[Price surprises Eddie, Sara, and Pritchett. Eddie almost shoots Price with his gun]
Eddie: That’s a good way to get your head blown off, man!
Stephen Price: I’ll recommend it to Evelyn. (His wife whom he wants dead)
Scene 3
Stephen Price: Let’s go back down and greet your guests, show them the real you. Corny as Kansas on the Fourth of July.
Evelyn: My guests were shredded. It’s your sick little scene now: enjoy. I’m gonna run scolding water over the place you just touched me, and then I’m calling a cab.
For this review, I read Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games.
No, I didn’t watch the movie and make my book review, (That’s so high school). But I did check it out from my middle school library. (Reading the F-word in a school library book at 12 is magic.)
To be honest, this was a tough book to read. (I’ll tell you why in a sec.)
Here’s why it was a tough read
Jack Ryan was cast as Alec Baldwin in 1990 The Hunt for Red October. I hadn’t seen that movie; instead I’ve seen Harrison Ford’s Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger (As a kid every time I see present I read president). So whenever Jack speaks, I hear Ford’s dry delivery instead of the always cool (and sometimes sexy) voice of Alec Baldwin. I’d have to back track my words through dialogue, a complete nightmare.
There is a spot where this book is very dry. The hardback book starts on page 11 where the Ryan family are on vacation in London then banga terrorist attack. Jack saves the day and…. we don’t leave London till 147. For me, I hate going through backstory which is what happened for 10 or 12 pages, but for another 30 pages, nothing of significance happened. The only thing important at the dinner scene was people know he worked at the CIA. My favorite scene in London was the trial, Sean Bean was a perfect Sean Miller. London was not the only time the book dragged there were several, but it was the main.
Honestly, those are my only real complaints. I was gonna add another such as Robby not getting enough page time, but Mr. Clancy made up for it by the end. (Those last 100 pages.)
Pro’s
The last 100 pages
The violence
Sean Miller = Sean Bean
Robby Jackson = Samual L. Jackson (I believe Samual L. Jackson based is personality off this character)
Sean Miller and Alex Dobbens on the page together = GOLD
Despite all the criticism I’ve given the pacing and my sometimes-horrible reading ability (?), this book subjectively receives 4 creepy Tom Clancy heads out of 5.
4 out of 5
Thank you, Tom Clancy, and may you rest in peace.
My apologies for this arriving so late- Life happened. So here is my belated book 2 review.
Well, it has been a long while since I’ve done a book review so here goes everybody. This weeks book is Moneyball from Michael Lewis.
This Non-Fiction book following the 2002 Oakland A’s, where the author seeming had full coverage to interview anyone on staff to discuss the unusual way the General Manager Billy Bean added and removed players to his ball club. Billy and his right-hand man (Paul) and implemented the idea of Sabermetrics. It was a statistical measure (not on the Box Score) created by Bill James to evaluate talent.
See, I have Numbers.
For non-ball players, this idea was revolutionary (especially for Fantasy Leauge players), but the ballplayers and scouts felt differently.
The scouts thought the only way to determine talent was to see them on the field, but sabermetrics put a spin on the whole idea. It evaluated talent purely on statistics and not on any visual observation.
Billy and his statistician were on to something.
They saw on-base percentage as a more valuable stat a player could have than batting average. The two determined that getting on base (in whatever way possible) is more valuable than just putting the ball in play to maybe get out. Walks were a stat mentioned throughout the book, they even mentioned how a guy is “The Greek God of Walks.”
The reason the A’s had to use such “odd” measures, was because they had no money to spend. They were forced to pick up unproven or washed up talent, which always rose an eyebrow of each and every scout.
That season these guys put together a team with a low salary that competed with the team with the highest salaries, the New York Yankees.
It almost looks unfair, but both teams ended with the same record 103-58
This was such a fun book, reading I couldn’t help but think of Brad Pitt’s voice whenever Billy Bean spoke. His sense of humor was priceless.
Another of my favorite bits of the story was the nostalgia factor. I was a huge fan of baseball from 1998-2008, and that tenure was mentioned throughout the book. Reading names like Jeremy Bonderman, Prince Fielder, Ray Durham, Jeff Francis, Zach Greinke and Cliff Floyd all had me rolling due to my knowledge of said players from video games from the era.
It was a good book where it had me convinced that there is something more, something better for me to look forward to. Heck, the book almost had me convinced that I should search for a front office job in baseball to make something better. Deep down THAT’S my dream to build a business or a company better and this book reminded me of that.
This makes me wonder if there’s a sabermetrics to Self-publishing. HMM?
I give this book a 4 out of 5 due to me not reading it a decade ago.
Now I leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the book.
Thanks for the read. Feel free to comment and Subscribe.
I know it’s been awhile since I posted anything, so this is me apologizing for being absent for many months. This long-awaited post is designated for 2018, here I am choosing to make a post on my goals for 2018.
Here are my goals.
Goal #1
Read TWO books a month and post a short review
Ok so I missed January, but I promise to make it up throughout the year. Heck, I’ve nearly finished a book now and should be through by the end of the week.
Goal #2
Self-Publish my book
Before anyone comments: “Are writing a book?” I’ll make this clear I wrote a book, and I’m currently in the process of making the sequel. I’ve been working on this story for nearly 9 years, and I’m sick of re-reading it so I’d rather talk about it, so if you have any questions or comments feel free to message me anytime.
Self-Publishing is hard work and takes a toll on your wallet.
I don’t roll like this…yet.
I’m currently searching for a content editor and cover designer decent price as my budget tight with other projects for the year.
Goal #3
Write my Second Novel
This goal is tricky as it has been two years since I’ve finished my first novel and it has taken a full year to outline the second. With the experience form the first I hope to be done with the second’s first draft by Christmas. I’d say that’s a doable timetable.
Goal #4
Create a Digital Movie Library
For the past few months, I’ve been enjoying my friend’s (Tom Cat) digital movie library. It has been pretty neat since he adds new movies every few weeks and has a library grown up to around 300 (maybe?). He’d put in a lot of work and effort, where I’d look there prior looking on Netflix.
Now, this has me thinking from where my friends and family ask: “Do you have…(so and so)? Because we want to watch it.”
Why not make it where they can watch it so nobody has to leave their home or wait 20 mins for me to arrive with a physical copy when you can log in and begin streaming in seconds.
Now granted this is not a one-time goal but more of a continuous one, as I’ll be adding movies to the library forever.
Well, sometimes a playlist on shuffle will play two consecutive songs from the same artist, but when it plays two consecutive songs with the same theme that’s lucky or kinda…erie.
So this morning I finished putting red ink on my physical manuscript.
Woot woot!
Do you like the title?
It was a daunting task cleaning up my five year old baby, but once I got tue ball rolling I couldn’t stop. A friend wrote me in on being done by January but I’ll show him.
All thats left is the word file.
Thanks for the listening. Remember to comment, like, share and subscribe.
Well, sometimes a playlist on shuffle will play two consecutive songs from the same artist, but when it plays two consecutive songs with the same theme that’s lucky or kinda…erie.
Do you like the title?