Scott Palmer

Call this “Holmes Adjacent”

Reviewed: 06-06-25

I’m a cat person. I’m known for being a cat person. I’ve read a couple of detective series where a cat has featured prominently. I bought this book hoping it would be a happy accident. It’s not.

The author has a pretty conceit about Holmes taking in a very clever stray cat.

My issue isn’t with the cat being hyper-intelligent. It’s that, in order to be clever, the humans, including Holmes, are all idiots! The characters have the right names, but the rest of parcel is lacking.

About the writing style, the author needs to hie herself to a book store and buy a thesaurus. I’ll swear that the word “bottom” was used so often I started rewriting the scenes in my mind, with fundament, rear end, buttocks, butt, posterior, arse, ass, anything but bottom!

And the use of “sweater” instead of jumper was wrong, wrong, wrong! If you’re going to set something in London try to get the language right.

All said, if this had been a free book I’d have been happy with it. But I paid good money for this and I was short-changed.

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Plodding Story

Reviewed: 01-23-25

I can get into a lot, but a human, a cop no less, is just hunky dory with his vampire lover and other vampires slaughtering people, just because, you know, a vampire has to eat! Dozens of bodies stack up, but this officer of the law couldn’t give a shit about the lives consumed by his vampire buddies.

And even through all the blood drinking, the vampire’s breath is good?

As a gay man, this is the least passionate romance I’ve ever listened to.

I wish the author would write gothic straight romance, she has no concept of how gay men romance each other. We are NOT about shy, reserved courtly manners. These are just straight characters in male forms. This is just using fake gay characters to be transgressive.

Its exploits my community and I don’t appreciate it.

The voice artist tries hard, but every voice sounds like a nasally old asshole male, even the female ones. I listened to a couple of his narrations and they all sound the same.

Even at free the price is too high.

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Perfection is dull!

Reviewed: 01-29-24

Could one gay male writer have one of his “manly” man characters get giggly about Disney princesses? Could one of these GODS among men get a zit?
Could one of the bottoms not be ready to be plowed into oblivion for hours on end and need to “get ready,” or even say “Sorry, it’s a no go. I had Chipotle for lunch.”

Beyond the glaring plot hole of the murderer having an unending supply of custom-made ivory-handled knives on hand (why didn’t the police try to find the source for these unique weapons?), the murderer had to have incredible upper body strength to jam those blades through some of the strongest bone in the human body as well unbelievable finesse to not shatter the ivory! The source for the ivory alone would be an important clue.

This last book was more like a porn mag from the Eighties than a novel. And the sex was so repetitive that I found myself fast forwarding through entire chapters to get to some morsel of plot.

All I’m asking, as one gay man to another, could you please make your characters human once in awhile?

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Meller-drammer aplenty!

Reviewed: 12-17-23

Mr. Bauer needs to dial back his descriptions three clicks. Easily the time is doubled by needless superlatives, it’s never just “a look,” it’s “a looked passed between them, filled with the longing each felt, like they’d been lovers for years even though they had just met.”

And Mr. Solo’s reading was so intense, with every word weighted by more emotion than the poor syllables can bear. William Shatner seems reserved in comparison.

The premise was interesting, with some twists unexpected, bringing a bit of sharpness to cut through the verbiage.

I listened to the first two books for free, I won’t be paying for the third.

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Telenovela Wannabey

Reviewed: 11-05-23

First, I’m going to listen to the second book to see if the writer can live up to the promise that I can see, like a tiny, precious jewel of my trust (this is a reference to a specific line).

Second, this isn’t a detective story. It’s a pornographic M/M romance, with a minor detective story, and with an even more minor serial killer subplot that is the basis for the lead character’s tragic backstory.

Third, the writing is overblown. Every verb and noun is modified, nothing is ever said simply. It’s never “fighting like a rat”, it’s “fighting like a vicious rat infected with rabies.” The stars don’t shine, they twinkle like something out of a fairytale.

Lastly, the narrator is supposed to been an Italian who immigrated in childhood. But to my ear, he sounds more Hispanic than Italian and often sounds like he’s performing for a telenovela, he needs to tone it down.

Like I said, the idea of an lgbtq+ detective agency is intriguing, but the author needs to decide whether he’s writing pornography or a detective novel.

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WTF?

Reviewed: 09-14-23

This is verbal masturbation, nothing more.

I’d demand a refund but Amazon makes it difficult to do.

And for an M/M “fantasy” there was very little M and no M to be found.

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An average tale told in an average manner

Reviewed: 05-11-23

If I ever hear the phrase “my boyfriend” wheezed out again I’ll run screaming into the night. I don’t think this book went more than two-three minutes without “my boyfriend” being tossed out in an unimaginative way.

I use books (audio or print) as escapist fare. Couldn’t do much escaping with this book plodding along like the two protagonists.

Perhaps it was because there were only two demigods that the action was so slow, or it might have been that page after page of teen angst can only be enjoyed by teenage masochists, but I think it was the authors’ waiting until the last few chapters for any real action to occur that is the main problem.

Walk, walk, walk, “my boyfriend”, talk, talk, talk, “my boyfriend”, walk, talk, walk, talk, “my boyfriend”, well, you get the idea.

And I don’t know why writers insist on torturing their gay leads constantly, but it’s barely better than the “kill your queers” trope that has existed since forever.

The narrator had a hell of a challenge with the uninspired writing but he could’ve found at least one other way of saying “my boyfriend” than the flat reading he gave it each time.

All in all, this is the only book with Mr. Riordan’s name on it that I’ve been disappointed in. It might be that collaborations are not his strong suit.

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Vocabulary

Reviewed: 12-03-22

I’m begging you, Mr. Reeder, to invest in a thesaurus and find some synonyms for “bad ass.” There are only so many times you can hear the characters describing themselves and their companions as “bad asses” before you start thinking of them as just asses.

Then there’s this idea (beginning with Percy Jackson and Harry Potter) that teenagers meet their one true love early in their lives and never truly waver in their devotion to each other. And your teens are practically fornicating in front of the teachers. No fumbling, complete self-control, patient beyond male comprehension, without even self-gratification to explain why your male heroes aren’t bent double from testicular pain from all this noble self-denial.

And, please, sir, don’t bring a lesbian character into your stories just to titillate your male readers. I feel you were going for inclusiveness but couldn’t resist leering at some girl-on-girl action. I’ll admit you gave a passing nod at an androgynous character who was “too pretty” who was just another randy male looking for his woman that he’ll love forever. Then the one possibly gay male who made your secondary male lead shriek out “I’m not gay” so we understood how straight our hero was, what really was your purpose in including him?

The voice actor is one of the best I’ve ever listened to. He adds a great deal to the story.

Mr. Reeder, I’ve enjoyed listening to your books, just expand your vocabulary, let your leads be realistic teenagers and don’t leer at your secondary characters.

Thank you.

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Do you like endless, pointless minutia?

Reviewed: 11-19-22

So much potential wasted.

The author has an interesting premise about magic, but the premise isn’t enough to sustain the plodding repetition of how the hero (whiney twerp) manipulates his “magic.” At one point he folds it (in his mind) then folds it again, then folds it again, then folds it again, and then he counts his stacked magic pellets, then folds some more, then counts them again.

Did I mention our hero does this in the middle of every life or death battle he has? Things get interesting and… we need to do some pointless task that grinds the action to a halt. And when he gets back to the fight you’ve forgotten what was happening because of the unneeded description of magical drivel.

And the house full of “mages” he lives with are a curiously uncurious bunch! Our protagonist is almost tortured to death before being rescued by the “house” itself. And they don’t ask the newest member even the most rudimentary questions like “How did you get away?” Or “What happened to your attackers?” Then an obviously magical kitten shows up, goes wherever it wants, even through charmed doors, heals itself, shreds magical attacks and not once does anyone ask “Where’d this cat come from?”

I’d like to ask the voice talent if he thought that whining and near comical timidity was what conveyed more than a limp personality. There can be more than two emotions for every character.

I wanted to like this book, I really did, but I just can’t. I’m trying to find a new series to listen to. This is not it.

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Great Writer, Crappy Narrator

Reviewed: 10-01-21

Alan Dean Foster is prolific and skilled. I enjoyed revisiting some old friends and familiar worlds, as well as some new ideas and places to explore.

But please, whoever is the god of narration, never ever let Tom Bishop read anything but repair manuals from this day forth!

His male characters sound either like bumpkins, or gangsters who have escaped the cutting room floor of several bad James Cagney movies! His female voices are either simpering or strident.

I almost stopped listening barely five minutes into the book because I didn’t care to be spoken at like a toddler.

To summarize; Alan Dean Foster = great writer. Tom Bishop = crappy narrator.

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