The Shotgun Arcana (Golgotha Book 2) --by R. S. Belcher

 Fiction / Weird Western / Fantasy / Horror / One Heckuva Ride

Tor Books

October 7, 2014

ASIN: B00J6TWJAU

1507 KB

ISBN-10: ‎ 0765374587

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0765374585

400 pages

5 Stars

 

Boy Howdy! Am I ever glad I followed my hunch and read Six Gun Tarot (Book 1) first. I actually read this book 4^th. I truly encourage you to read Book 1 first, as the groundwork is laid for the others. Once you’ve read Six Gun Tarot, I don’t think the order matters too much, though if read out of order you’ll entertain yourself with some mental gymnastics over the characters. Nothing serious. But read Book 1 First.

 

Mr. Belcher has created one of the most fun universes ever with the Golgotha books. If you like a pinch (ok, a quart) of weird thrown into your books, check this series out. Buy all the books, head to your favorite hotel for a weekend of binging. Use room service. Take with you as you sit in the hot tub, and for heaven’s sake, turn your phone off! Leave a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of bread, and a gift certificate for pizza on the counter if you have family at home. Don’t forget to turn off your phone!

 

I am collecting the hard copy books. Yes, I will pack them around if I move. They are that good. Anne Bishop and Patricia Briggs, there is a new kid on the bookshelf, skootch over a bit and welcome him to the family. 

 

Six Gun Tarot

Shotgun Arcana --you're already here, do you really need a link?

Queen of Swords

Ghost Dance Judgement

Chopped Liver: Short-form and Prose Poems by James Roderick Burns

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cyberwit.net (June 10, 2022zzzzz0

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Paperback ‏ : ‎ 72 pages

 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 818253965X

 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8182539655

4 Stars

 

Mr. Burns presents us with a book of short and prose poems. The book is divided into three sections, Hot Dog and Bun: A Duet in short poetry, Chopped Liver, prose poems; and A Dog’s Breakfast, Haiku, Tanka, and Sedoka.

 

Mr. Burns hails from Stockton-on-Tees, in the north of England, and brings to this collection his English humor and spelling. This book is his fourth collection of short-form poems.

 

I liked most, if not all, of his pieces, but my most favorite by far was a short prose piece with a three-line title: “A Crack on the Head is What You Get for Not Asking, And A Crack on the Head is What You Get for Asking.” I laughed out loud at “Attenborough Goes East.” I had no trouble seeing both of these stories as they unfolded.

i am the rage: A Black Poetry Collection —by Dr. Martina McGowan, illustrated by Diana Ejaita

Nonfiction / Poetry

Sourcebooks

February 2, 2021

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1728245079

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1728245072

112 pages

5 Stars

 

I have a habit that drives a lot of my friends bonkers, but I only do it to my books. I dog ear the bottom corner of the page I really like. I treat borrowed books much better. Over half the pages of this book are dog eared! Starting with the epigram at the start of the book, a Langston Hughes quote.

 

With the exception of the cover, which is in color, the art inside is black and white. The pieces go well with the poems, and though my first thought was they would get in the way of the words, I was thrilled to discover they add depth to them. Well done, Ms. Ejaita.

 

I have a strong suspicion that Dr. McGowan speaks for a lot of black mothers out there, if not all. And if you aren’t black, more importantly if you are white, this is a book you need to read. You can’t just say, “My best friend is black, I’m not a racist.” That may be true, I don’t consider myself a racist and one of my best friends is black, but I truly and freely admit I am ignorant (fortunately, ignorance is a treatable condition, and this book is part of the treatment!) of what it is like to be African in America.

 

From the title poem, at the beginning of the book with these stanzas, “I am the outrage that flares every time you say something foolish like / I thought you were already free  //  I am the disappointment that breathes hot and silent / Every time I am dismissed / Discharged / Dishonored / Cast aside / Counted as worthless or meaningless”

 

Or sending my child out on an errand or to a social gathering,  telling him goodbye as he leaves and praying he’s recognized as human and returns home safe. “There is too little time to allow our children / to be children” What a horrid fear black mothers must have for the children they love.

 

If “Traffic Stop” doesn’t wake you to the fact skin color plays a role in all our lives, nothing will. “There is always someone / Who thinks we are doing the things / They should be able to do / And by so doing, / Deprive them /.  A few pages on we come to “Tale of Two Georges” with the call to listen. Hear the silence. Use the silence. And the last stanza, which will bring tears to my eyes every time I read it, “I listen / If only that policeman had been taught to listen / That other George / Would still be alive.”

 

The words in this book speak to me as woman, as mother, as one who believes in equality. As Dr. McGowan says in Juneteenth, “Because someone must still be the lowest caste” being female in this country is hard enough. We don’t need all the other forms of hate. 

Discovery --by Don Krieger

 Nonfiction / poetry

Cyberwit.net

June 2020

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9389690870

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9389690873

100 Pages

5 Stars

 

 

I love a book that makes me think, that pulls my mind in different directions, that stretches my very being so I can never shrink back to my original dimensions. Discovery is just such a book. Although Mr. Krieger is an extremely intelligent man (he is a biomedical researcher who worked on-call for 18 years as clinical neurophysiologist for high-risk surgical procedures,) his poetry is accessible to anyone who wants to read it. And I hope you are one of those people!

 

I was grabbed by the Prologue, when I read, “Lately people talk faster than I can listen”. It’s so reassuring that I am not alone.

 

Many of the poems have QR Barcodes at the bottom of the page. If you scan one, you will be taken to a reading of that poem by Don Krieger. 

 

1970 is a short poem, powerful. “I was in that first lottery, / drawn by birthday, 341, / no worries. / … / so many I knew / gone.” The poetry in this book is honest and emotional, it is not ‘sweet’.

 

Stranger at the Door tells us of a young Don who biked to school, and the weather turned sour, and school let out early so he biked home, turned on his street and “…the wind came…like a wall, then the rain and the roar, flying branches and lightning.” The sky was black, and this cub scout (in his uniform) went to the nearest door and was told “You can wait on the porch.” OMG. That brought all my maternal instincts to the fore and I just want to reach back to that day and time and clobber the unfeeling adult and hold the little boy. 

 

We go from Eighth Grade Shop to discover Obeah, a spiritual practice of the Igbo of Nigeria and farther along, we discover what it is like to be part of a surgical team to the last piece, That Which Is Missing, “If a critic describes a piece as difficult, maybe it / is and maybe it isn’t, but surely he means that he understands it.” This piece explains why he writes, and how he writes. It, alone, is worth the price of the book. (But then, I said that about almost all the poems in this book!)

 

“I write because I have something to say. I remove things because / I want that something to move you because it moved me.” Mr. Krieger writes honest poetry, in whatever form it works best, and will stretch your mind so it can never return to its beginning dimensions.

The Ghost Dance Judgement (Golgotha Book 4) —by R. S. Belcher

 Fiction / Weird West/Horror/Twisted/Historical/Heckuva Ride

Falstaff Books, LLC

October 8, 2020

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1645540545

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1645540540

390 pages

5 Stars

 

Oh, my. All sorts of wonderful mayhem and madness visit the town where all are welcome—the saints, the sinners, the damned.

 

A stranger arrives with a little girl he rescued, Deputy Mutt deals with an old nemesis, Snake Man. Sheriff Jon Highfather gets a message from a dead man, via the stranger. Mayor Pratt finally must choose who he loves, and Auggie becomes a father of an innocent baby boy. Of course, all these various and sundry folk can’t just flip a card or a coin to choose. They must go through hell and highwater and even then, they aren’t all that sure. Are they?

 

And the Natives are not only restless, they’ve found a shaman who can bring the spirits of dead Natives back to life? How do you kill a spirit? One way, I suppose is to bring Allen Pinkerton in with a secret weapon built to spec by Thomas Edison. In the meantime, those Natives are able to kill with almost impunity. 

 

In the background of all the normal, everyday mayhem of Golgotha, the slumbering evil locked under Agent Mine, is hungry, and restless, and wants out. NOW. Will Golgotha ever bee civilized? I hope not. It’s too much fun like it is.

 

As I reached the end of this book, I realized everything had been taken care of, handled correctly, but the ending of this series left an unlocked door. An open door, actually. And yes, Books 5 and 6 are in the mill.

 

These books will go on the shelf with those of Ann Bishop and Patricia Briggs. Fortunately, I’m confident they will all play well together. 

The Queen of Swords (Golgotha Book 3) --by R. S., Belcher

 Fiction / Weird West/Horror/Twisted/Historical/A Heckuva Ride

Tor Books

June 27, 2017

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765390094

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765390097

368 pages

5 Stars

 

These books are stand-alone in a series, but I strongly urge you to read Six Tun Tarot (Book 1) first. Then you can read the books in any order. Six Gun Tarot gives the foundation on which this series is written. Since book 3 came at the same time as book one, I read it next.

 

This story is told in two separate timelines. The earlier one, in the 1720s tells us about the infamous pirate queen, Anne Bonney. Miss Bonney is a force to be reckoned with as the escapes the gallows, delivers a son, and searches for the lost city of bones somewhere in northern Africa.

 

One hundred fifty years later, in 1870 Anne’s great-great-great-granddaughter, Maude Stapleton, is a widow who is raising her daughter alone, until Maude’s father interferes, and takes the daughter from Maude and from Golgotha to raise her as a proper young lady and marry her off to the landed gentry of South Carolina. Alas, Maude’s dander is up. She needs to get her daughter back, her inheritance back, and deal with the Sons of Typhon all at the same time. 

 

Her father obviously never understood, perhaps never heard, the adage about Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned, let alone the advice to never get between a mama bear and her cub.  Especially when that woman, that bear, is named Maude Stapleton!

Six Gun Tarot (Golgotha Book 1) --R. S. Belcher

 Fiction / Western/Horror/Twisted/A Heckuva Ride

Tor Fantasy; Reissue

March 25, 2014

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765367513

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765367518

480 pages

5 Stars

 

I was given Ghost Dance Judgement by a friend. Now, I’ve read enough fantasy series in my life that I don’t have much of a problem coming in at the middle or end of a series figuring out what’s gone on before. And I didn’t have that problem with Ghost, either. However, after reading the first 20 or so pages, I realized this universe, this world, deserved to be started at the beginning, so I stopped, and ordered books 1, 2, 3. I am so glad I did.

 

Mr. Belcher has built a marvelous universe, in 1869 Nevada, and slightly earlier South Carolina. When I can put the books down long enough to go find my tarot cards and book, I will look the chapter headings up, in the meantime, I’m just reading. By starting at the beginning, I have a good background to read the other books. I’m already reading 3 (still waiting for 2 to arrive)

 

Golgotha kind of reminds me of Sanctuary of Thieves’ World (Robert Lynn Aspirin). Everyone is welcome as long as they can abide by the rules of keeping their nose out of other people’s business. Yeah. Right. Jim is a nice young man who killed a couple of guys back east and has come west to find a job with the railroad. He’s really a tenderfoot, and he and his faithful horse try to cross the 40-mile desert with no supplies. He’s rescued by a half-breed Indian/coyote called Mutt. The Sherriff is a dead man walking. It isn’t his time to die yet. Down in a cave are the golden tablets for the Mormons, and in an old silver mine an Olde Wurm (the original bad dude/thing/evil awakens and plans on eating every living thing on the planet, as well as the stars, etc. Unless, of course, our intrepid heroes can stop him.

 

Saddle up, Buckaroo, it’s one heckuva ride. Yes, there is a bit of gruesome, but I wouldn’t call it nightmare inducing. I don’t like horror because it gives me nightmares, and I read this book at night, just before turning my light out. Mostly I chuckled through the book.