Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

I've seen all of Brandon Sanderson's youtube videos, and I know he is a master in his realm, writing fantasy stories that are both very accessible and very long. Steelheart wasn't meant to be my first Sanderson novel, but I found it on paperback, and I'd been spending most of this spring outdoors, which isn't great for reading ebooks.

Steelheart is a real page turner, and every chapter ends with one of those 'oh no!' moments. Each was exciting, and every piece of explanation and back story was placed and spaced with such expertise. Sanderson knows his audience, because he is his audience, the guy who has every star wars figure, and has followed every storyline in the marvel universe. While Steelheart is masterfully entertaining, I found it lacking in theme, with less substance than a long episode of the X-Men.

211 (feat. Nicolas Cage)

In 2018's 211, Cage plays a bad cop in Massachusetts, named Mike. His name doesn't really matter. None of the characters need to be identified beyond their typical roles. The title of the film refers to a police procedure in response to a robbery. So, Cage, a bad cop, gets to be a hero in a big deal bank robbery done by some military ass holes. Cage's ass hole looking son plays one of them, wearing an ass hole-looking haircut.

Like a direct-to-video tape, 211 plays out like some kind of propaganda movie, pretending it's real, and just as good as any other kind of violent cop movie. During the robbery and romp of very well executed gunshots, I kept expecting someone to pray and make God save the day, depleting all relevance from the rest of the story. The idea behind 211 isn't so terrible, but that's no excuse to do everything badly. If it weren't for my promise to hate The Croods, I might rank 211 at the bottom of my list.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Adaptation
4. Birdy
5. Wild at Heart
6. Color Out of Space
7. Peggy Sue Got Married
8. City of Angels
9. Drive Angry 10. Lord of War
11. Gone in 60 Seconds
12. Matchstick Men
13. Vampire's Kiss
14. Con Air
15. Face/Off
16. Honeymoon in Vegas
17. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
18. Bringing Out the Dead
19. The Family Man
20. It Could Happen to You
21. 8mm
22. Ghost Rider
23. Next
24. The Weather Man
25. 211
26. The Croods

Smokey's Pizza of Maryville, TN

In this one little town, there are over 3 Smokey's Pizza locations. It shouldn't surprise you that Tennessee is a hot spot for regional pizza chains. However, there's only so much pizza that I can responsibly purchase and eat. The ratio of Smokey's pizza is 3cr/2ce/2ch.

Their CRUST gets a 4 out of 5. It tastes like the bread your mom might have made with her bread making machine on special occasions. A lot of pizza joints don't cook their pizzas long enough. Smokey's does. Their slices are not only foldable, but they are chewy and gooey. Good crust. Their SAUCE gets a 3 out of 5. While you can clearly see the sauce where the cheese meets the outer crust, it fails to make much of a mark on the pizza. While good, their sauce is somewhat thin and sparing.

For STYLE, I'll give Smokey's a 3 out of 5. The pizza itself is unremarkable, but I like the Smokey's vibe. My medium cheese pizza was fourteen inches, a generous medium, and really cheap. And while specializing in pizza, Smokey's offers all kinds of other cheap take-out style foods, like burgers, fries, gyros, tenders, and poppers. It's nice when ordering from one place, to have the option of adding something other than boring sticks and expensive wings. For OVERALL QUALITY, Smokey's gets a 4 out of 5. They're not trying to mess around. This gives Smokey's a score of 70%; definitely worth checking out.

The Fires of Winter by Johanna Lindsey

Do you remember the 90s, when images of Fabio Lanzoni graced the walls of every Walden Books store? I do. The original pressing of Fires of Winter didn't have Fabio on the cover, but the repressing did. I like that. For my month of Romance-focused reading, I needed a Fabio book.

Fires of Winter takes place in the 9th century. It tells the story of a Gaelic duchess (or young woman of nobility, are they the same?) named Brenna, who hates doing women's work. Her family gets enslaved by vikings. None of them mind this or even the rapes they endure. None of them mind except for Brenna, who finds that, when first raped, sex isn't as bad as she was taught.

Garrick, our love interest and most present rapist, hates women. He doesn't trust them, and will only deign to use them for sex when he has no choice. So there are a lot of romance novel tropes going on with Fires of Winter. I suppose some tropes are necessary for readers to get a grip on the story, and I think I get it. The spunky woman and her captor are roles in the sexual fantasy of this story. I only wish the story hadn't been otherwise so stupid.

Hungry Howie's of Lake Butler, FL

I was going to try Pizza Boy Pizza in Lake City, but they're closed on Sundays, which seems ridiculous. Sunday is one of the best days to order pizza.

Either way, for the sake of my readers, I thought it best to put some focus on some pizza joints they might actually go to. Hungry Howie's is a regional chain most famous for pioneering the realm of flavored crust. And they don't use their flavored crust as an excuse to shrink the area of sauce and cheese (like one of their competitors whose name I will not mention).

Hungry Howie's Saint Augustine location was a big hangover spot for me. Less than a mile from my house, it still took a half hour to drive there. The store didn't smell much like pizza, but they had a buffet with a salad bar. The people who ran the place didn't speak much English, and never tried to converse with me. They were Chinese, and didn't try to make eye contact; a huge plus. I could just sit in the air conditioning and guzzle diet cokes, and take my time in eating what I could, without anyone trying to smile at me. I always appreciated Hungry Howie's class-free charm, and took to calling it Howard's. Too commonly would friends turn up their noses to Howard's because it was not truly local, and didn't pretend to be fancy in accordance with the contrived, old timey decorum of its neighbors. The ratio for Hungry Howie's Pizza is 3cr/3ce/3ch. At nine dollars for a fourteen inch cheese pizza, they really don't leave you hanging. Their pizza has a weight and richness that's often lacking in the big chains.

I'll rate their crust a 3 out of 5. The special crust flavors are good, and the crust itself has a good taste. However, it's somewhat dense and rubbery. Their sauce also gets a 3 out of 5. It's good, but unremarkable. For overall quality, I give Howard's a 4 out of 5. As far as I know, no Hungry Howie's has ever made a bad pizza. While we can all agree that pizza isn't fancy, Howard's pizza isn't a far cry from the stuff you'd expect from a gas station. For style, they get a 3 out of 5. Without free refills, this Howard's is not a place where I would want to hang out. I went to this particular store in March 2021, only to discover that people in central Florida don't wear masks. They just don't. Also, Fox News was playing very loudly on the tv, really killing my vibe. Aside from serving a very basic pizza in a typically depressing atmosphere, they get style points for value and honesty. I trust Howard, because he doesn't pretend to be something he isn't.

With that said, Hungry Howie's gets a 65%. They are one of my favorite regional pizza chains. If you ever go to Florida, you might consider checking them out.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (feat. Nicolas Cage)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a pretty fun, family-friendly low fantasy. I don't know why 80s fantasy films seem to get all the hype when more modern films use tested, successful story-telling techniques, and almost always look good. Maybe I just don't have access to people whose tastes aren't slanted by nostalgia. That being said, there is very little that is new or creative in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Facing 80s hype, I don't think this film is better than The Neverending Story, even though it looks better. Back in the 80s, did films even have $150 million budgets? I don't know. Still, there was a lot of crap in the 80s and 90s. Have you seen A Kid in King Arthur's Court? That one was almost as bad as the Croods.

Back to The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The apprentice is David, played by Jay Baruchel. I've been a fan of his since he starred in MTV's collge comedy-drama Undeclared, which I thought was a great show. For this film, either he or the director chose that he should change his voice to sound as much like a poindexter as possible. It doesn't really work, but I think he's still a good, entertaining actor, and despite the stupid voice, his character is very relatable to the nerdy kids who probably love this movie, as I would have loved it in my childhood.

But per usual, Disney gives a totally false view of what it's like to be twenty years old. How many college students have their own, dexter-style lab in New York City, and build their own huge tesla coils? Growing up, Disney set me up for a lot of disappointments, but we can go into detail about that some other time. When fantasy meets reality, even a fictional reality, that fictional reality has to be believable.

Nick Cage may have phoned in his performance, I don't know. He makes a great sensei-type character; Balthazar, the Merlinean. I don't know why the creators of this film needed to use the names of pre-existing legends like Merlin, Balthazar, and 'Morgana La Fay', especially when this story has nothing to do with such historical legends. If they are going to steal names, they could at least have done something ironic, like having a character named Batman who is definitely not Batman. We had one of those in my home town, and he worked at Taco Gringo.

Let's acknowledge that this film was named after and inspired by the piece in Fantasia. As Batman might have wanted to, David enchants the mops to do his chores. So I ask: How many mops does one laboratory need? It makes no sense for them to have ten mops to clean one floor, and ten sponges to clean one sink. But I get it. It's a kids' movie, and kids don't care about plausibility and empty promises. They are easily fooled. But I can't give The Sorcerer's Apprentice a pass just for being good at being a kids' movie.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Adaptation
4. Birdy
5. Wild at Heart
6. Color Out of Space
7. Peggy Sue Got Married
8. City of Angels
9. Drive Angry
10. Lord of War
11. Gone in 60 Seconds
12. Matchstick Men
13. Vampire's Kiss
14. Con Air
15. Face/Off
16. Honeymoon in Vegas
17. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
18. Bringing Out the Dead
19. The Family Man
20. It Could Happen to You
21. 8mm
22. Ghost Rider
23. Next
24. The Weather Man
25. The Croods

Matters of the Heart by Danielle Steel

After a few pages, I thought this would be the equivalent of a Harlequin Romance, only longer. The font seems big, and the spaces between the lines are huge, like in an abridged classic from the (not to be named) dollar store.

My mom reads Danielle Steel, or she used to. And I didn't expect Steel's 100th novel to be so heavy. It's about a hugely successful photographer named Hope, with a tragic past and a lot of money. She meets the perfect guy who turns out to be less than great. Many times I had to put this book down, because it conjured so many dark feelings, wondering about my past relationships. I wasn't all that bad. Still, I really cared about sweet little Hope.

Now I'm left wondering about Steel's other novels. She's written over a hundred, and I do plan on reading a hundred books this year. Maybe my mom can steer me in the right direction.

Angels Fall by Nora Roberts

I found this book at a Goodwill store, very well-loved. For those of you don't know, Noraa Roberts is a big shot in the world of popular fiction. It says so all over the spine, cover, and afterward. From the back cover Nora sneers at us condescendingly in her pearls and power suit. How often should a novelist need to wear a suit, anyway? Does she know that she has more books at Goodwill than every author ever?

In Angel's Fall our protagonist is from Boston, and her love interest is from Chicago. Visualizing the scenes, I failed to give these characters accents. I don't know about you, but books are often more fun for me when I can get a vivid picture of the characters.

That being said, Angel's Fall was an entertaining page turner, and I think it could make a good movie, if you like mystery and romance. It takes place in the mountains of Wyoming, where a runaway chef finds herself working at a little diner, and witnesses a murder. This won't be my last Nora Roberts novel, since her book Year One is on my Goodreads 'want-to-read' list, and it's not like I don't want to read it. Also, I'm very intrigued by the works advertised on the back pages of Angel's Fall. How is she the most successful author of her generation? What can I do to catch 1% of that success?