The Consultant is the story of an American marketing consultant who takes a business trip to Osaka, Japan, and talks to the wrong woman in a bar.
One thing leads to another, and he ends up in North Korea.
The story is loosely (I emphasize loosely) based on real events.
The North Korean government has carried out targeted kidnapping campaigns of civilians over the years. Most of the known targets have been South Koreans and Japanese. But there is no reason why an American couldn’t be the target of such a kidnapping. This novel explores that scenario.
The Consultant is a good read for Tom Clancy fans who also like James Clavell…or James Clavell fans who also like a bit of action.
As many of you will know, I recently wrapped upThe Cairo Deception, my 5-book World War II series.
One of the final chapters of the book depicts the Beatles performing in Hamburg, West Germany in December 1962. (I won’t go into more story detail than that, so as to avoid spoilers.)
This is actually true. When I discovered this lesser known piece of rock music history, I just couldn’t resist putting it in the book, as an Easter egg for Beatles fans.
The Beatles both resided and performed in Hamburg from August 1960 to December 1962. The Beatles’ Hamburg residence took place shortly before they became a global phenomenon. The band also performed at a music venue in Hamburg called The Star-Club, as described in Postwar: Book 5 of The Cairo Deception.
The Beatles of the Hamburg period involved a slightly different lineup of the band: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best. After the group returned to England at the end of 1962, Sutcliffe and Best left the band, and Ringo Starr was hired on as the new drummer.
A lone American, kidnapped and taken to North Korea. He has one objective: escape!
A story ripped from the headlines, and immersed in the deadly politics of North Korea.
A thriller for fans of Tom Clancy, James Clavell, and Dale Brown. A riveting story about an ordinary man who is forced to take on the most evil regime on earth!
The book haul video is a thing on the Japanese corners of YouTube, just as it is among English-language booktubers.
As in English, the Japanese book haul video (and the entire booktuber sector) is dominated by young women. No complaints here, except to point out that men of all ages, in all countries, should read more.
I have not been to Japan for more than a decade now. One thing I really miss about being in Japan is browsing bookstores, and looking for new books to read.
Even with the Internet, the acquisition of Japanese-language reading materials remains something of an ordeal in the United States. The US division of Amazon stocks relatively few Japanese-language titles. The demand simply isn’t there.
At the same time, US-based, independently owned mail-order Japanese bookstores have mostly gone out of business. This is yet another case of the Internet ruining a business model without providing an acceptable substitute.
I recall Sasuga Bookstore of Cambridge, Massachusetts with particular fondness. I purchased many books from them throughout the 1990s and early 00s. (Sasuga closed its doors for good in 2010. 残念でした.)
Amanda Kearns assumes that her work-related visit to the Lakeview Towers office complex in Ohio will mean just another sales call.
But she’s very wrong!
Amanda and her two colleagues, Hugh and Evan, step through the wrong door in the vast building’s interior.
On the other side, they find themselves trapped inside the Maze.
The Maze is a labyrinthine parallel universe filled with both supernatural and human menaces.
Killer robots await. Giant, carnivorous birds patrol the skies. Wraithlike beings called “watchers” hunt the unwary.
Also inside the Maze is a ragtag group of ordinary people…who are struggling to free themselves from a demigod tyrant, the Director.
Amanda, Hugh, and Evan must decide: should they join the fight for freedom, or risk all in a gamble to return to their own world?
THE MAZE is a riveting emotional tale wrapped within a fantasy adventure, THE MAZE is sure to appeal to adult readers who fondly recall childhood parallel universe stories like “Through the Looking Glass” and “The Chronicles of Narnia”.
A quick personal reading note: I’m on volume 6 of 課長島耕作 (Kachou Shima Kousaku). I’m rereading the whole series, which I read for the first time in the mid-1990s.
And yes, I’m reading it in the original Japanese. I was a Japanese language translator throughout much of the 1990s. I started studying Japanese back in 1988.
But if you don’t read Japanese, you can probably find the long-running Shima Kousaku series in English. (I’ve definitely seen it out there.)
People who know about my Japanese-language background often ask me about manga. Do I like it?
Well…yes and no. In general, I don’t care for the (often) sexualized fantasy tropes that comprise so much of the manga sphere. I much prefer the more realistic Japanese manga; and Shima Kousaku is my favorite.
The Shima Kousaku series begins in the 1980s. It follows the journey of a Japanese corporate employee, or salaryman, as he moves up the ladder of his employer, Hatsushiba Electric.
Not much happens in these stories, in terms of high-concept plot. These are basically soap operas, but they’re exceptionally well-done soap operas, with plenty of microtension.
A story doesn’t need zombies and car chases to be enthralling. (Though a story certainly can be enthralling with zombies and car chases; don’t get me wrong.)
The Walking Dead debuted on AMC in 2010. As most readers will know, The Walking Dead was a series about…the zombie apocalypse, of all things.
People die, come back to life, and prey on the living!
The Walking Dead was immensely popular from the get-go, among both critics and viewers.
But that didn’t last, as we’ll see shortly.
In one sense, the creators of The Walking Dead did not create anything new. The Walking Dead was not the first zombie tale available to viewers.
Since 1968, the filmmaker George A. Romero (1940-2017) had churned out movies in his “dead” series. These included Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Diary of the Dead (2017).
While Romero’s movies enjoyed a strong cult following, they never really achieved mass appeal. Many horror movie fans liked them, but not much of anyone else did.
The appeal of The Walking Dead, on the other hand, extended far beyond the relatively small audiences that are usually drawn to extreme horror.
The Walking Dead was similar to Romero’s movies. But also very different.
The Walking Dead had plenty of flesh-eating zombies, just like the George A. Romero’s films. The Walking Dead was violent and intense, just like the films of Romero.
But unlike Romero’s films, The Walking Dead was also focused on quality scripts and character development. The Walking Dead was as much a drama series as a horror series.
And the drama was top-notch. Many viewers cared more about the characters and their struggles than they did about the zombies.
Herein lay the difference.
As a result of this difference, The Walking Dead attracted millions of viewers who had never had any interest in the horror genre—and certainly not in the gruesome zombie sub-genre of horror.
I was amazed at how many of my female friends, in particular, became diehard fans of the show. Women who, in high school, would have scoffed at the idea of reading a Stephen King novel.
Even my mother enjoyed the first few seasons of The Walking Dead. And my mom had never had any interest in horror movies. (She’d always hated them, in fact.)
***
The “secret sauce” of The Walking Dead was the well-written drama and character development mentioned above, interwoven with the expected tropes of the zombie genre. The combination of the drama and the horror made The Walking Dead a favorite of anyone who loved a good story.
But then things deteriorated. During the fifth and sixth seasons, the taut storytelling and character development of the first few seasons were replaced with repetitive violence and gore—an insidious temptation in anything zombie-related.
This trend hit a nadir in the first episode of the seventh season. The seventh season’s initial installment began with an act of sadistic human-on-human violence that was well…over the top.
This was the now famous—or infamous—“bat episode”. The villain Negan brutally killed two of the show’s main characters with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.
I watched it, and hated it.
I wasn’t alone. Millions of other viewers hated it, too.
As more than one critic pointed out, The Walking Dead had degenerated into “torture porn”.
George A. Romero’s zombie films had also wallowed in the excesses of human depravity and cruelty.
This, too, is a common trope in zombie stories. It’s a natural outcome of the genre’s premise. As the world descends into post-apocalyptic chaos, the surviving humans give in to all the evil impulses that society ordinarily keeps in check.
That theme has its place, but it can easily be overdone—even in a zombie apocalypse story.
George A. Romero’s movies overdid it.
And now The Walking Dead had overdone it, too. In a big way.
***
But why?
Here’s my theory: The Walking Dead’s producers, writers, and showrunners had lost sight of what made the show so darned great in its first few seasons.
Or maybe they never identified it to begin with….
***
Over the years, I’ve followed numerous rock bands, novelists, and movie producers whose creative careers rise and fall with the following trajectory:
The creator comes out of nowhere with a sequence of masterpieces. This might be a run of near-perfect albums, page-turning novels, or edge-of-the-seat movies.
Then one day, the creator releases something that “isn’t quite up to their usual standard”.
Then the next thing is equally lackluster.
And the next thing. And so on. Nothing is ever quite the same again.
***
Such a creator may continue to ride the coattails of their previous work in the marketplace, but the glory days never return. After the debacle of Season Seven, AMC continued to milk the cash cow of The Walking Dead for four more seasons (plus a slew of spinoffs).
But for most of us, the magic of those first few seasons was gone.
What is the cause of this observable and so often repeating phenomenon? A rock band, novelist, or filmmaker shouldn’t be subject to the age-related declines that are so inescapable for athletes.
Nor is this phenomenon limited to artists. It can happen to restauranteurs, self-employed tradespersons, and corporate employees.
***
This is the other side of quality control.
Just as you need to understand what you are doing wrong when things go badly, you also need to understand what you have done right when you hit one out of the park.
Or hit a bunch of them out of the park.
***
How do you know that?
You analyze your process. You identify your secret sauce, and keep on doing what works.
It wouldn’t have been difficult for the writers, producers, and showrunners of The Walking Dead to get together and say: “What makes our show so successful is strong dramatic storytelling, combined with the horror elements of the zombie genre. So let’s keep doing that!”
The Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979 is one of the first major global events that I remember.
I was 11 years old on November 4, 1979, when Iran’s revolution came to a head, and a mob of student militants overran the US Embassy in Tehran. The student militants took 66 American hostages. 52 of these hostages would remain in Iran until January, 1981.
American hostages in Tehran, Iran in 1979
I followed the 444-day crisis on the news. But being 11 years old, I was sketchy on most of the historical background.
I’ve read a lot more about the crisis since then. I’m presently finishing up the above book, Guests of the Ayatollah: the First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam, by Mark Bowden.
Bowden’s book includes not only the overarching historical details, but also many individual stories: of the hostages, and others whose lives were impacted.
Definitely worth a read if this is a subject that interests you!
Hello, Dear Reader. I hope you have a safe and happy Memorial Day, and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of the USA.
For traditional holidays like this one, you can’t beat Norman Rockwell. The artist painted the above work, Homecoming Marine, in 1945.
If you look closely, you’ll see that the painting conveys a significant amount of backstory. The young marine, and his relationship to the setting, are evident in the painting. The painting also gives us a rough idea of where he served. (Hint: not Europe.)
The obvious youth of the marine in the painting reminds me that at 55, I am now decades older than most of those who served in World War II and all subsequent wars.
I am also humbled. I have never served in the military. But I send out my appreciation and respect to those who have, and do.
I am a diehard fanatic of only a handful of books, movies, and musical oeuvres. And I evangelize only a subset of those.
For example, I love the music of Rush and Iron Maiden; but I don’t consider the appeal of these bands to be universal, by any means. Likewise, I realize that a coming-of-age movie that spoke volumes to me in 1984 might not have the same significance for a teenager of 2024. Or for a Boomer who was a teenager in 1964, for that matter.
But everyone should see The Americans.
The Americans is part family saga, part period drama, and part espionage thriller. The show is set in both America and Russia during the last decade of the Cold War.
I watched The Americans in its entirety during the show’s original primetime run on FX from 2013 to 2018. During those years, I looked forward to each new episode.
I loved the series so much, I recently decided to watch it again. But as is so often the case with these modern conveniences of ours, the situation has been made less convenient than it would have been in pre-Internet days. No longer do non-primetime shows circulate to rerun syndication in non-primetime hours. They move to paid streaming platforms.
If you want to see all six seasons of The Americans in 2024, you have several options. You can pay to download each episode from Amazon, or you can purchase a subscription to Hulu, where the series is now streaming.
Or you can purchase the complete series on DVD. I determined this to be my best and most cost-effective option. The above package arrived on my doorstep from Amazon yesterday.
I look forward to watching this series again from beginning to end. And if you haven’t yet seen The Americans, you might consider buying the DVDs, too. They are still in stock on Amazon.
I just finished reading Stephen King’s fantasy-horror-adventure novel, Fairy Tale.
This being a recent Stephen King novel, it’s been summarized in detail throughout the Internet, so I’ll stick with the high points here.
Length, scope, and pacing
This is a long book (almost 600 pages).
Fairy Tale begins with a coming-of-age plot, something that Stephen King has always done well. That goes on for about 200 pages before the fantasy part really gets going.
The fantasy portion of the novel takes place in a parallel world called Empis. Fairy Tale is almost like two stories stuck together. Depending on your tastes, that may be a feature, and it may be a bug.
Overall, Fairy Tale takes a long time to get going. The grand finale is a page-turner, but there are long sections of this very long book that are extremely slow-burn, and kind of a slog.
Stephen King’s evolved style
I should provide a bit of context here. Sometime in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Stephen King’s style changed dramatically. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he wrote plot-driven stories that were tightly structured with minimal fat (Stephen King’s well-known aversion to outlining notwithstanding).
I became a rabid King fan based on the early novels: ‘Salem’s Lot, Christine, The Dead Zone, The Shining, etc.
Some of those early books were actually quite long. But you never noticed, because the plots were so engaging.
Later on, King started writing long, meandering novels like Duma Key, Desperation, The Outsider, etc. I first noticed the change in style with It (1986), but the longer, slower storytelling has been a consistent feature of Stephen King’s writing for decades now.
And some fans, I should note, prefer the later style. 11/22/63 is an 850-page fantasy/alternate history tale that was published in 2011. It has a huge fanbase. It left me very lukewarm. Give me Pet Sematary or Cujo any day.
Or better yet, King’s first short story collection, Night Shift.
Among the books that King has written and published since 1990, I have definitely tended to prefer the novellas, short story collections, and short novels. I particularly liked Joyland (2013) and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999).
Am I glad I read ‘Fairy Tale’?
Overall, yes. This is still a good book, compared to most of the horror/fantasy novels being published nowadays.
I am admittedly prejudiced, because as an early (since 1984) reader of Stephen King, I always want him to write the kind of book that he might have written in 1978 or 1982. And lo and behold, he rarely does.
That’s rather presumptuous on my part, of course…especially since Stephen King’s longer, less plot-driven style has been a thing for 30 years now.
Some books bring back memories. And so it is for me, with Stephen King’s illustrated novella, Cycle of the Werewolf.
I remember purchasing this book at the B. Dalton bookstore in Cincinnati’s Beechmont Mall in the mid-1980s. I had only recently become a Stephen King fan, and I was working my way through his entire oeuvre, which then consisted of about ten years’ worth of novels and collections.
The copy I bought in the 1980s has long since been lost. I’m glad to see that the book is still available, with the original illustrations from Bernie Wrightson.
You can get a copy of Cycle of the Werewolf on Amazon by clicking here.
I discovered the books of historical novelist John Jakes (1932 – 2023) as a high school student during the 1980s. The television miniseries adaptation of his Civil War epic, North and South, aired in 1985.
North and South was extremely well-done for a network (ABC) television production of the mid-1980s. The cast included Patrick Swayze, Kirstie Alley, David Carradine, Lesley-Anne Down, and Parker Stevenson. The sets were realistic and the production values were high.
After watching that, I decided to give John Jakes’s books a try. I read North and South(1982), plus the subsequent two books in the North and South trilogy, Love and War (1984) and Heaven and Hell (1987).
Then I delved into The Kent Family Chronicles. The books in this long family saga were published between 1974 and 1979. These are the books that really put Jakes on the map as an author of commercial historical fiction.
I emphasize commercial. John Jakes never strove for the painstaking historical accuracy of Jeff Shaara, or his approximate contemporary, James Michener. Jakes’s first objective was always to entertain. If the reader learned something about the American Revolution or the Civil War along the way, that was icing on the cake.
As a result, John Jakes’s novels lie somewhere along the spectrum between literary fiction and potboilers. His characters are memorable and he imparts a sense of time and place. But these are plot-driven stories.
At the same time, Jakes’s plots have a way of being simultaneously difficult to believe and predictable. Almost all of his books have a Forrest Gump aspect. His characters are ordinary men and women, but they all seem to rub shoulders with figures from your high school history classes.
That said, Jakes is one of the few authors whose books pleased both the teenage me and the fiftysomething me. This past year, I started rereading The Kent Family Chronicles, and catching up on the few installments I missed back in the 1980s. I have changed as much as any person changes between the ages of 17 and 55, but I still find these books to be page-turners.
This past week, I started listening to the audiobook version of California Gold. This one was published in 1989, after Jakes’s long run of success with The Kent Family Chronicles and the North and South trilogy.
California Gold is the story of Mack Chance, a Pennsylvania coal miner’s son who walks to California to seek his fortune in the 1880s.
I will be honest with the reader: I don’t like California Gold as much as Jakes’s earlier bestsellers. California Gold is episodic in structure, and the main character is far less likable than some of Jakes’s earlier creations. In California Gold, Jakes indulges his tendency to pay lip service to the issues of the day (in this case: the budding American labor movement and early feminism) through the voices of his characters. Most of these pronouncements are politically correct and clichéd.
Worst of all, California Gold employs sex scenes as spice for low points in the plot. This is always a sign that a writer is struggling for ideas, or boring himself as he writes. When Jakes wrote California Gold, he may have been a little burned out, after writing The Kent Family Chronicles and the North and South trilogy.
California Gold, though, won’t be tossed aside on my did-not-finish (DNF) pile. This is still a good novel. Just not the caliber of novel I’d come to expect from John Jakes. No novelist, unfortunately, can hit one out of the park every time.
There really was something special about growing up in an era when video games were not old hat, but something brand-new and on the cutting edge of the technology of that time.
I suppose I like my 21st-century iPhone and my MacBook as much as the next person, but they are tools for me, not objects of indulgence. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed anything quite as much as that first Atari console I received for Christmas in 1981.
Did I have a favorite game? Of course I did. Space Invaders, hands down. Missile Command came in a close second, though.
Today’s solar eclipse was a bit anticlimactic here in Cincinnati. The local news channels all predicted a 99.2 percent eclipse in my area just outside the city.
That didn’t happen, not by a long shot:
Me, eagerly awaiting the full eclipse as the shadows start to lengthen
This is going to get good any minute now! I tell myself. But I am already growing skeptical.
The high point of the eclipse, at around 3:20 p.m. EST. The sun has been noticeably dimmed, but it’s a long way from dark.
What can I say? Here in Cincinnati, the local weather forecasts are right only about 50 percent of the time. Why should the eclipse forecast be any different?
This was worth walking outside for, but I’m glad I didn’t make a day of it.
I hope the eclipse was better for you, if you live in an area that was forecast to experience it.
