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Book Review: The One by John Marrs (2016)

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I didn’t know much about The One by John Marrs beyond its initial premise. I knew it was a modern sci-fi book and so it landed on my list of reads. At any rate, another reviewer delivered the synopsis this way: “A company announces that they have found the gene that pairs each of us with our soulmate. In a desperate search for true love, millions of people around the world take the DNA test…but when several individuals receive notification that they’ve found their match, everything begins to fall apart.” That’s an apt description of the premise and is best left at that, though readers should be aware that the DNA-matching plot device is nothing more than that and is the sole element of sci-fi in the novel. While I wasn’t a fan of the vignette-style of delivery (in which the various tales are loosely connected at best) and The One is not a particularly well-written book, I found myself enjoying the various twists and turns even if they weren’t foreshadowed while predictable half the ...
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A Race to Remember: Spartan Sprint Seattle 2025

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The Bucket Carry It’s said that every Spartan Race is different, figuratively and literally. Each venue has its quirks and unique set-up which challenge a racer’s ability to adapt, mentally and physically. From race to race, even the weather can vary significantly. The 2025 Seattle Spartan Race in Monroe, WA lived up to this assessment, to say the least. I’d been looking forward to this race having last run in the Phoenix Sprint two years ago, a race so miserable due to the weather that day (50 ° F cloudy and raining!) I will never forget it. While that last race was no exception, there always comes a point in the Spartan Race where I ask myself The Question, “Why am I doing this?” a question that prevailed more so in Phoenix than in any other previous race. Despite that, I still placed well in the Phoenix Sprint both in my age group and overall (according to my own somewhat nebulous For Those Who Cannot standards) but felt I could do better. Thus, among my goals this time around was...
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The Obsidian Trail in Central Oregon

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The Obsidian Trail is an 11-mile hike in Willamette National Forest/Three Sisters Wilderness and sits between 6,645 ft. at its highest elevation and 4,787 ft. at its lowest elevation. Its general location is 20 miles west of Sisters, Oregon on the south side of McKenzie Pass, a narrow road that’s best never driven in a new vehicle or at least without car insurance. The wife and I hiked this trail just about 3 years ago and decided it was time to give it another go having forgotten its inherent contradiction, meaning, one’s working assumption about a trail named ‘Obsidian Trail’ would be that there’s obsidian rock on the trail, but the part of this combo out-and-back/loop trail that’s ACTUALLY named ‘Obsidian Trail’ is almost completely devoid of obsidian rock. In reality, almost all the obsidian rock one comes across during this trek is on a quarter-to-half-mile stretch of the famous Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) that the Obsidian Trail intersects with to make it’s 11-mile ...
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Book Review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020)

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For a book that has spent time on the New York Times Bestsellers list, I have to echo the sentiment of one reviewer who wrote on Reddit, “ The Midnight Library reads like what someone who has never suffered from depression imagines it to be, and lacks all the intelligence, profundity, and complex thought you can tell the author feels they are ‘blessing’ the readers with.” Scanning reviews of this book seem to indicate the read was life-changing for some readers which I guess could be possible if you’ve never thought about the meaning of your own life until this book came along.  The story follows the unlikable, wooden-esque Nora, a 30-something English woman whose life is in the drain and decides to kill herself whereupon she finds herself in a library filled with books that tell the story of her other lives, given a multiverse of possibilities had she made different choices or at least choices she didn't regret. Opening those books gives her a chance to live those lives and if ...
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Book Review: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (1953)

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Clearly not one of Arthur C. Clarke’s best works. Childhood’s End begins with the presence of aliens Overlords already established, with a human – U.N. Secretary-General Stormgren – as their mouthpiece. The Overlords begin their occupation as a veiled force that thrusts utopia upon humanity at the cost of humanity’s freedom and cultural identities with their human collaborators appearing to be largely trustful of the aliens’ unknown motives. But are the aliens trustworthy; do they have our best interests in mind? Or do they have some other motive for foisting utopia upon humanity? One would think this would be a major theme of the book but it’s actually not. Instead, the book meanders its way to being an occasionally interesting analysis of human purpose. The meandering is the book’s greatest flaw as it reads more like a series of loosely connected, extended vignettes rather than having a univocal message, or at least not an obvious one. For instance, with almost a fifth of the boo...
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Book Review: Starter Villain by John Scalzi (2023)

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Starter Villain  by John Scalzi’s is my follow up read to his lighthearted Kaiju Preservation Society . From beginning to end, Starter Villain is packed full of soft (and sometimes sardonic) humor with a side of social commentary as it follows Charlie, a destitute, down-on-his-luck ex-business journalist turned substitute-teacher. Charlie’s only asset is the house of his late father, which really belongs to his siblings as well who want him to move out so they can sell it. Other than his faithful cat, Hera, life sucks for Charlie. After Charlie’s estranged uncle dies and leaves behind his fortune, allegedly attained from his parking garage empire, Charlie’s contacted by his uncle’s assistant who informs him that it was the final wish of his uncle to purchase his house from the family trust and gift it to Charlie outright, but only if he stands for his uncle at the funeral. And that’s when the fun begins. Charlie soon realizes there was more to his uncle’s life than being a parking...
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For What It's Worth (A True Story, Most Of It, I Think)

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Shortly after my father’s death in 1989, I was happy to leave The States and return to my army unit in Germany since that’s where my guitar was. It was around this time the kindling of a rock band began to smolder after my brother-from-another-mother and I discovered a large, unused room in the attic in the furthest reaches of the barracks. (Actually, I’d already known about it since my girlfriend and I usually held our trysts there, but the prospect of rock stardom outweighed privacy concerns and so I led my friend there to ‘discover’ the room together.) That brother-from-another-mother, Rick (R.I.P.), also played guitar and our ‘styles’ (read: schlocking) meshed well since we grew up on similar rock music. And so, for a while it was just myself and Rick. At some point we’d heard the tall guy in 3 rd platoon, Fred, was a dedicated Rush fan and played drums. Despite the fact our abilities were clearly beneath Fred after we heard him play, we convinced him to join our ensemble without ...
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