novels and thought they were mostly excellent.  Had I not been familiar with the author, I never would have attempted to read this one.  After reading the first of the five in the bundle, I kind of wish I hadn’t.  This book didn’t do much for me. Although I’m including this review as part of the “bundle”, I want to emphasize I only read the first one. I really have no interest in continuing.

This book seemed like it really did have the potential to excel, and the first half or so really did keep my attention.  As the story went on, I found it overall silly, predictable, and rather lazy.  By ‘lazy’, I mean that if more care would have gone into the writing, it might have worked for me.  I almost felt like the author was under contract to write 5 of these books quickly, so he hurried through without really giving this story proper care.

A middle-aged man living in the present day has his mother in a nursing home suffering from dementia. Her lawyer is obligated to turn over sensitive documents to her only surviving child.  To his amazement, he discovers his mother was the famous (- cue dramatic music -) BLACK STILETTO!  The Black Stiletto was a female superhero/crime caper who roamed the streets of New York City in the 1950s.  She kept a pretty meticulous diary of her activities, so her son spends the majority of this book reading mom’s memoir, so we get to relive her adventures as they happened.

I confess I never read comic books nor watch superhero movies, so I’m really not sure how the world of such characters function. I was under the impression that most of these crusaders either came from another planet or were the result of some botched scientific experiment that gave them superpowers.  Judy Talbot (her REAL name) doesn’t have any ‘amazing’ tendencies.  She DOES, however, have the ability to hear whispered conversations from afar and immediately ‘know’ when someone is lying to her.  So I guess you could say she has some extraordinary capabilities.  Kind of.  Again, I wish Raymond Benson would have given this more attention.  It seems like a quick, cheap way to make our heroine more powerful and quickly get out of tough jams without much of a realistic explanation.

Notice I said “some” extraordinary capabilities. Judy actually was raised in a very rough West Texas environment. After abuse from her family, she runs away to New York City to begin her new life even though she’s barely a teenager.  But, when the author is lazy, it’s easy for our protagonist to “fake” her age and quickly get a job as a waitress, and then quickly take boxing lessons, karate lessons, knife-wielding lessons etc.  Anytime we’re witnessing Judy doing anything, the author always gives us a detailed playlist of the music going on in the background on a jukebox or something.  I guess he wants his readers not to forget that we’re actually in the 1950s instead of present day.  Somehow, I think that if I were writing a diary, I wouldn’t bother to include the name of every song by every artist that’s playing somewhere in the background.

Well, next thing we know, Judy adopts a superhero alter-ego and she’s taking down mafia bosses and uncovering Cuban spies that are trying to infiltrate our government. (Cuba. Don’t want to, you know, forget it’s the 50s). We also get some stories that take place in the present day. Judy’s son (his name is Martin) is going through a bit of midlife crisis with an ex-wife and a daughter who “won’t listen to reason”. The whole thing is awfully contrived.  We also meet a paroled villain in the present day who The Black Stiletto took down a half-century or so ago, and now he’s out for revenge.  That subplot DID start out kind of interesting, but again…..

There were times when I thought this story would have made a great teen-young reader book instead of serious adult fiction. The level of writing (along with the laziness) seemed more geared towards an audience that might not want to assimilate too many deep things. The problem with that is the subject matter is rather inappropriate for younger readers; such as when and how Judy was abused by her step-father that triggered her running away from home.  There’s also some scenes that are borderline S&M kinky.  Well, what do you expect when the hero is a masked woman dressed in black who pirouettes from building to building while wearing spiked high-heels and wielding a knife?  So, no, I would definitely NOT recommend you letting your 12-year old read this thing.

At the conclusion of the book, there’s still a lot of unanswered questions that Martin has about his mysterious mother.  I’m sure they all get answered in the next four books. Sadly, I really have no desire to find out. After one book, I’m pretty much done.  

I know I sound awfully grouchy.  The book really wasn’t THAT bad.  I’ve read much worse.  I guess it’s a nice semi-quick read if you don’t like to invest too much time digesting massive thousand-page tomes.  I also MUST reiterate that the author’s six James Bond books were excellent. (I’ve reviewed all six on Amazon, and I gave five out of the six stellar five-star reviews).  So if you feel somewhat similar to how I felt after finishing THIS book, please don’t think “How in the heck can this guy handle James Bond???”   He can.  And he did a brilliant job. 

Not so much here.