The novel "Pirate Alley" is a graphic escapade of vicious rape, insane greed and certainly not for the faint of heart.
Returning hero’s spawned in writer Stephen Coonts mind, Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini are the brains in thwarting depraved pirates who hi-jack a cruise ship with more than 800 passengers. The main characters Carmellini and Grafton are mere side notes to in the story which adds to the novel many flaws.
The cruise ship, Sultan of the Sea is sailing on the narrow gulf of Suei and the Gulf of Aden, perhaps the busiest highway for ships infested with pirates known a "Pirate Alley."
The very beginning of the books captures the attention span in moments, with a story line that has nothing to do with the main plot. I imagine Coonts was illustrating Carmellini’s ability to fight crime with wits and brawn.
The main villains Sheikh Ragnar and his partner in crime Mustafa al-Said epitomize evil the way Wall Street defines financial atrocity. Ragnar and Said are characters anyone who is not sadistic would love to hate. The two inhuman men lead the charge in the brutal raping to death of women and senseless torture and killing of other innocents people.
"Pirate Alley" is a tale about a cruise ship seized by Ragnar, Said and their savagely cruel gang of Somalia pirates with an insane goal to acquire the almighty dollar. The ships passengers are held ransom for 200 million American dollars.
The author Coonts said Somalia is without government with raging pirates swarming along the coast with armed hungry men eager to loot, pillage and rape anybody. It's like Europe in the Dark Ages or Wall Street.
I had mixed feelings about "Pirate Alley." On one had it had the gripping elements any story should have, intriguing characters and the arousal of the reader’s curiosity as to what will happen next.
Although there are surprises in the book, the story festers into futility in the middle and is soon muddled into a boring read. Without revealing too much of the story, the parts I did like were educational and pleasing to me. Commanding officer of the USS Richard Ward, Millicent C. Fjestand known as 'the old woman' and called big momma behind her back is a fun character with a dilly of weapon on her ship. The weapon is Mark 45 mod four; it fires shells five inches in diameter weighing 70 pounds each with a muzzle velocity of 2,650 feet per second. Mark 45's efficient range is 20 miles.
One of the rape victims, Nora Needling gets her revenge by bounding her rapist so tight with rope his hands turn white from lack of circulation. She then removes a certain part of his man hood with a kitchen knife and leaves him bound and bleeding to a slow death.
A violent appetizing beginning to "Pirate Alley" followed by a lackadaisical middle and ending nets the novel an average read.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
"Weight of the Human Heart' is Heavy on the Eyelids
Australian author Ryan O’Neil’s
new book “Weight of the Human Heart,” released in July barely warrants a one
star rating.
The only reason I gave the
novel “Weight of the Human Heart” even one star was because the first two short
stories were OK at best. The rest of the stories in the book where borage of
boring words thrust onto paper with no comprehensible purpose.
The first story, the title of
the book, “Weight of the Human Heart” was actually a pleasant read, complete
with excellent character development, conflict and an excellent conclusion.
Barbara, the daughter of an unloving
mother who is a moderately successful writer narrates the entire story. I almost cried when Barbara
wrote a story for her mother when she was five-years-old and her mother littered
her story with corrections and basically told her to give up writing. Then
kindergartener Barbra cried herself to sleep that night. The story is a simple
tale of a single mom and only child with no laughter or affection toward each
other.
The second story, the title I
forgot is about a Tutsi girl from Rwanda, a place in east Africa. The young
girl flees from a Rwandan genocide. I’ll give the ending away in in this story;
If you don’t want to know the ending, don’t read the next sentence. The girl
does escape but she has to exit Rwanda in a black river filled with dead bodies
in the pitch black of the darkest of nights.
The other six or seven stories
in “Weight of the Human Heart” were an absolute debacle of disarray. “A Short
Story,” one of the last works in the book was 1, 798 words O’ Neil said. It was
1,798 words too much. “A Short Story” was a lame account of how to write a
story which was about as useful and intriguing as discarded nail
clippings.
“Weight of the Human Heart” is
only 240 pages, but this afternoon read transformed into a month long read due
to the constant breaks I needed to stay awake for the tedious and weary read.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Government II, Write Mind and Sea Me From the "Dead Poems" Files.
Government II
Makers of mayhem. Lurid lies foster into wars
where world leaders send children to die other
than their own.
Economic demise forever has poverty on the rise.
Universal health and dental care buried in
bureaucratic balderdash. More and more freedoms
fading fast. Taxes rise while services fall. Political
poison pollutes us all.
Write Mind
No desk or lap top. Eagar imagination spins. No
pin, insanity seeps in. Lunatic fury fuels frustration.
Remember that phrase. Hold that thought.
Indeed, dying is easy, comedy is hard.
Izzy Schurr /Anonymous
Sea Me
The kiss of the colliding waves. Rippled sand
decorates the cusp of a low tide. Aluminous
moonlight radiating lacquered night beading
off the brilliant stars. The warmth of a pitted
fire thrust itself against my body.
Tall red and yellow flames swallowing mother
night, which has caressed me with her dark embrace.
Izzy Schurr
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Life, Death, War and Nonsense
Geckos dwell in the caves of the ancients, and roam
through hollowed rib cages where the heart used to be.
Demons laugh as we plan for tomorrow. Predator’s dwell
in anticipation. Indeed the devils work shop is a busy
place. Near death or seized success?
Just another pawn in a soulless generation. Which gener-
ation will destroy the last of civilization? Knowledge over
powers laughter. Laughter dances on knowledge, it
dances with wisdom, it dances with folly.
Izzy Schurr / Nancy Simpson Hoke
War III
Unseen enemy is near, the air charged with fear,
Heart beats unclear. Whispered violence
Echoes death.
Nonsense
Razzle dazzle, pies in the castle. Where is Miss.
Frazzle? Under da castle? Perhaps causing a
hassle? Why no, she’s eating sassle. What is
sassle? Sometimes it’s sweet, bright, and
light. Other times it’s sour, dark, and heavy.
Sassle is often like dark chocolate, and some
times it’s like white chocolate. It’s never like
hot chocolate. Mostly it’s Wokalit. Wokalit pie.
chocolate pie, sapple pie, apple pie. Scary pie,
cherry pie, pickle pie, chicken pot pie. Never eat
a mud pie like a Burf or a Wurf. Instead why not
surf. Perhaps walk with a Wurf.
Izzy Schurr
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
World Wide Rape is Much Too Real
In too many parts of the world
it's legal to be a pedophile and rape young girls which raises the question,
'Why are some young girls born only to suffer?'
Thirty nine-thousand girls a day around the globe are forced into marriage, many of them under the age of 18 according the March article "Child brides around the world sold off like cattle." (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/08/child-brides-sold/1972905/)
The above article states that a 17-year-old girl in Juba, South Sudan Africa was beaten to death for refusing to marry a man old enough to be her grandfather. Girls as young as 12-years-old in South Sudan are forced to marry much older men. Instead of war for oil and power, how about war against forced marriages for every female in the world?
Half the women in South Sudan
between the ages of 19 and 15 are forced into marriage. In west Niger, Africa
75 percent of girls are married before the age of 18.
How many sadistic occultist use religion as a tool for raping very young girls? Twelve-year-old girls marry middle aged men who already have several wives. The Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs who has 80 wives, including a 12-year-old girl leads a very demented cult in the U.S. Incidentally, Jeffs is currently in prison for life. Why the U.S. military does not swoop in and shut this nefarious religion down is a complete mystery to me.
An ABC news article from April;
"Warren Jeffs Still Calling the Shots from Prison?" details the horrid facts of the FLDS. (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/04/warren-jeffs-still-calling-the-shots-from-prison/) The FLDS is
not affiliated with the LDS, the most popular Mormon practice.
Freedom of religion is a
fantastic thing and I'm all for it. However a felony is a felony, epically when
adolescence girls are being raped by men in their mid-50s. As I'm typing this
very second, the FLDS religion is allowing some of its men to engage in
polygamy and force elementary age school girls to marry men older than 55-years
old. The U.S. government allows this religion to torture very young girls
because it's OK with their lame brained parents who believe Jeffs words of
sheer nonsense according to the above article.
In Afghanistan girls as young
as 8-years-old are forced into marriage or face brutal public flogging or even
made into a suicide bomber according the web site; http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/features/index.asp?article=f013111_brides.
Disguised in boys' clothes,
Khadija Rasoul, 13, and Basgol Sakhi, 14, traveled for two days to escape their
illegal, forced marriages to much older men according to an “Upfront” magazine
article on the above web page. Policeman recognized them as girls, ignored
their pleas, and sent them back home, where they were publicly and viciously
flogged for daring to run away from their husbands.
“What a Wonderful World,"
by Louis Armstrong is often not true. If I was a praying man, I'd simply pray
that everyone could be safe. I got those words from one of my college
professors at Dixie State College, now Dixie State University.
"More than 100 teens
rescued in weekend sex-trafficking raids, FBI says," an article on the
website; http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/29/19754475-more-than-100-teens-rescued-in-weekend-sex-trafficking-raids-fbi-says?lite claims an estimated 240,000 children in the U.S.
are considered at risk of sexual exploitation.
"Why are little ones born
only to suffer?" (Peart. N. 1991)
Friday, July 19, 2013
The Bay Area Blitz, Northern California Teams are Winners
Since 2001, Bay
Area professional sports teams have amassed seven championships in multiple
sports; football, baseball and soccer.
The San Jose SaberCats clinched another playoff berth this season, so stay alert for the Arena Football League playoffs which start Sat Aug, 3. ArenaBowl XXVI in Orlando, Fla. Will occur Sat Aug, 17.
The A’s
are riding a six consecutive series winning streak. During the team’s current
streak, they are 6-3 against the teams with the three best records in baseball,
the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Red Sox.
Eight state junior college championships have been accumulated by the JC women’s swim, soccer and basketball teams; Six of those championships coming since 2004, including a 2011 state title from the JC women’s basketball team.
(http://www.santarosa.edu/)
Although the Golden State Warriors and the Oakland Raiders have been out of serious contention for too many years, the Warriors have established themselves as a perianal playoff team when they made it to the playoffs last year and lost to the San Antonio Spurs in six games without their lone all-star David Lee. The Warriors and Raiders have still combined to win four championships.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Great Artist's of Music Might be Jamming in the Afterlife
Teetering on the middle ground of sanity and lunacy, hovering on the fringes of fact and fiction, pressed into the dusk before sheer darkness or weaved into the dim light after pitch night and unable to determine dreams from reality, there is another world.
Residing in the realms of science and superstation hoping to acquire a round trip ticket to rock ‘n’ roll Valhalla, a musical paradise where deceased icons live forever and dominate the senses with phenomenal music. I'm referring to an oasis where musical gods gather together and form the most extraordinary band ever.
For starters this band has John Lennon, Frank Zappa, George Harrison, Freddie Mercury, Buddy Holly and Stevie Ray Vaughan writing for it. Everyone just mentioned also sings and plays various instruments including keyboards and guitar. With Lennon, hard hitting lyrics about the corruption of politics and religion are covered, Zappa provides the same with his words with an added mixture of pleasant madness and humor only he can provide. Mercury also brings a zesty lyrical punch, while hitting the critical high notes needed in certain songs. Harrison is the melodically driven vocalist who can sing leads or harmonize with the best of singers. Holly provides the dancing element to any song while Vaughan rides the wave of gratifying guitar notes.
If none of the above musicians neither writes a single word, note, plays an instrument, nor sings, there’s always Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Jim Morrison or Roy Orbison to produce a worthy song or two.
For hard hitting rock ‘n’ roll, there is Ronnie Montrose, Bon Scott, John Bonham, John Entwistle, Tommy Bolin, Randy Rhoads and Keith Moon. Bolin and Montrose have the voices to sing loud and heavy while also jamming on the guitar. Rhoads fuels the metal mayhem needed in various songs. Entwistle can basically (bassically) play to any instrument such as Bonham and Moon's erratic, yet structured chromatic drum beats.
The countless other blues greats from the 20s-90s, such as Sippie Wallace who birthed rock ‘n’ roll music and influenced the great musicians who departed Earth too early will also be writing and performing fantastic music in rock ‘n' roll Elysium.
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