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Book ReviewsI have one hundred or so book reviews on Amazon.com. See them by clicking here: Reviews by Donald J. Bingle. Books reviewed include: Paul is Undead (3 stars); Deja Dead (2 stars); Bad Bargain (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (4 stars); Torchwood: House That Jack Built (3 stars); Destiny's Star (5 stars); Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth (3 stars); Close Encounters of the Urban Kind (4 stars); A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters (5 stars); The Serialist (4 stars); Afterimage (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) (4 stars); The Thirteenth Hour (2 stars); Heat Wave (3 stars); Depraved Indifference (3 stars); Seventh Son (3 stars); Veracity (2 stars); War and Peace (5 stars); Black Rain (5 stars); Pirate Latitudes (4 stars); The Lost Symbol (5 stars); Time (1 star); The Maze Runner (5 stars); Weapons of Choice (2 stars); Second Sight (2 stars); Demon Chick (3 stars); White Star (5 stars); Top Producer (3 stars); FlashForward (5 stars); The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (3 stars); Devil May Care (2 stars); Invasive Procedures (3 stars); The Dragon Hunters (5 stars); Rogue Angel: Eternal Journey (5 stars); In a Sunburned Country (5 stars); Rogue Angel: Destiny (5 stars); Freezing Point (2 stars); Flatland (3 stars); Moby Dick (2 stars); The Golden Cord (5 stars); Dagger-Star (5 stars); River Ghosts (5 stars); World War Z (4 stars); Blasphemy (3 stars); Queen of the Slayers (2 stars); Velocity (3 stars); Outrageous Fortune (2 stars); The Book of the Dead (1 star); Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (1 star); The Time Traveler's Wife (3 stars); Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (4 stars); The Third Secret (4 stars); That Darn Squid God (5 stars); Bitten (4 stars); Old Twentieth (5 stars); Warlord (5 stars); Treasure Box (4 stars); Boomsday (3 stars); Diamonds are Forever (3 stars); Prey (4 stars); Fenzig's Fortune (5 stars); Return of the Dinosaurs (3 stars); Burn (3 stars); Next (3 stars); The Traveler (2 stars); Ender's Shadow (5 stars); The Finest Challenge (5 stars); Tyrannosaur Canyon (3 stars); Replay (5 stars); The World Turned Upside Down (3 stars); Left Behind (2 stars); Sally! Sally! Sally! Sally! (5 stars); Shane (5 stars); The Templar Legacy (2 stars); Siege of Night and Fire (5 stars); Warsworn (5 stars); Thank You for Smoking (5 stars); Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III (4 stars); Riptide (4 stars); The Codex (4 stars); The Widow's Son (5 stars); The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (3 stars); Wild Animus (2 stars); Return to Quag Keep (5 stars); In the Shadow of Evil (5 stars); War of the Worlds: New Millennium (5 stars); The Princess Bride (5 stars); The Finest Choice (5 stars); Quag Keep (3 stars); Aftermath (2 stars); Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (5 stars); Dream Park (5 stars); Iterations (5 stars); Search for Power (4 stars); Warprize (5 stars); Digital Fortress (3 stars); Camouflage (4 stars); Mindscan (5 stars); The Coming (2 stars); The Finest Creation (5 stars); State of Fear (4 stars); The Time Ships (5 stars); Relativity (5 stars); GoblinQuest (5 stars); Hybrids (5 stars); and Calculating God (5 stars). Don's review of the month: Paul is Undead: There's no doubt about it. A clever title and a cool concept can sell a book to publishers and customers alike, but while there are highlights of inspired silliness (most revolving around Ringo's Ninja status), the execution of the book as a whole left me flat. The author certainly knows his Beatles history and personnel, so those who know already about the "butcher's cover" and the various "fifth Beatles" will get a bit more out of the book than the average (or younger) fan, but there are two key problems that pull the tale away from ever becoming great. First, because it is a zombie version of Beatles history, there is no plot to propel the story forward--merely a chronological recitation of what happened in what year. Second, the author goes for gross-out and scatalogical humor at every opportunity, which gets old fast. By the way, when you get to the end of the book, you will find that the incident referenced in the preface to hook the reader is never even mentioned again and seems internally inconsistent with the zombie mythology elsewhere in the book--which feels like a bit of a cheat. Fun in parts, icky in lots of parts, but lightweight and tedious in too many parts. Movie ReviewsDon Bingle has written a column called A Gamer's View of the Movies that was published in the Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine/Comic and in The Evening Post: The Newsletter of the PM Players. All movie reviews are Copyright ©1998-2001 Donald J. Bingle.
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