The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator's Search for the Unexplained
Stanley Milford, Jr.
William Morrow
Nonfiction, Autobiography/Paranormal and Unexplained Phenomena
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The modern Western world has long dismissed notions of ghosts or curses or other such phenomena, considering them hallucinations or hoaxes or simple misunderstandings. Many cultures, however, still consider such things as real as gravity and electricity... and many people around the world from many cultures, some of which should "know better", still experience unexplained encounters.
Stanley Milford, Jr., son of a Navajo father and Cherokee mother, grew up with a foot in two worlds, that of mainstream white America and that of Native culture. As a boy, he adored the many cop shows on TV and knew he'd love nothing more than to become a law enforcement officer, one of the Navajo Rangers who patrol the vast desert reservation protecting the people, the archaeological sites, and the environment. But he also had more than one unusual occurrence that lent weight to the native tales and legend he learned, enough to make him less dismissive than some would be when people would report unusual activities such as bigfoots harassing their livestock or skinwalkers stalking their land. For many years, he and a partner would explore unusual events, leading to many strange encounters.
REVIEW: I was a long-time X-phile, and this book looked to strike a similar vein to some of the older books on unexplained phenomena that I used to enjoy, with a little different and non-"Western" take on the matter. The author approaches the subject and his experiences with both logic and cultural understanding, an approach that works rather well for events that would seem to defy current scientific consensus of what can be real and what cannot exist. More often than not, he and his partner serve a greater purpose by ensuring that people feel heard and understood, and are not simply dismissed or actively derided for what they experienced; their investigations gather some interesting evidence and even result in some close encounters, but as Milford says more than once, these aren't usually cases where there's a suspect to apprehend or some legal recourse for victims. The author also explores his own life and career beyond the paranormal aspects that were only a small part of his overall job. Throughout runs a strong thread of Native culture and belief and history, including portions of creation (or "emergence") myths, which offer lenses and tools with which to understand aspects of reality that are too readily dismissed by the mainstream/white world. The whole makes for some interesting storytelling. As for how much I believe... I'd call myself agnostic on the matter, though I'm not about to tell someone they did not experience a thing just because I did not experience a thing.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Monsters (John Michael Greer) - My Review
Elatsoe (Darcie Little Badger) - My Review
Unsolved Mysteries: Past and Present (Colin Wilson and Damon Wilson) - My Review
Friday, April 4, 2025
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Brick Dust and Bones (M. R. Fournet)
Brick Dust and Bones
The Marius Grey series, Book 1
M. R. Fournet
Dreamscape
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Twelve-year-old Marius Grey is a cemetery boy, part of a long line who maintain the graveyards of New Orleans and protect the ghosts who linger among the mausoleums. For two years, he's also been an orphan - but hopefully not for much longer. He knows of a resurrection spell that can, in theory, bring his mother back from death, which will require many mystic coins to attempt. In addition to his duties and his schooling - at a special school where "fringe" kids like him learn to navigate both the ordinary world and the hidden culture of magic - he has started hunting monsters on the side, collecting bounties for each poltergeist, candy woman, bogeyman, and other creatures he captures in his magical monster hunter book... but they aren't earning him nearly enough, and the window for the spell is rapidly closing. To get a bigger payout, he's going to need to hunt down bigger monsters - but the one he sets his sights on is so dangerous that even experienced, adult hunters rarely survive an encounter. Is this the way to save his mother, or is Marius Grey about to join her in an early grave?
REVIEW: Brick Dust and Bones starts with the boy Marius Gray hiding in a child's closet waiting for a bogeyman to appear, talking to the ghost of his dead mother, in a scene that quickly establishes the basic "rules" of the world, the stakes, and the desperation of the main character. It's a solid start to what becomes a fairly solid story, steeped in New Orleans magic and with chiller overtones.
Orphaned Marius was always an outsider, even among other "fringe" folk, but only grew more isolated after his mother was killed by a demon. Aside from her ghost (who may or may not be his own imagination; he wonders, more than once, if he's just talking to himself), his only friends are a young ghost at his family's graveyard and the mermaid Rhiannon - who is technically a monster, as her kind traditionally feed on humans, but this one has spent more time among people than her own kin and has developed a bond of sorts with the cemetery boy, even if her words and actions often remind Marius (and the reader) that she is not and will never be a human. Marius can be stubborn and reckless, but he generally has a good heart beneath it all and never intentionally hurts people. He's just used to being alone and so completely focused on the slim possibility of rescuing his mother from Hell that he doesn't always think through the consequences of his actions. The story moves fairly well, slowing down now and again to fill out Marius's world, but it never feels dull or repetitive, and even the slower bits are full of sensory details like tastes and smells and textures. The monsters he faces are suitably scary creatures, and the fights have real stakes and tension to keep them interesting. When things reach the climax, Marius has earned his way there, and hasn't just stumbled into it by accident.
There are a few threads and characters who feel underexplored or forgotten by the end, though this is just the first book in a series, so it's possible they were deliberately left dangling. Overall, though, it's a good story with a nice New Orleans flavor to it, establishing a main character and a setting that can easily carry more adventures.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl and the Ghost (Hanna Alkaf) - My Review
Akata Witch (Nnedi Okorafor) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
The Marius Grey series, Book 1
M. R. Fournet
Dreamscape
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Twelve-year-old Marius Grey is a cemetery boy, part of a long line who maintain the graveyards of New Orleans and protect the ghosts who linger among the mausoleums. For two years, he's also been an orphan - but hopefully not for much longer. He knows of a resurrection spell that can, in theory, bring his mother back from death, which will require many mystic coins to attempt. In addition to his duties and his schooling - at a special school where "fringe" kids like him learn to navigate both the ordinary world and the hidden culture of magic - he has started hunting monsters on the side, collecting bounties for each poltergeist, candy woman, bogeyman, and other creatures he captures in his magical monster hunter book... but they aren't earning him nearly enough, and the window for the spell is rapidly closing. To get a bigger payout, he's going to need to hunt down bigger monsters - but the one he sets his sights on is so dangerous that even experienced, adult hunters rarely survive an encounter. Is this the way to save his mother, or is Marius Grey about to join her in an early grave?
REVIEW: Brick Dust and Bones starts with the boy Marius Gray hiding in a child's closet waiting for a bogeyman to appear, talking to the ghost of his dead mother, in a scene that quickly establishes the basic "rules" of the world, the stakes, and the desperation of the main character. It's a solid start to what becomes a fairly solid story, steeped in New Orleans magic and with chiller overtones.
Orphaned Marius was always an outsider, even among other "fringe" folk, but only grew more isolated after his mother was killed by a demon. Aside from her ghost (who may or may not be his own imagination; he wonders, more than once, if he's just talking to himself), his only friends are a young ghost at his family's graveyard and the mermaid Rhiannon - who is technically a monster, as her kind traditionally feed on humans, but this one has spent more time among people than her own kin and has developed a bond of sorts with the cemetery boy, even if her words and actions often remind Marius (and the reader) that she is not and will never be a human. Marius can be stubborn and reckless, but he generally has a good heart beneath it all and never intentionally hurts people. He's just used to being alone and so completely focused on the slim possibility of rescuing his mother from Hell that he doesn't always think through the consequences of his actions. The story moves fairly well, slowing down now and again to fill out Marius's world, but it never feels dull or repetitive, and even the slower bits are full of sensory details like tastes and smells and textures. The monsters he faces are suitably scary creatures, and the fights have real stakes and tension to keep them interesting. When things reach the climax, Marius has earned his way there, and hasn't just stumbled into it by accident.
There are a few threads and characters who feel underexplored or forgotten by the end, though this is just the first book in a series, so it's possible they were deliberately left dangling. Overall, though, it's a good story with a nice New Orleans flavor to it, establishing a main character and a setting that can easily carry more adventures.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl and the Ghost (Hanna Alkaf) - My Review
Akata Witch (Nnedi Okorafor) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
Tidy the F*ck Up (Messie Condo)
Tidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*t
Messie Condo
Simon and Schuster
Nonficton, Humor/Organization
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Let's be honest: your home is probably a mess. It's nothing to be ashamed about; messes happen to the best of us. Between work and family and a culture that trains us that buying shiny new things is the only way to happiness, everyone faces a rising tide of stuff, which must somehow fit into a finite amount of space. But whenever we look for help, we see self-appointed tidiness gurus whose solutions involve impossible lifestyle changes and/or infinite time or money to invest in proprietary organization systems. Here, at last, is a practical approach to actually getting a handle on the clutter creep and reclaiming a little living space.
REVIEW: This quick-reading title is both a jab at popular organization fads and franchises and a practical, down-to-earth way to declutter and organize one's life. Emphasizing that everybody needs to decide for themselves what they consider their ideal habitat and that organizing should involve using what one already has before shelling out money on baskets and boxes and totes, the author offers tips and tricks as well as a good, often humor-laced explanation for why everyone really should put in a little time and effort to tidy up. It's as much about psychology as it is about practicality, and it often takes a little psychology to convince ourselves that, yes, we really can let go of those movies we never watch or the clothes we never wear or that ceramic clown figurine collection left to us by Great-Aunt Maude that we can't stand but we feel guilty about even considering parting with. The lessons here can apply to pretty much anyone.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Habit Fix (Eileen Rose Giadone) - My Review
Unf*ck Your Habitat (Rachel Hoffman) - My Review
Messie Condo
Simon and Schuster
Nonficton, Humor/Organization
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Let's be honest: your home is probably a mess. It's nothing to be ashamed about; messes happen to the best of us. Between work and family and a culture that trains us that buying shiny new things is the only way to happiness, everyone faces a rising tide of stuff, which must somehow fit into a finite amount of space. But whenever we look for help, we see self-appointed tidiness gurus whose solutions involve impossible lifestyle changes and/or infinite time or money to invest in proprietary organization systems. Here, at last, is a practical approach to actually getting a handle on the clutter creep and reclaiming a little living space.
REVIEW: This quick-reading title is both a jab at popular organization fads and franchises and a practical, down-to-earth way to declutter and organize one's life. Emphasizing that everybody needs to decide for themselves what they consider their ideal habitat and that organizing should involve using what one already has before shelling out money on baskets and boxes and totes, the author offers tips and tricks as well as a good, often humor-laced explanation for why everyone really should put in a little time and effort to tidy up. It's as much about psychology as it is about practicality, and it often takes a little psychology to convince ourselves that, yes, we really can let go of those movies we never watch or the clothes we never wear or that ceramic clown figurine collection left to us by Great-Aunt Maude that we can't stand but we feel guilty about even considering parting with. The lessons here can apply to pretty much anyone.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Habit Fix (Eileen Rose Giadone) - My Review
Unf*ck Your Habitat (Rachel Hoffman) - My Review
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
100 Mighty Dragons All Named Broccoli (David LaRochelle)
100 Mighty Dragons All Named Broccoli
David LaRochelle, illustrations by Lian Cho
Dial Books
Fiction, CH Fantasy/Humor/Picture Book
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: 100 dragons live together in a high mountain cave, each and every one of them named Broccoli. When a storm sweeps half of them away, the dragons begin to find their own ways in the world... and maybe new names.
REVIEW: This picture book has one of the best titles ever, and I finally managed to read it during some down time at my job. With colorful images, and sparse words, the tale counts down (and sometimes up) the remaining dragons in the mountain cave as the horde breaks up and seeks their fortunes in a variety of places doing a variety of jobs, from becoming professional surfers in Hawaii to trying their luck as actors in Hollywood. A nice tale with plenty of fun dragon antics to enjoy.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Dignity of Dragons (Jacqueline Ogburn) - My Review
The Dragons are Singing Tonight (Jack Prelutsky) - My Review
Dragons Love Tacos (Adam Rubin) - My Review
David LaRochelle, illustrations by Lian Cho
Dial Books
Fiction, CH Fantasy/Humor/Picture Book
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: 100 dragons live together in a high mountain cave, each and every one of them named Broccoli. When a storm sweeps half of them away, the dragons begin to find their own ways in the world... and maybe new names.
REVIEW: This picture book has one of the best titles ever, and I finally managed to read it during some down time at my job. With colorful images, and sparse words, the tale counts down (and sometimes up) the remaining dragons in the mountain cave as the horde breaks up and seeks their fortunes in a variety of places doing a variety of jobs, from becoming professional surfers in Hawaii to trying their luck as actors in Hollywood. A nice tale with plenty of fun dragon antics to enjoy.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Dignity of Dragons (Jacqueline Ogburn) - My Review
The Dragons are Singing Tonight (Jack Prelutsky) - My Review
Dragons Love Tacos (Adam Rubin) - My Review
Welcome to Night Vale (Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor)
Welcome to Night Vale
The Welcome to Night Vale series, Book 1
Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
Harper Perennial
Fiction, Humor/Literary Fiction/Mystery/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: The desert town of Night Vale is a place much like any other, where monstrous librarians stalk the shelves of their bookish domain, where the waitress at the local all-night cafe offers customers invisible pie and fresh fruit growing from the branches that sprout from her wooden body, where every road out of town seems to loop right back to the city limits, and where the ghost of a faceless old woman can be found in every home... just your typical small American town. There are many stories in the streets of Night Vale, many happenings that might be deemed odd or even impossible.
Jackie Fierro runs Night Vale's only pawn shop, though she's only nineteen, and has been only nineteen for decades, possibly centuries. It's a shop as peculiar as the town itself, where people are as likely to bring in cursed plastic flamingos or single tears as watches or jewelry, and as likely to be paid in dreams or secrets as with money. Still, for all the strangeness that she works with daily, even she is disturbed when the man in the tan suit hands her a peculiar sheet of paper that she cannot let go of, no matter how hard she tries - a paper with the words "King City" printed upon it. Who is the man? Where is King City? And why is her ordered, ordinary life now skewing so far out of her control?
Single mother Diane Crayton has been working for many years at an office where nobody quite knows what they do, even the employees, but it pays well enough to support herself and her son Josh. Raising a boy who changes shape daily - everything from new faces to utterly inhuman forms and even inanimate objects - is a challenge, especially now that he's a teenager and starting to ask uncomfortable questions about his long-absent father Troy. The man disappeared shortly after Josh was born, and she hasn't seen him since... until, out of the blue, she spies him in the streets of Night Vale. Only there seems to be more than one Troy, a puzzle further complicated when she has an encounter with a man whose name and face she cannot remember but who presses upon her a piece of paper on which are written the words "King City".
Jackie and Diane have little in common, and don't even necessarily like each other, but as their paths keep crossing they realize that they're both facing a greater mystery, and a greater danger, than either can solve on their own.
REVIEW: I have never listened to the long-running podcast on which this book is based, so it's likely I'm missing some context or nuance coming at the story cold. As promised, Welcome to Night Vale delivers a surreal, often darkly comic aesthetic and a tale that bends reality and even causality into five-dimensional pretzels. At some point, though, the story and characters feel a bit lost in the constant firehose of strange happenings and tangential oddities.
With a constant through-line of odd broadcasts from the town's only radio station and talk show, "Welcome to Night Vale", the tale wastes little time laying the weird foundations for what turns out to be a very weird journey. Night Vale exists in a sort of alternate reality, like the far fringes of the multiverse where infinite possibilities begin breaking down into bizarre improbabilities and dream (or nightmare) logic. Time itself doesn't function properly, to the point where each person seems to live their own lives entirely out of synch with their neighbors. Characters who live in a town like this cannot help but be a bit strange, but they're also unfortunately difficult to care about or relate to, even when dealing with relatable themes like family friction and a crisis of life direction. I didn't particularly like either Jackie or Diane, and the town itself was so disconnected from anything like continuity or reality that nothing that happened in, around, or to it seemed to matter anyway. This sense of detachment was not helped by how the nominal heroines often did unintelligent things at unintelligent times, even given the peculiar standards and circumstances of existence in Night Vale. That said, there were several lines that had me chuckling out loud, and some interesting ideas. It had some nice moments and memorable imagery, and I wanted to enjoy it. By the end, though, I found the resolution flat and unsatisfactory, like a very long walk down what was ultimately a short trail to nowhere and back, a story that seemed less interested in telling itself than about relating the strange, silly surreality of its setting.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Going Bovine (Libba Bray) - My Review
Meddling Kids (Edgar Cantero) - My Review
John Dies at the End (David Wong) - My Review
The Welcome to Night Vale series, Book 1
Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
Harper Perennial
Fiction, Humor/Literary Fiction/Mystery/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: The desert town of Night Vale is a place much like any other, where monstrous librarians stalk the shelves of their bookish domain, where the waitress at the local all-night cafe offers customers invisible pie and fresh fruit growing from the branches that sprout from her wooden body, where every road out of town seems to loop right back to the city limits, and where the ghost of a faceless old woman can be found in every home... just your typical small American town. There are many stories in the streets of Night Vale, many happenings that might be deemed odd or even impossible.
Jackie Fierro runs Night Vale's only pawn shop, though she's only nineteen, and has been only nineteen for decades, possibly centuries. It's a shop as peculiar as the town itself, where people are as likely to bring in cursed plastic flamingos or single tears as watches or jewelry, and as likely to be paid in dreams or secrets as with money. Still, for all the strangeness that she works with daily, even she is disturbed when the man in the tan suit hands her a peculiar sheet of paper that she cannot let go of, no matter how hard she tries - a paper with the words "King City" printed upon it. Who is the man? Where is King City? And why is her ordered, ordinary life now skewing so far out of her control?
Single mother Diane Crayton has been working for many years at an office where nobody quite knows what they do, even the employees, but it pays well enough to support herself and her son Josh. Raising a boy who changes shape daily - everything from new faces to utterly inhuman forms and even inanimate objects - is a challenge, especially now that he's a teenager and starting to ask uncomfortable questions about his long-absent father Troy. The man disappeared shortly after Josh was born, and she hasn't seen him since... until, out of the blue, she spies him in the streets of Night Vale. Only there seems to be more than one Troy, a puzzle further complicated when she has an encounter with a man whose name and face she cannot remember but who presses upon her a piece of paper on which are written the words "King City".
Jackie and Diane have little in common, and don't even necessarily like each other, but as their paths keep crossing they realize that they're both facing a greater mystery, and a greater danger, than either can solve on their own.
REVIEW: I have never listened to the long-running podcast on which this book is based, so it's likely I'm missing some context or nuance coming at the story cold. As promised, Welcome to Night Vale delivers a surreal, often darkly comic aesthetic and a tale that bends reality and even causality into five-dimensional pretzels. At some point, though, the story and characters feel a bit lost in the constant firehose of strange happenings and tangential oddities.
With a constant through-line of odd broadcasts from the town's only radio station and talk show, "Welcome to Night Vale", the tale wastes little time laying the weird foundations for what turns out to be a very weird journey. Night Vale exists in a sort of alternate reality, like the far fringes of the multiverse where infinite possibilities begin breaking down into bizarre improbabilities and dream (or nightmare) logic. Time itself doesn't function properly, to the point where each person seems to live their own lives entirely out of synch with their neighbors. Characters who live in a town like this cannot help but be a bit strange, but they're also unfortunately difficult to care about or relate to, even when dealing with relatable themes like family friction and a crisis of life direction. I didn't particularly like either Jackie or Diane, and the town itself was so disconnected from anything like continuity or reality that nothing that happened in, around, or to it seemed to matter anyway. This sense of detachment was not helped by how the nominal heroines often did unintelligent things at unintelligent times, even given the peculiar standards and circumstances of existence in Night Vale. That said, there were several lines that had me chuckling out loud, and some interesting ideas. It had some nice moments and memorable imagery, and I wanted to enjoy it. By the end, though, I found the resolution flat and unsatisfactory, like a very long walk down what was ultimately a short trail to nowhere and back, a story that seemed less interested in telling itself than about relating the strange, silly surreality of its setting.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Going Bovine (Libba Bray) - My Review
Meddling Kids (Edgar Cantero) - My Review
John Dies at the End (David Wong) - My Review
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