Bullet-Pointed Book Reviews: The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman, Mystery of Mysteries by Mark Dawidzak, and The October Country by Ray Bradbury

I haven't written a review in a few weeks - real life and vacation got in the way. So instead of going long on the three books I've read since my last post, I figured I'd do a couple quick bullets on each of them (not that these books couldn't stand with the others I've reviewed, as you'll see):

• The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman: This is a pretty bold work - it's the next chapter in the King Arthur story, after Arthur and Mordred have died with the vast majority of Camelot's knights. Told through the eyes of a knight (in the loosest possible sense) dreaming of joining the Round Table only to find that it barely exists, it becomes an adventure against foes both earthly and supernatural. While a good deal of King Arthur mythology is explored here, there is no more than general knowledge required to enjoy the book - and the author takes the story down a fascinating path to explore what part of being English is native vs. Roman, pagan vs. Christian, and what does the Saxon invasion really mean. Big twist at the end that I never saw coming but works very well - this is a very good book. Nine out of ten hot dogs

• Mystery of Mysteries by Mark Dawidzak: This book has two interlocking themes - the life of Edgar Allen Poe, and the death of Edgar Allen Poe. As the author makes clear, it is almost the story of two different people - one a usually cheerful, friendly, and athletic person (with the unfortunate habit of freezing out the wrong people at the wrong time), and one a dour and sickly man almost looking forward to his demise - which came sooner than his contemporaries thought and has no known cause even to this day. In half the chapters, the author tells the tale of Poe growing up, becoming a writer, and finding more success than prosperity. The most interesting part of these chapters was about perspective - while we think of Poe as a forerunning horror writer, he thought of himself as primarily a poet, and most people knew him as a critic - the Poe works still read today are only a fraction of what he wrote throughout his lifetime. The other chapters explore the final weeks of Poe's life, and include the description, refutation, and hypothesis for what caused his little-understood death. This is a very interesting read, especially for Poe fans. Nine out of ten hot dogs

• The October Country by Ray Bradbury: We got Cable in 1984, and of the total of 36 channels available to us (anyone remember the button-and-dial controller?), one I used to watch more than others was the USA Network. Not only did they have WWF on Monday nights (Gorilla and Heenan days!), but on Friday nights they had anthology shows Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Ray Bradbury Theater. Both shows were similar, but while Alfred Hitchcock Presents showed mostly suspense-type stories, Ray Bradbury Theater could get a little more into horror or sci-fi (as much as a limited budget could take them). So in reading short story collection The October Country, I was more than a little delighted in "Skeleton", since that was an outstanding episode, where Eugene Levy (!) is sure his skeleton wants to escape his body, and a copasetic doctor's intervention results in Levy reduced to a pile of skin on the floor. So, awesome! The rest of this book...not so much. I know it might seem hard to judge this book by today's standards of horror, but The Martian Chronicles still works today as well as it did 50 years ago, so there's no reason Bradbury's horror stories should need to be so boring. Plus, we know he can write horror since Something Wicked This Way Comes rules. There's no reason this shouldn't be at least an entertaining short story collection, but alas it didn't help Halloween up the place. Four out of ten hot dogs