PJH Studios

Category: Books

All things books, fiction, nonfiction, sci-fi, thriller, horror, comics, literary

  • Dungeon Crawler Carl and the gleeful fun of LitRPG fiction

    “You’re the main character of your story,” works well as a general lesson of self empowerment and a foundational aspect to role playing games (RPGs) such as Dungeons and Dragons. Literary RPGs take the other components of RPGs–combat and magic systems, creatures and quests–and weaves an adventure in narrative form.

    Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series might be the best example of the genre, now on its seventh book. Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Donut, survive an alien invasion only to be thrust into a galactic survival game show with a sprawling cast of alien species and mythical monsters. As Carl and Donut progress through the dungeon, they level up with gear and magical items. What Dinniman brings to the genre is well executed humor, drama, and pathos.

    Those well versed in pop culture will be rewarded as monsters and gear are referenced as the series progresses, sometimes with twists or subversive elements. There’s a reason for this, too, revealed in one of the books.

    As the books progress, Carl encounters a different game being played in each level of the dungeon. Most of the time these plot devices work, but book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, involves a convoluted maze of trains, inordinate exposition is required to finish the story thus weakening the book. And that book pulls in numerous plot threads that come together in later books.

    And with each level, the cast expands, a broader story of political intrigue grows, and existential themes of life, love, justice, compassion, and economic systems are brought to life in uncanny ways. A mentor acts as a guide but is an indentured servant to a brutal corporation. A Jurassic Park like dinosaur and the responsibility of fatherhood. A foul mouth head of a sex doll that exemplifies toxic relationships. A teenage girl that can command dogs but not her own trauma. And Carl, for all his John McClain gravitas, struggles to keep his humanity.

    Are you getting Pulitzer Prize writing? No. But are you getting an escapist read that’ll distract you from real life?

    Yes.

  • Richard Scarry and the art of children’s literature

    Chris Ware delves into the history and magic of Richard Scarry’s Busy Town world.

    Scarry followed What Do People Do All Day? with a series of books all set within the same society, including (among others) Great Big Schoolhouse, Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, and Busiest People Ever! The Busytown books, as they came to be known—with their dictionary-like visual presentation paired with lightly slapstick situations and the presence of recurring, memorable characters like Huckle Cat, the Pig family, and my favorite, Lowly Worm—grew into a real-feeling big world that Scarry seemed to be letting little ones into. (Lowly was perhaps the first children’s book animal character with a real nod to the ADA and the myth of “dis”-ability, and cheerfully makes his linear form work in all sorts of inspiring and disarmingly moving ways.)

    Those Busy Town books could occupy my entire afternoon as a kid. Pair those books with generic Lego blocks, and 5 year old me would attempt to recreate the scenes. There never was a mini-fig worm with a hat, though.

  • Lost Tomb by Douglas Preston

    The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder by Douglas Preston collects his nonfiction essays from across nearly 40 years of writing. The flashy subtitle is accurate but told through pragmatic prose using anthropology, archaeology, and a dabble of political science.

    When successfully combined, they create a taut narrative such as the Monster of Florence or the Dyatlov Pass incident. Other times they come across as dry character studies, where history is examined.

  • Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

    Midnight in Chernobyl is a meticulous examination of the Chernobyl disaster. It accounts for the bureaucratic neglect the Soviet system grew into that contributed towards key events. Neglect that contributed to the way the plant and reactor were designed, the town and state response, and the attempted cover up. Plus, it tells of the horrific human toll paid by those exposed to the radiation.

  • My 2024 best of list

    Originally posted to Instagram

    Now that we are in the final days of the year, here are 🎵a few of my favorite things 🎶

    (TV, movies, music are all from this year. The book list are my favorites that I read this year, but may have come out earlier)

    TV

    • Shrinking
    • Penguin
    • Arcane
    • Shogun
    • Slow Horses
    • Abbott Elementary
    • Geek Girl
    • Las Azules
    • Interior Chinatown
    • Fallout

    Books

    • Adam Higginbotham – Midnight in Chernobyl
    • Kathryn Schultz – Lost & Found
    • Scott Carson – Lost Man’s Lane
    • Matt Dinniman – Dungeon Crawler Carl series
    • Tananarive Due – The Reformatory
    • Travis Baldtree – Legends & Lattes
    • Adrian Tchaikovsky – Children of Time
    • Rick Remender – The Sacrificers vol 1
    • Matthew Desmond – Evicted
    • Patrick Horvath – Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

    Movies

    • Mads
    • The Last Stop in Yuma County
    • Wild Robot
    • My Old Ass
    • Caddo Lake
    • Rebel Ridge
    • Inside Out 2
    • Hundreds of Beavers
    • Late Night with the Devil
    • Self Reliance

    Music

    • Etran De L’Air – 100% Saharan Guitar
    • Haley Heynderickx – Seed of a Seed
    • Glass Animals – I Love You So F Much
    • Cassandra Jenkins, My Light, My Destroyer
    • Runnners – Starsdust
    • Rosali – Bite Down
    • Zach Bryan – The Great American Bar Scene
    • Kelly Lee Owens – Dreamstate
    • Ghost Funk Orchestra – A Trip to the Moon
    • Dehd – Poetry
    • Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
    • Phosphorescent – ‘Revelator’
    • Itasca – Imitation of War

  • A Haiku Garden – Published!

    A Haiku Garden book cover

     

    A Haiku Garden: Selections from the Everyday Photo Haiku Project is published on Amazon!

    I created the book, which contains 104 of the most interesting photo haiku from the project. All photos and haiku done on an iPhone (4s then 6).

  • Book review: The Passionate Photographer by Steve Simon

    The Passionate Photographer by Steve Simon

    Steve Simon’s book, [amazon_link id=”0321719891″ target=”_blank” ]The Passionate Photographer[/amazon_link], covers photography as more than a hobby.  Broken into 10 chapters, he goes from identifying one’s desire to take photographs to using that desire to share a vision. In between, basic technical issues are discussed related to gear, f-stops, shutter speed and ISO as well as elementary composition techniques.

    Throughout, he intersperses stories and quotes from other photographers, both historical and contemporary. While some photo books only use the authors images, Simon uses others’ images to illustrate points. Each chapter has an assignment for the reader to attempt and how to assess their ability.  Also, Simon uses personal stories to cap each chapter in a “lesson learned”.

    For beginners, Chapter 2, about practice and persistence, and Chapter 3, about ways to keep seeing the world anew will offer the best value. Chapter 6, about how to see light, really shows how to “see” an image–light and contrast creating interesting shapes and forms that are engaging and pleasing to the eye. Chapter 9, details how to go about creating a photo project and executing it, may help all those with ideas of “this would be a cool thing to do…”

    [amazon_link id=”0321719891″ target=”_blank” ]The Passionate Photographer[/amazon_link] is a well sourced and well written book.  Colorful, practical and engaging.

  • Review: The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry

    Todd Henry provides a framework to systemize creativity in [amazon_link id=”1591844010″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Accidental Creative: How to be brilliant at a moment’s notice[/amazon_link]. The first three chapters cover “the dynamics” of creative work–what it is, creative team work and things that can sabotage creativity.  These chapters set up the “creative rhythm”, being cognitively aware of the dynamics of creativity to do creative work.

    In the rhythm, Henry discusses being able  to identify what’s important, maintaining healthy relationships, staying healthy to do creative work, one’s environment (or stimuli), how much time to do creative work.  The last two chapters tie his concepts together with examples of his own personal implementation.  The index in the back of the book is useful for further reading, as he cites books he referenced to formulate his ideas.  The book is pretty close to a how to book on being creative as you can get, however, you need ideas to work with, which he discusses and suggests to set aside time each day just to think up new ideas.  Accidental creative starts slow (for me at least) and contains concepts and tips found elsewhere.  I’d recommend this as a starter book and take concepts needed to get stuff done.

  • Review: Old Masters and Young Geniuses by David W. Galenson

    What happens when an economist becomes an art critic? That’s the premise David Galenson writes in [amazon_link id=”0691133808″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Old Masters and Young Geniuses[/amazon_link] with as he examines numerous artists, primarily from mid 1800s impressionists through mid 1900s modernists. The thesis is that two life cycles of an artist: old masters and young geniuses. Old masters are those that reached their peak later in life, and Galenson believes, due largely to a life of artistic experimentation.  Young geniuses succeed due to conceptual innovation, simplifying previous complexities.  His two metrics to quantify and distinguish artists into either category are the price of an artist’s work from a certain point in their career, or the number of prints, or citations, of their work from a time in their life.

    Galenson also applies his framework for analysis to the Renaissance painters of Michelangelo and Carravagio, 19th century and early 20th century American writers, directors, poets and sculptors. (Photographers are noticeably absent.) The book is dry and reads like a mixture of art criticism and art history.  The depth of research provides an overwhelming, yet comprehensive analysis of creating art, and the citations are provided at the end of the book.  My criticism of the book is probably one of scope.  The artist compared were clumped at particular time periods in history.  What would be interesting would be to see if more contemporary artists fit the same framework for analysis.

    I’d recommend this book as a Kindle read.  I found myself wanting to mark and highlight the book and look up words or research an artist, particularly the poets.  The analysis of poets alone should make someone somewhat informed of Frost, Plath, Eliot and Pound.

  • Review: Monster Island by Dan Wellington

    ★★★☆☆ [amazon_link id=”1560258500″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Monster Island by David Wellington[/amazon_link] – This is well written for a zombie novel.  A zombie apocalypse ravaged the world, leaving 3rd world countries, like Somalia, one of the few safe places. Dekalb is a former UN weapons inspector, agreeing to lead a band of teen, female Somali soldiers in search of anti AIDS drugs that may exist in New York City.  Greg is a zombie, who has somehow maintained his ability to think, speak and act.  Dekalb meets Greg, and a rash act by one of the soldiers makes an enemy of the two.  The story progresses with Dekalb meeting a group of survivors and having to take on Greg, whom Dekalb finds that Greg is more capable than being able to think.