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Release Date: 1999-03-01
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
| Great value for readers looking only for The Adventures of Sherlock HolmesThis Kindle freebie is great for readers who are only keen to read the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The stories contained within this title are:
A Scandal in Bohemia
The Red-Headed League
A Case of Identity
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
The Five Orange Pips
The Man with the Twisted Lip
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb
The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
This Kindle freebie does NOT include "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes", "The Return of Sherlock Holmes", "His Last Bow", "The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes", or the novels, i.e. "A Study in Scarlet", "The Sign of Four", "The Hound of the Baskervilles", and "The Valley of Fear".
It is an excellent "purchase" for readers who would like to enjoy reading about the intrepid Holmes and Watson on their adventures. The formatting is okay, i.e. not excellent but not overly annoying either. As is the case with many other Kindle titles, the Table of Contents is not one which is reader-friendly - one cannot simply click on a particular story to get to it, but has to manually scroll through. I hope this is addressed as more books become available as Kindle titles. On the whole, I have little to complain about, except for the lamentable lack of illustrations. To those who love Sherlock Holmes, I would recommend getting not just the complete stories and if you don't mind a truly bulky (yet beautiful set), I would suggest the annotated set by Leslie S. Klinger,The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories (2 Vol. Set) and The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Volume 3: The Novels (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear) (non-slipcased edition).
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| List Price: $6.99
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Release Date: 2009-01-21
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
| "The light swelled, spinning on a strangely disconnected axis. Hovering, then giving birth to gently glowing spheres."***This review may contain a spoiler***
There is something that is seen fairly commonly in science fiction, horror and urban fantasy fictions, and that is the pocket universe. This is when writers create their own little universe, and then continue to explore it in their fictions. This is not the same as having a continuing character; these pocket universes rarely have continuing characters. Thompson seems to have created her own little pocket universe in her Texas regionalism writings. A main character here comes from Bone Lake (see below) which will be the setting for Thompson's next novel (Beneath Bone Lake), all though I don't recall if the character here is mentioned in "Beneath Bone Lake", a novel which itself would give birth to a minor character that will star in her own novel due sometime this year. "Triple Exposure" and "Bone Lake" are the only two Thompson novels that I've read so far, so I don't know if her earlier novels are also set in this pocket universe. Investigation is needed.
In "Triple Exposure", Rachel Copeland is coming home. See, she's been on vacation at the state of Texas' expense for a year after killing Kyle Underwood, an unstable sociopath who had stalked her, terrorized her, and it turns out, had drugged and raped her. It's not a smooth homecoming as some members of her family, blood and extended, have issues with her. Not the least of who is Patsy, Rachel's stepmother, with whom Rachel has never managed to bond with after Patsy's marriage to Rachel's Dad soon after Rachel's mother had died. There is also the small matter that Rachel has a nasty stalker who blames Rachel for Kyle's behavior, and Rachel believes the stalker to be Kyle's mother, who had managed to terrorize her, even during Rachel's time in the Big House.
Once a promising and respected photographer, Rachel's career was sidelined by her stay at the hoosegow, and its subsequent scandal; now home in Marfa, and trying to put her life back in order, Rachel is approached by local social matron and queen-bee Antoinette Gallinardi. Gallinardi now wants Rachel to do some work for her and her committee, needing the money, she decides to take the job, during which she meets the hot Zeke Pike, and man with his own problems, and who is a man (from Bone Lake) on the run from his own past. And who seems to have his own (deadly) stalker.
A firm believer in multi-perspective storytelling, the novel drifts between the viewpoints of almost all of the major female characters, and Zeke. Through this procedure we able to see, feel, and understand the pressure that Rachel's problems, through no fault of her own, has put upon her family, we get to feel the effects of the growing passion between Rachel and Zeke, and feel the pressure of the effects of the stalking on Rachel and Zeke as they find that they will have to confront the unpleasantness of their past. We also get to see through the stalkers/stalker's eyes and we get to know what they are doing, feeling, and planning, thus ratcheting up the Hitchcockian-style suspense.
Thompson has several great things going in this novel. The first is the whole airplane thing; this is a nice change of pace, as it puts a slightly different spin on the storyline. One of the ways this is seen is how Rachel, almost against (well, not really) her will, is drawn back into her father's chartered airplane business.
Another good thing is this novel's plot, which may have one of the most convoluted plotlines that I've read in many a year. Unlike many who find such things unbelievable, I'm just happy Thompson's taking me along for the ride, and it manages to keep the book interesting, and to keep me reading.
There is also the likeability of the major characters, like the feisty and hurt Rachel, who seems to having the type of problems that even Dr. Phil couldn't solve, or of Patsy, who seems hurt and confused by Rachel's attitude, and is unsure as how to handle her. I also liked the way that Thompson will keep you guessing as to what the stalkers are doing, who they are, and what their next moves will be.
A negative is that after bending the storyline into a proverbial and convoluted pretzel, Thompson gives us a too neat of an ending to Rachel's problems, one of which comes dangerously close to that of a deux ex machina. This is especially clear when we find out the identity of one of the novel's antagonists, and of all of Rachel's personal, business, and social problems.
"Triple Exposure" also has a neat cover, which is explained within the book, and the novel even has a touch of the supernatural to it, as the infamous Marfa Lights keep becoming part of the plotline, right up to a time when they almost get a major character killed. However much I liked this Hitchockian novel, it's the too neat ending, though, which knocks the rating down a star. The quote that gives this review its title is Thompson's take on the Marfa Lights.
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Release Date: 2010-08-24
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
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| This Bird Sings a Somber SongAt the end of Catching Fire, I guess I expected the series to focus on the love triangle in the remaining book. Certainly, the love triangle gets resolved in this last installment, but it's not the main theme. Instead, this book is about the war, and it gets pretty bleak at times. There's a lot of violence, and it's not just battle-type violence - there's a lot of psychological violence and torture. It's ugly, but I guess war is.
All three of the main characters change in ways that aren't necessarily the way I wanted things to go. However, I know that no one can go through war without changing, and the changes the characters go through seem consistent with what would really happen to a person in war. I thought Katniss changed less than the others; she starts out raging, and she ends with the same anger-fueled impulsiveness she's shown throughout the series.
Did I like the book? I'm not sure. I finished last night after racing through it (on my new Kindle - so cool!). And I suppose I have some sympathy for Katniss, but I just don't like her as much as I would like to.
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Release Date: 2006-02-26
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
| [insert pirate joke here]Wonderful. This book is a must read. This was the first classic I downloaded (for free nonetheless) for my Kindle and could not be more impressed with the quality of the novel. I expected a sort of lame adventure-Disney pirate hybrid but instead found myself looking forward to each and every turn of the page. The book is not terribly long (so you won't feel like the author fancies the killing of trees for sport) and keeps a rather good pace of narrating the action. Treasure Island is a must read. (A) It's free, (B) You'll knock out reading a classic, and (C) You'll feel all that much more enlightened when you throw up in front of it's namesake hotel in Vegas. Yarr.
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