Customer Reviews

Very Bad Deaths

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Spider Robinson's iconoclasic view of North America from his chosen retreat in rural Canada always provides a useful distance to view the oddities of the modern world. This was clear in LifeHouse, and in his other recent non-Callihan's books.

This extends the trend once again pitting a Spider-like hero against forces beyond his ability to understand much less conquer.

It's a gripping tale, held me tight, and I read it in one setting. I only wish that the antagonist now did not live in the back of my head. I've avoided reading Hannible Lecter, or the tales of Ted Bundy, but now, Spiders take on evil is going to have residence in my head for quite a while.

It was worth it. Five starts with an asterisk. Don't leave this one lying down where your precosious ten year old will come acrossed it late at night.

Very Bad Deaths is quirky and entertaining. We meet some very unusual people in this adventure.

It all starts when an old college roommate knocks on Russell Walker's door in the middle of the night. Poor Russell is a recent widower and columnist for a Toronto newspaper and not feeling too good about the world at the moment. This knock on the door in the middle of the night and the request for help by his old college roommate, Zandor Zudenigo, aka Smelly, jumpstarts Russell, reluctantly, back to action. Now Zandor is a very, very strange character and happens to know that a man named Allen plans to kidnap and kill an innocent family in a very painful and horrible manner. Allen is the worst kind of sadist imaginable and Russell feels he has no choice to help stop this monster. The problem is - Zandor can't go to the police himself, for reasons you'll find in the book. So Russell must do it for him. Fortuitously and by happenstance Russell runs into Constable Nika Mandic (both literally and figuratively), a Vancouver cop whose career is stalled. I don't want to give away too much of the plot - but Russell has a lot of work to do to convince Nika that his request is legitimate and he's not some nut, another fun part of the story. But eventually the chase is on as this odd troika sets off to find Allen and put an end to his heinous plans.

This is a very quirky and entertaining novel and is as much about the characters and their personal plights as it is an adventure story. It's a real page turner from beginning to end and is hard to put down. Definitely a thumbs up.

I did enjoy the actual reading of this book. It's a fun read. When I was done, however, I found myself disappointed. The concept of a suicidal writer teaming up with a telepath and a female cop to catch a psychopath is a good one. The "suicidal" part doesn't affect the plot at all, which was too bad because it could have been interesting. The end came too quickly, especially considering all the time he spent on his character battling bureaucracy.

The most annoying part about this book was how it was used to beat the reader over the head with how "marijuana is great". I don't smoke it and I'm neutral on the subject myself.

I expected more imagination from this author.

Like a rock band tired of doing their old songs and wanting you to hear something new, Spider is weary of Mike Callahan and I think he's always wanted to be a detective writer anyway. There are many hints in this book that it is the first of a series. It is a fast read and very enjoyable. It is sparse - not as many characters are developed as in Lady Slings The Booze but it's set in Canada so fewer characters seems appropriate. I didn't notice any political statements . If you're so tightly wound you think a main character who smokes pot and criticizes Bush once or twice in the whole novel is politically extreme, please...Sherlock Holmes did coke (Subcutaneously, My Dear Watson) and how could you be a Canadian (or sentient, for that matter) and not bash Bush? I loved the flashbacks to the sixties when the main character was in college. There's Stinky, the telepath who cultivates his bad odor to keep people away. And Bunny, who...no, you'll want to discover Bunny yourself. Thanks, Spider. Please keep writing. If you could write a novel each week, I'd appreciate it. I loved the Callahan stories, but this new set of characters has great potential, too. And like a rock star, I think Spider will eventually revisit Callahan's so don't give up on that. He just needs a break. By the way, if you ever suspect one of Spider's characters might be real, I assure you it can be true. I met one of the characters from Callahan's Key - he lives here on South Padre Island and is as delightful in person as his cameo in the book.

Columnist Russell Walker has become a recluse. Following the death of his lifelong love - his wife - he retreats into the woods of British Columbia. Unfortunately the real world keeps interrupting. His old college roommate, Smelly, has shown up on his doorstep insisting on his help. Smelly has had a timely arrival - Russell is contemplating joining his wife when Smelly knocks. However, Smelly knows this - he's an incredibly gifted telepath - although early on, you realize that gifts are often curses, as well. Russ finds himself investigating the future murder of a family, as well as a series of mass murders. Smelly, on his island, in the middle of nowhere, 10 miles from the nearest human contact (for his sanity) has had access to the mind of a serial killer, who is also an unparalleled sadist. Unfortunately that is all he got - a brief glimpse - so Russ is floundering around searching for someone who might kill some family somewhere. Russ is the only person whose mind doesn't damage Smelly's psyche; he's so sensitive he can't stand to be near people. Russ enlists the aid of a skeptical police officer, and this trio may be the only ones who can catch the inhuman butcher. This was an unusual paranormal mystery wasn't my usual fare, but it was interesting. There was humor in it, as well, but I would have to classify it as Canadian humor - not something all US Americans would grasp. The suspense is there, but there are times when you can predict the outcomes. Smelly's character really comes thru - you can't imagine how he's survived this long. At least, I can't, had he been real.

*sigh*...look, I'm a Callahan's fan, have been for half my life. I even used to hang out at Callahan's on IRC during some really rough years.

Very Bad Deaths is like velcro stripper pants. A ripoff. I'm sorry, Spider, but you plagiarized your own work. It is literally the timestopping watch story from Lady Slings the Booze, with different characters. He just replaces Christian with a nerdy Marquis de Sade lookalike, removes the watch and throws in a telepath instead. Allen (the sadist) even uses Christian's lines about not going in for fancy torture stuff when the contents of a kitchen drawer are just as good. Russell is just Jake Stonebender with a different "my intensely painful memory" story. (Which is to say, he's really Spider writing himself into the story...only this time, you feel like he's just indulging his ego.)

And dear gods...you'll be right in the middle of plot development, and Spider'll veer off onto a ten-page recount of a memory of the main character's, and often they're only slightly related to the plot. I know, Callahan's was full of that stuff, but in those books it was done *artfully*. There's no suspense at all, and every plot advancement occurs due to so many deus ex machinas they're practically a treus ex machina.

I'm sorry, Spider, nothing but love for you, man...but this book just should not have happened.

Everything one might love or hate about Spider Robinson's work is evident in his latest book. The good, which as usual far outweighs the bad, includes his warmly humanistic outlook, his infectious enthusiasm over his interests (good coffee, rural British Columbia living), and his witty and engaging writing style. The bad is that pretty much everyone in his book thinks the same way, to the point where a single premise (such as the fact of a central character's telepathic abilities) leads all the major characters through the same lengthy chain of reasoning to the same conclusions in an instant. Spider's fans already know his predilections, however, and have forgiven them when they nearly take over his books, as they do in (for instance) the Callahan's Lady series. There is much less of that to forgive here.

There is also much less story, and, regrettably, less character, in Very Bad Deaths than in much of Robinson's work. The story is short for good reason -- Robinson intentionally short-circuits the traditional "tracking a serial killer" plot in an amusing way, and it works. My only quarrel with the plot is that the end of the (incredibly vivid and terrifying) villain struck me as a deus ex machina (and, worse, an unnecessary one: in the beginning of the book, Robinson set up a far more satisfying way the villain could have been destroyed). Other than that, Robinson's storyline was very satisfying. But I missed his deft touch with character. His protagonist, another of his thinly disguised alter egos, is well portrayed and as lovable as any of his heroes; but his comrades include a telepath who remains mysterious and a brawny, straight-laced cop who we barely get to know at all. I doubt Robinson is losing his touch; it is more likely he is saving deeper characterizations of these characters for later books in what he obviously hopes will be a series.

Robinson is not the only one who hopes it is a series. I do too. He doesn't seem to write as much as he used to, so anything that renews his enthusiasm is a good thing. Robinson is one of those authors, like Neal Stephenson, who is the darling of his fans not as much for what he writes as how he writes. I will delight in his sequels to Very Bad Deaths until the inevitable book that closes this series as he closes all his many series: the one in which everyone becomes telepathic and the world becomes one big groovy love-in.

Russell Walker wants to be left alone to die--or commit suicide. But when his college roommate (Zandor, 'Smelly,' Zudenigo) from more than thirty years earlier appears on his doorstep with word that Zandor is a telepath and has accidentally learned of a horrible crime--planned by a man who thinks of himself of the artist of pain and torture, Russell knows he has to do something. His hippie/do-good past means that he can't walk away. The only problem is, they don't know the killer's last name, don't know who he intends to kill, and have no way to let the police know anything without exposing Zandor's secret. And Zandor knows that if the RCMP, CIA, FBI, NSA, or any other three letter organization ever learns of his existence, they'll kill him with their presence. Because even being near others is an assault on Zandor's telepathic senses.

All of which means it's up to Russell--the world's most unlikely hero, doper, 1960s pacifist, and occasional newspaper opinion writer to track down and somehow stop a serial killer so dangerous he makes Bundy and the Boston Strangler look like kindergarters. What Russell does is somehow rope in Vancouver's most unlikely cop--a butch woman who can't get ahead partly because she's straight--and set off tracking down the few clues Zandor was able to gleen from the killer's mind before he flew out of range.

Author Spider Robinson is a long-time SF favorite and his strong writing makes VERY BAD DEATHS a compelling read. Russell is occasionally annoying as he vacilates between smug and uncertain, but he's still sympathetic. Being the only guy on campus who could put up with rooming with 'Smelly' turns out to be a pretty good indicator both of his good-natured soul and of his inability to face up to challenges. When the tables get turned, Zandor, Russell, and Nika the cop are all forced to look deep into themselves, their beliefs, and ultimately betray much of what they thought they stood for.

VERY BAD DEATHS is a thoughtful and powerful story.

This story is well written and easy to read, the characters engage you to begin with and it's gradual introduction of its theme (basically the moral consequences of being a telepath) is captivating.

But as the climax approaches the adjectives pile on and it tips to melodrama. The villain becomes a joke as the author tries so hard to convey his horrific nature and suspension of disbelief was lost for me.

What was worse than that, worse than the moment I tired of the continuous litany of 'he's so horrific he...' jokes (they become jokes) was the conclusion.

The conclusion does not make sense in light of how horrific the villain has been established to be.

Potential spoiler alert:

The resolution involves a character doing something they were loath to do. It was however apparently a simple, direct, irresistable resolution.

And if the characters believed a fraction of the horrific nature of the villain they all would have felt compelled to resolve the climax by any, and the eventual, method promptly.

So it's deflating nonsense to see our heroes prevaricating and basically being stupid. One does not end reading the story with any respect for the protagonists nor the author for ruining the story.

Very Bad Deaths (2004) is the first SF novel in the Russell Walker series. It is set in and about Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, during 2003, with flashbacks to the 1960s. Except for the original premise, it is more of a mystery than science fiction.

In this novel, Russell Walker is a newspaper columnist for The Globe and Mail of Toronto. He lives in Trembling-on-the Verge on Heron Island, a small isle within ferry distance of Vancouver harbor. His wife has died the year before and he is thinking of suicide.

Zandor Zudenigo is descended from Serbians living in Croatia. He once was Russell's roommate in college. Nicknamed Smelly, Zandor was so odoriferous that you could see the fetor around him. Of course, Zudie had a good reason for his odor: he was an involuntary telepath. In other words, he couldn't shut it off and most thoughts from other people were painful to him.

Nika Mandic is descended from Croatians. She is a constable in the Vancouver Police. Unfortunately, she is a public relations officer -- Officer Friendly -- the lowest ranked job on the force. She drives a pickup and trailer combination to schools and other community facilities and gives lectures on personal safety.

In this story, Zudie knocks on the door to Russell' office at 3:00 AM, interrupting his consideration of suicide. At first Russell assumes that he is being raided by the police and hides his stash, but soon he recognizes his friend's voice and admits him. Zandor has some business to transact, but he first must do something about Russell's clinical depression.

After the treatment, Russell doesn't feel any different, but he is interested in the story Zudie has to tell. Recently, Zandor had been peacefully pursuing his interests when a failing plane crosses over his island. The mind of the pilot is violently offensive, lashing Zudie with thoughts of torture and murder.

The fuel line blockage -- according to Allen the pilot -- suddenly clears and the plane only bounces once on the water and then continues on to its destination. Zandor is left with the pilot's first name, but not his surname. After all, why would Allen have thought of his last name while facing sudden death?

Zudie also knows about the family of four that Allen is going to abduct and torture to death in a cabin within the remote woods. Zandor does know what the curb cut for the cabin looks like on Route 99 -- the Sea to Sky highway -- but not its exact location. Now he wants Russell to help him rescue the threatened family from this serial killer.

Unfortunately, Russell doesn't have any local contacts in the various police departments in Greater Vancouver. He is a columnist, not an investigative reporter. Moreover, his column is published outside the Vancouver area, so he doesn't even know any reporters with police contacts.

After Zandor leaves to avoid the waking thoughts of the neighbors, Russell tries calling a few police numbers, but only reaches answering machines and voice mails. So he dons more impressive clothes and takes the ferry to Vancouver harbor. He has the address of Police Headquarters, but the correct building is hard to find. After reaching the facility, Russell finds the lobby personnel to be less than helpful.

Finally he locates the Major Crimes Division and converses with a very helpful person in their lobby. After recovering from his shock at her helpfulness, he asks his carefully scripted hypothetical questions and gets straight answers. Yet he just can't come out and admit the reality of his case.

Returning to his car, he berates himself for being a coward, but he still can't imagine anyone accepting such a wayout tale. As he is trying to come up with a reasonable description of the circumstances, a woman parks a car behind him and leaves. Then a tough looking man enters the car and prepares to drive off.

Russell backs up his car to block in the other vehicle. The man steps out and confronts him. Russell is imagining the damage that the thug could do to him when the man quickly runs away. Then the woman who parked the car chases him down the block.

The pursuit doesn't last long. When the woman returns and thanks him for his actions, Russell meets Nika for the first time. He talks to her for a while and learns that she is a policewoman. Then he asks her to meet him on a deserted beach in the wee hours of the morning. Since that is during her shift, she is reluctant to agree to pursue personal interests on department time. But Russell tells her that it is a matter of life or death and she is finally persuaded.

This tale involves the threesome in searching for the cabin where the crime is going to occur. Russell and Nika drive down Route 99 and record the curb cuts that match Zandor's description. Russell discusses their possible actions with Nika and then they take the recordings to Zudie to view.

Russell and Zandor are very reluctant to confront Allen. They consider him very dangerous and would prefer to ambush him from concealment. Of course, Nika disagrees due to her upbringing, training and limited experience.

Strangely enough, Russell and Nika both come from families with strong police backgrounds. That is what led Nika to the force. Yet Russell did not learn all that much from his uncles and cousin. Still, what little he does know helps in his relationship with Nika.

This novel is a character study and history of Russell Walker. It exposes most of his faults and many of his strong points. The other characters are only shown through his eyes. They all have strong moral senses, but very limited experience in -- and stomach for -- violence. Enjoy!

Highly recommended for Robinson fans and anyone else who enjoys tales of police procedurals, inexperienced amateurs, and strong perseverance.

-Arthur W. Jordin