The Books I Read: November – December 2025

My Steamboat: A Ski Town Childhood by Dori DeCamillis

It’s a basic memoir of living in rural Colorado in the fifties. Nothing really earth-shattering happens. There are no eating disorders or parent deaths. But I got this book because I was hoping it would talk about living in a skiing town, and there’s none of that. Apparently, this was the only person in Steamboat who didn’t take advantage of the slopes. When you don’t have that, it’s mostly amusing stories about getting into mischief and trying to keep from being bored before there was the internet.

Gnome Cave by James Rolfe

It’s really a novella. A good idea, but poorly executed. Rolfe’s first fiction novel, but it feels like my writing in high school. All telling, no showing (which is ironic for a movie maker because all you can do in that medium is show). All I could think of how I could write this story better.

Orconomics by J. Zachary Pike

It’s a mildly funny story about a dwarf and some other loser heroes who fit into fantasy tropes. They form a “Suicide Squad”-like group and go on a quest because they have no other choice. And along the way, there are some themes about how economics works in a D&D world, like how investors purchase futures on loot instead of businesses.

But I had trouble getting into it. I don’t know why. Maybe there were too many characters (it’s a party of eight). It’s not that the characters can’t be latched onto, but eight is a lot. Despite their vast character differences, they still read a little samey to each other. Maybe it’s because they don’t have any preexisting relationships with each other. At least in the real Suicide Squad, there are visual differences. But Deadshot and Captain Boomerang and Rick Flag and Slipknot and Bloodsport and Blackguard if you just had text. You couldn’t tell them apart–they’re all grizzled loner mercenaries.

The world-building is just funny words without context (like the town of Jaryax where the temple of Boogoo lies and they worship Talajoo and use Gabagoos to Ploix their Zipparoos). There’s lots of jargon to remember. And it’s longer than it needs to be. Maybe it was lacking that engagement, where the main character is either heroic, principled, sympathetic, winsome, or smart. I was onto the dwarf in the beginning, but then he kinda fell apart when the others came into the picture. It reminded me of playing Warhammer: Vermintide (imagine “Left 4 Dead” but its a dwarf, elf, preacher, and militiaman). The characters all banter with each other repeatedly, but it gets on your nerves after a while, because they’re not really moving the story forward.

Splash by Ian Don

Exactly what it says on the tin. This is the novelization of the movie Splash, and it’s by the numbers. Basically a transcription, with no hint of deleted scenes or characterizations left on the cutting room floor or scriptwriting room. Scene-for-scene replication and it’s barely 150 pages.

The Boy by Tami Hoag

A husband-and-wife cop team must solve the grisly murder of a boy in the bad part of a Louisiana bayou trailer park. All I know about Louisiana is from Red Dead Redemption 2 and Gambit from X-Men.

This author doesn’t believe in “kill your darlings”. She will explicitly say everything that’s going on twice, like the intended audience is old people who need constant repetition so they don’t forget what’s happening. And thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. Bits of story that aren’t relevant. And one of my pet peeves: frequent use of the “split paragraphs of dialogue but the same person is speaking”, which trips me up on who to attribute the dialogue to. It drives me nuts; I avoid it whenever possible. No one should talk longer than a paragraph’s worth without needing a response. People speak in tweets, not blogs.

And it’s one of those “everyone is an asshole” books, where no one is redeemable, it’s just who’s on whose side. Especially delightful is the first conflict with the MC, a hard-nosed gumshoe who’s never gone wrong on good old-fashioned police detective work, and the newly elected sheriff who spent the department budget on a CSU van.

Everyone feels everything very intensely. Everyone treats this case like it’s the worst thing in the world and saying “how could someone kill a boy,” and “how could this happen in our neighborhood,” and referring to demons from hell as if they were real things. Like we aren’t exposed to millions and millions of killings in our lifetime. Feels like this author doesn’t watch a drop of TV. Just watch two hours of CBS prime time, you’ll get desensitized right away. Everyone is clutching their pearls and saying “won’t someone think of the children” while either being trailer trash or beating your wife. It seems too cliché. I enjoy the South as depicted by Grady Hendrix better.

Soldier’s Heart: Being the Story of the Enlistment and Due Service of the Boy Charley Goddard in the First Minnesota Volunteers by Gary Paulsen

My wife’s middle school class reads this for part of the year, so I wanted to check it out. It’s a fictionalized true story of a Minnesota man who enlisted in the Civil War, his training, and the battles he went through. And it’s by Gary Paulsen, who’s no slouch. It’s pretty heartbreaking. Doesn’t shy away from the brutality of war and keeps it very simple. Middle grade is the term, I believe. And even then, it’s quite bloody. This is not Red Badge of Courage. This is the bloody badge of PTSD (before there was such a term).

Santa Claus: the Movie by Joan D. Vinge

This movie holds a special place of nostalgia in my heart. It’s a cheesy family movie, but it has a lot of heart and humor. I don’t care what anyone thinks. The novelization has a good sense of pace, but the feeling is numb. Maybe it’s lacking the jazzy visuals of Christmas or the over-the-top young John Lithgow.

All you had to do was recite the dialogue word for word, but even this book screws that up. In the movie, Santa Claus asks an elf to make a list of naughty and nice, with the stinger button, “And be careful. I’ll be checking it twice. (wink)” But in the book, he says, “Be careful. I’ll be reading it more than once.” Is this author from a different country or something? How do you screw up something like that?

Skinemax by Brad Jones

Brad Jones’s third effort. It’s a mish-mash of 1992 stuff that lacks plot. Was he aiming for a meandering farce like Vonnegut or Confederacy of Dunces? Where there’s no plot, no main character, just droll humor? At least it moves fast. A thirdish of the book is like a sexy Mighty Ducks where the main character is sentenced to coach a roller derby team, but aims for eyeballs instead of wins. Then she becomes the CEO of Cinemax, although there isn’t much about the theme around that section. Then she’s accused of a crime and sent to a space prison? It’s like some drug-induced hallucination. I think I’m done reading Brad Jones books. He may be a great critic, but that’s a different skill from creating a story.