She Treads Softly: Unrestricted Access

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Unrestricted Access

Unrestricted Access: New and Classic Short Fiction by James Rollins
9/29/20; 416 pages
HarperCollins

Unrestricted Access: New and Classic Short Fiction by James Rollins is a very highly recommended collection of twelve short stories. Eleven were previously published and one is a new novella featuring Captain Tucker Wayne and his military war dog, Kane. In between the stories Rollins explains how and why the story came about and where it was previously published. This is a collection that fans will enjoy.

Contents include:
Kowalski’s in Love: A Sigma Force story featuring Joe Kowalski and a perfect start to the collection.
The Skeleton Key: A Sigma Force story featuring Seichan.
The Midnight Watch: Sigma Force story featuring Painter Crowe, Jason Carter, and Joe Kowalski
Ghost Ship: A sigma Force story featuring Gray Pierce and Seichan on vacation.
Crash and Burn: A Sigma Force story featuring Seichan, Kowalski,
Tracker: A Captain Wayne Tucker and Kane story
The Devil’s Bones: Commander Gray Pierce and Cotton Malone must work together using their unique skills to survive a deadly threat. A joint story from Rollins and Steve Berry
City of Screams: An Order of the Sanguines story featuring Sergeant Jordan Stone and written with Rebecca Cantrell.
Blood Brothers An Order of the Sanguines story featuring Arthur Crane written with Rebecca Cantrell.
Tagger: A pair of teenagers need to protect San Francisco from a demon.
The Pit: A young dog is stolen and turned into a fighter. (Warning, you may cry.)
Sun Dogs: New novella with Wayne Tucker and Kane that shows " how grief is etched in bone and sacrifice is never forgotten."

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.