Customer Reviews

The Man Who Fought Alone

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to admit, I had an awfully hard time getting started with this book. I'm a big fan of Stephen R. Donaldson, and with his recent books I realise I have very high expectations and I'm always afraid that this is where he is going to lose his edge and start going downhill.

It hasn't happened yet, though. This series of mysteries (The Man Who Killed His Brother, The Man Who Risked His Partner, The Man Who Tries to Get Away, and now The Man Who Fought Alone) is another great series, stylistically quite different from any of his other books. I find it a bit hard to describe: the previous books in the series have been almost-parodies of stock detective-book plots; stock plots that Donaldson has injected with his own unique (often dark) perspective, effectively combined with a frequently light attitude that can really be quite humorous. The Man Who Fought Alone is more straighforward and less humorous than previous books, although the overall feel of the book is a bit lighter as Axebrewder starts to bring his life under control. Donaldon has managed to work the martial arts theme quite well too, with a look inside the world or martial arts competition which is both interesting and manages to develop good characters. This is what always draws me to Stephen R. Donalson's books, the wonderfully textured and developed characters, each with their own strengths and foibles and, well, character that really stands out in a genre that is not know for such things.

Now, the start of the book is a bit slow, and it's overall not quite as tight as previous entries in the series. The first few chapters will probably have a few long-time Donaldson fans rolling their eyes a bit as old Axebrewder goes on his lengthy "woe is me" bit. After this slightly rocky start, though, the book really does take off and it thoroghly engrossed me. It's not quite the best in the series, but the series is quite good and The Man Who Fought Alone is highly recommended. I'm glad that it looks like the whole series is being re-issued in hardback under Stephen R. Donaldson's real name (they were previously published under a pseudonym, Reed Stephens); they've been hard-to-get for some time and given his success, this is long overdue.

I read this novel because I enjoyed Donaldson's Thomas Covenant and Mordant's Need series. I was curious how he handled the mystery genre. Although I tend to think of mystery being written in short, backhanded sentences with a minimum of description except to evoke atmosphere, and largely supported by dialogue, Donaldson is remarkably effective with his typically long, analogy-studded sentences (ie sunshine like piledrivers) and his brilliantly, meticulously drawn characterizations.

This is not an easily read novel. I'm reminded of this whenever I recommend Donaldson to someone else, and find they can't get past the first few chapters. Donaldson always builds momentum in his novels so that you love by the end exactly what you hated in the beginning; it's sort of a relationship where you get out what you are willing to put in. In this case, you have to invest in a misanthropic, unemployed alcoholic ("Brew") who seems likeable at first only because we the readers inevitably shine in comparison. But when the plot kicks in, Brew is a very real character worth following around. He's no Spenser, but his faults are refreshing in this light.

The martial arts side of this novel is well-inserted, and fascinating. I've attended tournaments exactly like the one he describes, and he gets it perfect. I would have read the book for this alone.

I recommend this novel if you know what you're getting into. If you're already a Donaldson fan, jump in. Otherwise, you might find you really like his style; it's certainly different from the majority of mystery I've happened to read.

I am always on the lookout for new crime authors, and had actually forgotten about the Mick Axbrewder novels until I picked this one up. Deciding to give this character one more try, I purchased it.
There was some initial interest generated by the premise of Axbrewder, having hit bottom and now abandoned by his ex-partner, bringing himself back up to respectability. However, the book could not sustain even that interest after the first two chapters. I found the action in this book to be slow and too methodical to be compelling. One waits much too long for something of interest to happen. Virtually every line of Brew's dialogue is prefaced by some some twitch or contortion of his body, most of which do not seem appropriate. And enough with the heat references! Every other paragraph tells us about the weather. We get it, it's hot there!
I didn't connect with the character, and found his reasons behind his quest for truth to be unconvincing. By the time I reached the last third of the book, I no longer cared what happened to anyone in it. Cannot recommend.

Over the weekend, I read Donaldson's new book, titled _The Man Who Fought Alone_. This is either the fourth or fifth Mick "Brew" Axbrewder mystery, but the first published under Donaldson's own name (the others were published under the pseudonym "Reed Stephens"--guess we know what the "R." stands for).

This was an excellent book, though at first I wasn't sure I was going to like it. As the book opens, Brew and his partner, Ginny Fistoulari (there are some really memorable names in this book) have just relocated to the city of Carner, after a run-in with the criminal elements of their former hometown, Puerta del Sol, has left Brew with a bullet wound in the stomach. As he's recovering, and feeling sorry for himself, Ginny seeks out an old acquaintance and lands a job with his detective firm. Brew starts to look for a job and winds up at the same firm, which recommends him as extra security for a martial arts tournament that is coming up.

This was where the book really hooked me. I didn't care for all the wishy-washy angst at the beginning, which reminded me a lot of Donaldson's Thomas Covenant fantasy series and why I finally had to stop reading it. Brew, a recovering alcoholic, has begun to feel like a burden to Ginny, and circumstances have forced them apart and he's wondering how he'll continue on without her, etc., etc. But once he's hired to watch over the tournament, this becomes a really interesting book.

As Brew wanders around the convention center where the matches are being held, he talks to a number of people, trying to get some sort of a handle on the various martial arts and "artists." This allows Donaldson to provide explanations of the different styles, which can be loosely characterized as "hard" and "soft," as well as the various conflicts between different nations and their preferred styles. The reader learns an awful lot about the martial arts and it's never presented in a didactic fashion. Brew, at first, is very condescending in his attitude, but he gradually develops more and more respect and at the end of the book has become a student of Shotokan, under a Japanese master.

The tournament is being put on under the auspices of an American karate master whose International Association of the Martial Arts is an attempt to bridge some of the gaps between the different styles, etc. At the tournament, a set of "chops" or ivory tablets with the stances of Wing Chun, a traditionally Chinese martial art, are being displayed. They are presently in the hands of the Japanese Shotokan master, which has lead to more bad blood between the various schools. When a murder occurs, Brew suspects that it has something to do with the chops, but he isn't sure just how or why.

As I said, the martial arts stuff really drew me into the book. There's a lot of information in the book, but it's never presented in a way that makes it difficult to understand or follow. Once the action gets underway, there isn't as much focus on the wishy-washiness of Donaldson's protagonist.

The fictional locales threw me for a bit, but then I started to think of Carner as a stand-in for Tucson, or perhaps Phoenix, and the book started to feel a bit more realistic. It also might be a bit far-fetched to have a hero recovering from a gut-wound rebound after only three weeks and be as involved in as much physical activity as Brew is in the book--he gets a number of heavy-duty beatings in the course of events.

Still, it was a very entertaining book, which has me interested enough in the characters that I'll go back and seek out the other books in this series. Recommended.

First, I'd say that Stephen R. Donaldson is my favorite author. Secondly, I'm not just a sci-fi/fantasy reader. My primary reading is the mystery genre. I started reading Mr. Donaldson's work in the early 80s and have continued to read everything he's written. If I'd stumbled across these books before I knew who wrote them, I'd have been addicted years ago to this series.

I began this series with this particular book approximately 6 months ago. It was so awesome that I searched out all the other books and was amazed I didn't know about it for over 20 years.

While this series is quite different from any other Donaldson has written, you can still strongly see his signature in the characters. The language is far less complicated than in his other works and I vaguely missed the challenge of the strong vocabulary while at the same time, appreciating his vivid and evocative descriptions of persons, places and events.

The characters, as in Donaldson's other series, are typically dark and wounded. It's always clear to the reader that if they would only talk openly to each other, they could move more lightly through the world. Alas, it's not meant to be and, as in real life, the characters hold their grief and guilt close and use it as an excuse to not communicate with those who are most important to them and to engage in self-indulgent behavior.

Brew and Ginny are excellent examples of Donaldson's characters. I find them to be very believable and compelling. Mick lives in deep shame and guilt over his alcoholism, accidentally killing his brother while trying to stop a purse snatcher, believing it was his fault his partner lost her hand in a bombing. Yet even in his grief, guilt and self-pity there is a core of strength and loyalty that are compelling. An earlier reviewer referred to him as a wounded bear... I think that analogy is dead on.

In this story, the pair of detectives work apart for the first time in their long history together and both are partially crippled by the distance between them.

As in all the stories, the plot has a lot of unexpected twists and turns. The depth of his insights into Shotokan Karate inspired me to seek out a Shotokan class when my daughter was interested in learning a martial art. Like Mick, the more I learned, the more interested I became.

Overall, I'd rate this book and the entire series 5 stars. The characters are compelling, the plots are captivating and the writing is superb.

Life stinks if you ask former private detective Mick "Brew" Axbrewder. The accidental killing of his brother years ago will always haunt Brew, a recovering alcoholic. Brew's former partner his beloved Ginny Fistoulari has barely been civil to him since he killed his sibling. He understands why Ginny loathes him, but all Brew wants is another chance to redeem what is left of his life even if Ginny is never at his side again.

While Ginny finds work with another sleuth, an apprehensive Brew accepts a security job at martial arts tournament. Surprising, at least to Brew ,is how deep two rival schools hate each other as both claim ownership of antique Chinese print blocks containing martial art poses. When someone is killed, Brew believes the murder is associated with the valuable blocks, but struggles to uncover whom committed murder.

In the fourth "The Man Who" series, Stephen Donaldson provides quite an antihero battling his own demons in a seemingly futile attempt to salvage his scarred soul. The who-done-It of THE MAN WHO FOUGHT ALONE engages the audience though the culprit seems obvious relatively early into the plot. Still, readers will relish this tale because Brew's quest for redemption makes his efforts to solve the murder quite appealing to readers in this terse private investigator thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Having read the other reviews I have to say that I am disappointed that SRD didn't garner the excitement that he usually does. Does this mean that he has lost his edge and is going downhill? No, I don't think so. I just think that this is not the best genre for him.

While I don't think of SRD as a god like some do I still consider him to be my favorite author. I have read everything that I could find by him and I must admit that this is not his best. Please don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the Mick Axbrewder series quite a bit. I just wouldn't read this series six times as I have the "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" or five times like "The Gap Series". (not sure if quotes are appropriate but who cares) I certainly am not waiting breathlessly for the next book in the series like SRD has made me do so many times before.

If you are reading this to help you make a decision about a purchase I'm sorry that I can't help you. If you are a great SRD fan you may want to try this series but you may be disappointed.

There is one thing that you may want to consider. More people have asked to borrow this series than anything else in my home library. Every single person that borrowed it loved it. I'm not making any kind of value judgement based on that. I am just reporting the facts.

I read the first three Axbrewder novels with some enjoyment, but the fourth novel presents a major technical problem surprising for a science fiction author: the first three novels are set in the 1980's, which was contemporary when the book was written. Axbrewder and Ginny Fistoulari spend quite a bit of time finding a pay phone or calling Ginny's exchange. The fourth book is set only a few weeks after the third book, and yet there are cell phones and hotel security video cameras and a whole bunch of background technology that just didn't exist in the mid- (or even the late-) 80's.

I tend to think of the city the novel is set in as Dallas rather than as Phoenix or Tuscon (because it's so new, shiny, rich and hot), but it doesn't affect the way the story is read. I'm not finished with the book yet, so maybe the story will redeem the technical snafu's, but c'mon...

Donaldson is definitely one of my favorite authors and I especially enjoyed his slamming, futuristic sci/fi Gap Series. This new book is written with the same intensity that I have come to appreciate so much about Donaldson's style. He grabs your attention in any number of ways and hangs on to it with plot twists and turns that he spins in a very hip way of expressing his characters' flaws and fortunes. Axbrewder "Brew" is both likeable and contemptible. He is full of flaws and fire, fear and fearlessness and his struggle to find himself now unattached at the hip from his former partner Ginny and on his own to face his co-dependency and the myriad storms of feelings over what he perceives as a form of abandonment leaves him floundering and needy both physically and psychologically. These burdens add a large dose of bitters to the task of finding his identity as a sole provider for himself at the work he is best able to do and to undo. I loved the constant tension of wondering where or when he would mess up next.

SRD paints his characters with brilliant brush strokes that leave a reader in no doubt as to what makes them tick. Additionally, I appreciated the learning curve offered by the author in this book that really helps one's understanding of the real and the more esoteric practices of the martial arts. It is a subject that can be pretty confusing unless one is involved in that area of study.

The plot was fairly straightforward and I knew about the first third of the book who the "villan" would be. This was an interesting twist in his style for the reader to have the CLUE, while the hero was left to navigate the minefields of being clueless which the author dressed up as hunches. Nice touch. All in all, I have to say that I like "Brew" a lot as a character and hope to see him around again. And again. Thanks for a cool yarn SRD!

Quality in Delivered Product as well as Content.
A quick and easy transaction.