Books that aren’t about dog training (#SFWApro)

Wrapping up my reviews for last week (the dog-training books I already covered)

JUMBO: This Being the True Story of the Greatest Elephant in the World by Paul Chambers, recounts the story of the once-legendary elephant whose name still lives on in the synonym for “gigantic” (the name originally derived from an African medicine man, “Mumbo Jumbo.”) Chambers follows Jumbo from his capture in Africa through a stint in a Paris Zoo which eventually sold him off to London Zoo. Despite being initially horrified by his initial pint-size status, the Zoo soon discovered it had made a winning move, though complicated by internal zoo politics and Jumbo’s occasional outbursts of violence. Eventually the Barnum & Bailey Circus bought Jumbo from the Zoo, which unleashed P.T. Barnum’s talent for humbug (he covertly organized a protest campaign against him taking the elephant out of England, to build publicity for the acquisition). A minor topic, but a good job.

Although the cover to the left (all rights to current holder) and the intro to my edition of THE HEADS OF CERBERUS by Francis Stevens identify it as the first parallel world novel, that’s a real stretch: the dystopia in which the trio of protagonists wind up is quite clearly identified as a mindscape fashioned in part from their own thoughts and fears. The story is entertaining (though not as good as Stevens’ Citadel of Fear), as the title McGuffin—a vial crafted by Cellini, supposedly holding dust from purgatory itself—hurls them into Philadelphia, AD 2115, a nightmare world resulting from the combined effects of international communism and American post-WWI isolationism. Worth reading, but I’d pick Citadel first.

COVER GIRL by Andrew Cosby,Kevin Church and Rafael Albuquerque is a pleasant read in which a struggling actor’s act of heroism—rescuing a woman from a burning car—gets him both a great acting gig and the attention of sinister figures who worry he heard the woman’s whispered dying message. Enter a female ex-cop bodyguard to keep him safe … I give them points for keeping the leads as buddies rather than lovers, but ultimately this is nothing Chuck and other TV shows haven’t done better.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE: The Forgeries of Jealousy by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Warren Ellis and Matteo Buffagni was a real disappointment. While I’m not a fan of Ellis, I enjoyed DeConnick’s Captain Marvel, and the bantering tone she gives Carol Danvers, but here she gives the same kind of dialog to every female character—Araña, Black Widow, Spider Girl, the head of AIM—and it shifts from charming to ridiculous (plus it makes them all sound the same). Coupled with an unremarkable plot tying into Marvel’s Inhumanity Big Event, this was a thumbs-down for me.