Basic Options Trading: Options Strategies For Beginners

Pendola’s approach to what many people find complicated is to breakdown explanations into simple and manageable illustrations.  If the thought of trying to figure out the square root of 9 freaks you out, don’t worry, most of his examples involve basic, simple math.  Put away your calculator.  His overarching goal is to make understanding options uncomplicated.  Have you ever wanted to know the terms: buy to open, sell to close, sell to open, buy to close, out-of-the-money, in-the-money, and at-the-money.  If you answered yes, this is the book for you.

The book is divided into five sections. Each section builds upon the information you learned in the previous.  The first section provides the reader definitions and concepts of basic options.  Complicated options are not discussed.  Remember, this book is for beginners, those somewhat familiar with the terms and who want to learn more to build up their comfort level.  Second, he explores his belief that options should be considered as an investment.   He writes, “It’s little more than a misnomer that options have no place in the portfolios of new, ardent buy-and-hold or even conservative investors. In fact, I argue that you hold yourself back by not using options in a variety of, albeit, relatively basic ways.”  The following three sections discuss covered calls, long calls and puts, and cash-secured puts respectively.

As I read this book, one thing that I found comforting was that the author frequently warns his readers not to do too much.  In today’s world, many people are leery with claims that risk will pay out as long as you have a lot of money in the game.  He feels the opposite.  “Simply put, many humans have an aversion to the notion of doing more with less, while failing to acknowledge the potential pitfalls of trying to do more with more.”  Pendola is cognizant to warn readers that caution and knowledge will get you results.  He also advises to only risk an amount of money in which you can afford to lose.  He believes the best type of investor, is a disciplined one who is informed, patient, and knows his or her limits –“(m)ost investors, namely relatively small ones, should never venture beyond the most basic options strategies.”

Rocco Pendola is a contributor to the website Seeking Alpha.  If you would like to sample his writing before buying this eBook, I recommend that you check out his articles.  I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.  It is a simple, yet informative read.

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Rocco Pendola’s Instablog

Spiritual Alchemy: The Fall, The Cure, The Jesus Prayer

In 1984, Atwood was arrested in Texas by the FBI for kidnap and murder.  These crimes were allegedly committed in Arizona.  To this day, Atwood states that these charges were false and that he was wrongfully convicted.  However, he now lives on death row in Arizona.  While in prison, Atwood acquired a couple of Associates of Arts from Central Arizona College and from Ohio University.  In addition, Atwood has received a Bachelors and Masters degree from Ohio University.  And most recently, he has started a three year Masters program in theology.  He converted to Greek Orthodox Christianity.  In 2000, Atwood was baptized and received his name Anthony.  He added “of the Desert” to remind himself of sin.

His background intrigued me.  I am amazed by his resolve not to quit living or to become obsessed with vengeance, especially given his claims that he’s been unjustly accused and condemned to death.  This would break the spirit of many people.  Instead, he turned to religion to deal with an overwhelming situation. 

Given Anthony’s story, it is fitting that his book, Spiritual Alchemy, discusses sin. He divides his book into three parts.  The first part discusses the Fall, when Eve bit into the apple and the consequences for humans since that event.  The next component outlines the cure. This section delves into ways to bring a person back to his or her sole purpose, which is to reunite with God.  Lastly, Anthony discusses the Jesus Prayer and how it is “the ultimate cure for all infections from the Fall and as the quintessential vehicle for deification.”

As I read the book, I sensed the amount of research that the author utilized to present a clear and concise thesis.  Each section builds upon the other to aid the reader from point to point.  I found his historical research to be informative, albeit the sources are solely religious texts.  This book would be helpful to those who are on this path and would like to learn more about the healing benefits of the Jesus Prayer and the historical background.

Given the author’s personal history, I was somewhat surprised that he does not let you into his own personal struggles and salvation by introducing the Jesus Prayer into his own battle with sin.  It would move this work away from feeling like a term paper and into a thought provoking work demonstrating the rewards of accepting that humans are sinful and that utilizing the Jesus Prayer can bring people closer to God.

Furthermore, it would behoove the author to take more time editing his work.  Certain words and phrases are repeatedly used to emphasize his point.  I lost count of how many times the writer used the words thus, perceive, perception, and the phrase, in other words.

Overall, this work would be a helpful aid to people seeking to learn more about the Jesus Prayer.  I give Spiritual Alchemy three out of five stars.

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www.churchfathertheology.com

Sector C

In this episode of The Indie Book Podcast, we review Sector C, a science fiction eco-thriller
that gave us an intimate look at the ranching community of the Great
Plains. We also interview Charles M. Pulsipher about his novel, The
Crystal Bridge, and about how your own characters can surprise you.

A minister, believing he was on a mission from God, identified a local teacher as a homosexual. The ‘outing’ led to the teacher’s murder. The states attorney decided the minister had put the teacher’s life in jeopardy by singling him out for only one reason; the teacher was a homosexual. The states attorney charged the minister with a hate crime reasoning you cannot use the Bible to justify homophobic behavior. Like a rock thrown into a pool, many persons in the community are touched by the teacher’s murder, the police investigation, the trial, and the jury proceedings.

When I reach for a novel, I’m looking for a good, tight story involving memorable characters told in a consistent narrative voice. In “God Hates Fags,” author Joe Wellman presents a core theme with a story packed around it from the outside, the characters are presented as sociological case studies, and the narrative voice is lost amidst lengthy flashbacks and repetitive, flat phrasing.

The question as to which comes first, the theme or the story, is essential. A theme should arise organically from within a well-told story. This book’s theme, overtly announced in the last sentence of the jacket copy quoted above, is overemphasized in the book’s epigraph: “No event is merely a rock thrown into a pond. The ripples touch the lives of many.”

But there is no focus on the event in question. Flashbacks are presented for 14 different characters, taking up approximately 105 pages (about one-third of the novel) and are spread throughout the book beginning in chapter 2. Each time I start to become involved in the basic story (a murder and hate crime trial), I have to stop and wade through an extensive explanation of why a particular character behaves the way they do. In chapter 12’s flashback, Paul is having a conversation with Sean; Sean then goes into a three-page flashback of his own during the first flashback conversation. This is very distracting.

Although the book is labeled “Suspense” on the back jacket, lack of surprise is another result of the flashbacks. In chapter 13 there are seven pages describing the horrid conditions of Sarah’s childhood; as we snap back to the present, Sarah attempts suicide. As a reader, I don’t need a graphic history of child abuse to precede a suicide attempt as it not only removes any surprise I might feel over Sarah’s drastic step, it also prevents me from using my imagination. This is particularly true of the character Runt. Given his nickname and wonderfully detailed physical description, I can guess what his childhood must have been like.

In an obvious attempt to make up for this pacing deficiency, chapter 21 (half-way point of the novel) is presented from eight different points of view with only two switches separated by extra space on the page. Unfortunately this becomes a trend: chapter 22 is a five-page flashback, chapter 23 is more flitting about between POVs; chapter 24 is a seven-page flashback, chapter 25 is two POVs with no space break between them; chapter 26 is a nine-page flashback, with chapter 27 then giving us more POV switches.

Chapter 28 describes an extramarital rendezvous that results in a scorned wife throwing her cheating husband out of the house – possibly the most non-surprising conclusion of a scene in the entire book.

In what would otherwise have been a great way to end the second act, chapter 29 is titled “The Riot,” giving away in advance what is about to happen in front of the courthouse on the eve of trial. After the dramatic riot scene we are given a rather unfortunate segue: “Across Westfield at Dottie’s house, she, Mike and Sarah were sharing a pizza.”

Mr. Wellman’s narrative style is inconsistent in other ways. Sometimes the dialogue is sharp, other times laden with exposition. Physical descriptions of characters are flat, consisting of height, age, hair color, marital status, and, if female, breast size. Many phrases are repeated within the same sentence or paragraph (as in the jacket copy, which mentions “states attorney” twice). In chapter 31, we are told for the third time that Shari is Gene’s assistant. It is in this chapter, titled “The Trial Begins,” that plot really kicks in. But what happens at the trial gives no surprises whatsoever due the previous flashbacks.

Chapter 33, “The Jury Deliberates,” is the best chapter in the novel. However, in chapter 34 we have POV switches again, followed by yet another flashback in chapter 35. This four-page flashback involves Jonathan, one of the jurors; in the next chapter, Jonathan has a conversation with another juror in which his resentments from the past are revealed in just a few short lines of dialogue, negating the need for the flashback in chapter 35.

Chapter 36, “More Jury Deliberations,” again presents good action and tight dialogue, but the final two chapters, titled “Four Weeks Later” and “One Year Later,” tie up the story way too neatly.

On the whole, the book’s pacing problem needs to be addressed (by using flashbacks briefly and only when germane to the plot) and a thorough copy edit performed (the states attorney says in his opening statement: “Hate crime legislation seeks to protect specific groups from undo victimization”). The narrative voice would be clearer if repetitive phrases were eliminated (starting with eight or nine instances of “guess we’ll find out” in the first few chapters), cliché word choices replaced (“The touch of his bare skin against her bare skin was more than exciting for Teri”), and the typos cleaned up (“You’re going to get a lot of flack”). There is a story in this book that would be interesting if it were allowed to breathe and executed on the basis of plot rather than theme. I give the book as-is a rating of two stars out of five.

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www.godhatesfags-anovel.com

We follow our detectives on three homicide cases: a strange shooting and theft, a dead body in the water with a pocket full of mystery and a very unique contract killer. The plots twist, turn and very much end with a surprise bang.

Not being one to spoil a good story, this book is a great crime drama. I liked the characters, as they were well developed and, as I said, unique. McGovern is a very likeable detective, has a personality that is charming but sharp and makes a good central character. Goreman, his partner, is aloof enough to be his partner and does not present herself as a potential love interest, which makes the working relationship solid. They have their methods down pat and they work well together.

There are two back up cops, Landry and Higgins. They are your typical detectives, doing the legwork involved in the case. They are developed enough to make them essential to the case and they are likeable figures. Sargent Mike Johns is the likeable but explosive boss of this unit, and he has all the attributes of a fiery Desk Sargent with upper management issues. I have to say I found all the main characters interesting and essential to the plot and each had their place and purpose. Very well thought out and executed.

The story is a plot within plots and is well developed and implemented. We have a murder in a garage, where a man is shot, his briefcase is stolen and his wife is left alive to tell the tale. We have a drowned man with some interesting pocket contents that leads to an intricate Ponzi scheme, and then we have a contract killer with a unique way of getting rid of his marks. The plot ties all these stories together and I was impressed with the way the story was woven, and all the little twists in the stories within the story.  Mr. Thompson’s first book is amazingly interesting and well done. I was impressed with his story telling skills and his character development. In other words, I really liked the story and for a first time out, the author did very well.

What was very noticeable was the lack of proofreading and editing. The spelling errors, the misuse of words, such as his use of there when he meant their, and the formatting issues made this a little hard on the eyes for the reader. About 3/4’s of the way through the book, it seems like the author gave up proofing the book altogether. The paragraphs dissolve into run-on thoughts, like someone writing a police report. There is no structure in many stretches of the story; missing periods, commas and capitalization at the start of new sentences. The formatting also gets jumbled at the end and it was very distracting from the story itself, especially where the author wraps up the story.

I also felt the introduction was giving away too much story, and there were inconsistencies presented. Case in point – the contents of the briefcase. The introduction says the case contained a million dollars, but the story itself speculated on the contents as possibly money, at one point it was thought it was half a million, but it was never really confirmed. Just minor details, but these can be essential to the reader, and would present a more professionally-finished product if corrected.

This book would benefit from a good proofing and editing and some better formatting for the Kindle. As a first class story, this would “finish” the book and make it a first rate book all around. 3 Stars for this particular Kindle version with 5 stars for the story itself.

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theresalwaysanothercase.com

The author’s web site describes 21 Erased with the following section:

The book addresses special readers, those who have the speed of thinking, sharp observations, and whose mind understands immediately. Those who need extensive descriptions to have enough time for their mind to adjust, whose mind wanders off, those find it too quick, need explaining what just hit them.

With just one sentence, the main character’s world is opening up in front of your eyes. All the rules of that harsh life are outlined and you are drawn into the plot breathless. You’ll find yourself breathing with her, tense and living her life. You are a special reader because the book itself is special.

Only intelligent mind that connects everything in an instant, that sees the traps and lies in a life around him, is the one that will breathe with this book. You will recognize some things that are in all regimes – you cannot fool the intelligence. We see…

When I first read the description above, I found it a bit pretentious. After having read the book and having gotten familiar with Rayne’s style (or at least the style she chose for 21 Erased), the above section doesn’t seem so odd anymore.

21 Erased is the story of Sarah told by herself. She is a young woman working as a cook in a government building. She also carries coffee, when necessary, to the offices. She is a simple resident living in constant fear of the system. However, what makes Sarah special is her ability to distinguish the true nature of the dark canvas of their lives. One day, during her brother John’s birthday party, she shares her negative opinions about their situation with Steven, a friend of John’s. And the same night she gets kidnapped from her home by government agents.

“They know everything. I was angry because I was scared, I lived in fascism and nobody saw it but me.”

The book starts well. It gives a good indication about what’s to come. It draws the reader in. When I read the short, 2-page, prologue-like first chapter, I felt I had to read more. This first chapter is a brief introduction to the book’s setting. Unfortunately the author doesn’t develop it as much as I’d like to but this brief glimpse is enough to tell the reader she’s getting herself into a story about a dark, tightly-controlled society.

In this future fascist dystopian society, the code that people carry on their hands is their identity, their money, their house key, their car key, their bus pass. Without it or with an invalid code, they are nothing. They simply cease to exist. And everybody knows that maladjusted people are taken to the Adjustment Centers that were originally opened for pandemic control. They never come back.

This is a world where the heavy hand of religion is constantly felt on the shoulders of the citizens. There are prayers every day, for everyone at specific times. When the TV programs end, everybody pray and place their hand on their code reader and then, only then, they can go to sleep. People don’t talk at work and the conversations during breaks revolve around simple things such as a TV show or a movie.

It doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that government controls every aspect of its citizens lives. They control the media who tell people what to say and what to think. They even control the music or the shows that people listen to in their smart cars. The government also takes the responsibility of raising exemplary citizens very seriously. For this reason, children are taken away from their parents at birth. Every citizen is given a pill once a month that needs to be taken during a predefined time of the month. Internet is heavily controlled, people cannot kiss in public, cannot consume alcohol, cannot leave their state without permission.

One can’t even find solace in good weather. Because of the climate change, the only season is winter. The temperature is always below 40F (5C). Some people are worn out from the cold and they have no money for heating. And when the sun comes out, it is not pleasant. It burns their skin.

21 Erased is a very fast read. Not only as a consequence of its novella size but also thanks to the author’s style. Rayne also uses short chapters in her book, which contributes to the overall ease of read. But mainly because the book has the feeling of a movie made by a camcorder. It’s not necessarily a bad story but the lack of depth in certain areas took me by surprise. All aspects of the story could be more developed. There are some brilliant ideas in the setting that don’t live longer than a simple mention in a sentence. Just when the reader gets ready to learn more about them, they never materialize.

The only character development is Sarah’s. The other characters feel like shadows. And I had a strong feeling that the author changed course in the middle of the story. At times it feels like reading through Sarah’s elaborate diary. There are also a few other things that I cannot discuss in a review for the fear of spoiling the story.

However, and this is important, despite all these shortcomings, I enjoyed reading 21 Erased. Normally, I would consider any one of the points I mentioned above annoying. However the runaway train speed of the author’s style grabbed me and pulled me until the very end. I think Rayne is currently working on her new book called Evolve. I’m interested to see how it compares to 21 Erased.

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I then started getting into the book itself; the first chapter. I thought, oh my, Hunter S. Thompson’s final work? Or maybe this is his protégé? This is soooo Gonzo Journalism; but the author is no journalist. The author was just a member of the band. What is this anyway? I figured I was in for a ride. Well, I’m the committing type.

I continue to read… and the plot eventually comes to the surface. I don’t think the author intended the book to come out this way, but… I found myself laughing myself silly. Oh, this is just too wonderful to be missed!

The book is a crime piece, drawing on the main character of “Big Al Cancelino.” Big Al, as he is referred to in the book, is actually a guy from Upstate New York, trapped in the 80’s. He is a guy from a small Adirondack town and all he wants to do is have a band. Kevin, the author, was a guitarist with the band for a while, and a good friend of Al’s. Al, by the way, also has this bad habit of stepping into business situations that smell like poo but end up as mondo money makers.

The crime part of this comes about, as it did with most bands back then, in the drug scene of the 80’s. Cocaine abounds in this story, along with some pretty funny stories about cops, Feds, prisons, courtroom scenes and the way our judicial system was and still probably is (not so) working.

Al finds himself in the situation that many bands end up in: too much money and nothing better to do with it than spend it on drugs, and side businesses that also generate too much money and nothing better to do with it. There are also the ever-present drugs, and while the general population seems to think that drugs are bad for you, the life style of the 80’s called for cocaine and saw nothing wrong with it.

The story is twofold. First, the main story appears [sometimes] to be the author trying to put this book together. He is an aspiring author with two unfinished books called upon by his friend to write his friends “real” story. Seems one of the Feds wrote a story about his big bust on Big Al, and Al wants the real story to come out. Kevin is nominated to write it. The other story is the actual story, as told to Kevin by Al, with embellishment by Kevin on occasions. Kevin is part of the story as well; hence the Gonzo Journalism style of writing – the journalist becomes part of the story as the story unfolds.

I have to admit (without admitting to anything) that I was “vaguely” aware of these kinds of things back when I was younger. And knowing a few folks who ended up being busted for drugs, the questions are pretty much the same. Why were the police and the Feds allowed to do what they did back then? The Feds especially, seemed to have a lot of freedom to interfere with a lot of cases they handled. The fact that Al, a small time drug addict who had lots of money and bought lots of cocaine for his own use and for partying, was never a real threat to society as some of the real heavy duty dealers were back then. Yet, the government was duped into thinking Big Al was a drug kingpin, and spent tons of money on building a stupid case against the guy, and then incarcerating him for 7 years on our tax dollars for… partying. Literally.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The guy did break the law as far as drugs were concerned. And, yes, it was against the law, and yes, when he was caught, yeah, he paid the penalty. And as a credit to the man when he was put in front of the judge, he pleaded guilty. But, the actual case appears to have been blown out of proportion. Well, at least based on the story told here.

The book seems to have been spurred on by the publication of a book by an ex-Fed named Paul Bannister, who seems to have blown this whole story out of proportion just to benefit his ego, and his collar record. Al seems to think his side needs to be told. And Al tells a whopper of a story. The judicial system, from the investigation to the arrest to the conviction to the prison system, is a joke. To read this book, you come away with the feeling that we are wasting our tax dollars on both incarceration and on the drug war.

But the reading of the story is well worth the price of the book. And as I made my way through the book, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief at some of the stupidity of our law and order system. I found myself laughing out loud at most of Al’s stories. Some of those stories are priceless.

As for Kevin’s writing: His personal aspect and philosophies add to the content of the book. That he was there at the time this was building adds to the possibility of the story. That he wasn’t there when the bust when down ads to the credibility of the story. He can then look back at the whole story and draw some pretty interesting and plausible conclusions.

But, alas, he is a writer, not an editor. Check at 107 and it should be altar, not alter. That’s just the start. The book needs an editor.  I’m not talking about Al’s priceless language use and misuse either. The formatting of the book also has some issues. The italic for the quotes from Al, well, OK. But the really tiny text for your commentaries… I am not getting any younger and that really needs to be worked on – it needs to stand out, but don’t use tiny text. He needs to indent the paragraphs, not make them smaller than gnats. I would have indented the quotes for Al and then put the author’s thoughts and insights in italic. Keeps the stories separate. Geez…I am telling the author how to format the book. But, you see, it really is a good book. It just needs some pro editing and some good formatting behind it and it could work. Yes, I can see that happening! And don’t change the ending! No matter what anyone says! Priceless.

I have to say I really enjoyed this story of the 80’s, music, drugs, booze, groupies, cops, prison and Feds. The way it is written is, well, curious. But in a good way! It makes the story that much more interesting. I enjoyed this, but it still needs a little work. 3.5 Stars.

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William Westhoven, who has covered the performing arts as a journalist since 1989, makes the leap to fiction successfully with his debut novel. He accomplishes this by using a compassionate, humorous narrative voice, interspersing his journalistic observations about the music business with a light enough touch to let the story continue moving.

One-Hit Willie: A Classic Rock Novel opens as a musician consents to an interview on television prior to a reunion tour with his former band. In fine in media res style, a “gotcha” entertainment journalist is speaking:

“Did you hear the question?”

Of course he heard the question. It was still ringing in his ears like a damn church bell.

Aaron hung on as the room spun around him. Get a grip, man, you’re losing it!

“I’m sorry, who?” he asked, stalling for precious milliseconds.

“Weekend Willie. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Uh, no. I mean, not really. Should it?” He mustered a thin smile, trying desperately to cover his panic.

In this brief passage Westhoven hooks us with a mystery: Who is this Willie, what is Aaron hiding, and why should we care about him? To begin answering the latter question, we soon learn Aaron’s previous successes haven’t gone to his head:

He was different than the sad parade of weeping used-to-bes who could not bear it when they walked down the street and no one recognized them. Carrie Mann was not exploiting him. He was exploiting her. And he had other people in his corner, important people, who would make sure his tour was a respectable event, not some kind of nostalgia freak show.

Amid the chaos created by this on-the-air interview, the Prologue stops as abruptly as it started. From Pearl Harbor through the New Millenium, from Las Vegas to San Francisco by way of Atlantic City and Oceanside, California, the story of this musician’s epic career is then told in chronological order—fifty years and coast-to-coast.

By the time he is a teenager, Willie is already performing on stage nightly. He doesn’t quite know what to do with the attention from his mother and girlfriend, let alone his audiences. But we are told early on what motivates him to keep playing:

It wasn’t the attention he enjoyed. It was how he could make people feel things with his music.

As the plot winds its way through time and place, our protagonist is beset with triumphs and tragedies befitting any guitar hero. In spite of his popularity in Las Vegas, he is forced by circumstances to leave town and change his identity. He lands in San Francisco during the Summer of Love and eventually starts another band, selling millions of records. But as he grows older, he’s more and more the reluctant hero:

In between shows, the band continued to watch the news reports and sulk about missing the concert of the century.

Aaron startled himself by daydreaming about playing in front of half a million people, just like Hendrix was at Woodstock. Could his new band really ever get that big? And if they did, could they handle it? Could he handle it? Aaron lived in constant conflict between his need for anonymity and his need for an audience.

Westhoven gives us characters that are types and yet individuals. Aaron’s mother is Winnie Quinn, and while we’ve all met someone like Winnie, we’ve never met this Winnie. There’s a tavern owner named Pappy, a studio engineer called Flash, and a casino named The Full House. The aptly-named characters and places are introduced with lyrical description, such as Las Vegas mobster Pasquale “Patsy” Bucco:

Patsy was built like a coal furnace. Five-foot-seven, nearly as wide, with a cast-iron stomach inside and out. Shoulders wider than the alley that cut from Division to Elm in his native Chicago. Round biceps the size of coconuts. Knuckles hard as lug nuts.

The characters also come to life through believable dialogue, whether the conversations are long or short. Even more impressive is Westhoven’s use of place to reflect a character’s level of comfort (or discomfort) with their environment, be it New Jersey—

Atlantic City girls were much prettier than Chicago girls, too. Strolling the Boardwalk in shorts and sundresses that billowed in the ocean breeze. Lounging on the beach in next to nothing. Maybe there was something in the air, a tonic that let Patsy forget his enormous responsibilities.

Or Las Vegas—

… Nothing mattered more to him than leading his band and mesmerizing his loyal fans like some sort of desert Pied Piper. …

Or San Francisco (my favorite paragraph in the book)—

The recording sessions for the first album by the Victorian Manner were the stuff of legend. Arguments that escalated into fistfights. Clashes of ego that threatened to compromise the San Andreas Fault. Attacks of anxiety, panic and hysteria. Walkouts and tearful reunions that ate up days of studio time.

Westhoven also knows when to wear his wistful storyteller hat and when to wear his observant journalist hat, as contrasted in these two passages:

“You could hurt yourself dancing to jazz,” Willie often said. He and Bobby would try to dance to a Miles Davis record, get all twisted and then fall on top of each other, laughing like hyenas.

Current events played a feature role in bringing the band back together. A nuclear accident at Three-Mile Island in Pennsylvania had ignited a firestorm of protest across the country in early 1979. …

… Even some of the more conservative Americans, who had been reluctant to protest against the government, were willing to protest a private industry spewing toxic waste into their backyards.

The movement gained more momentum when famous musicians, actors and other celebrities attached themselves to the cause. Benefit concerts were being planned in many large cities around the country. …

The Author’s Note in the back of the book goes into the process Westhoven went through in creating his narrative voice and the personal meaning of the themes arising throughout his carefully woven story.

It bears repeating to say the author takes us to the edge of the stage without falling into a mosh pit of cliché. That I think so much of this novel is the reason I rate the book 4 stars instead of 5. I’d like to see the cover without the blurbs added (front and back); I couldn’t find credits for the front photo or the cover design (both are superb). Additionally, the text needs a quick copy edit to clean up numerous yet easy-to-fix typos.

But don’t let that stop you from getting this book. For a self-published first novel, this is something to be proud of. I’ve known famous musicians and am fairly well-versed in the history of rock and roll, yet found myself chuckling at times, gasping at others, and misting up at the end. Well done, Willie!

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Take Ortega y Gasset, an influential twentieth-century Spanish philosopher. That’s all I remembered about him from a course I took on existentialist writers many years ago.

Then I picked up Oswald Sobrino’s Freedom and Circumstance, a small, unassuming and very readable ebook with a powerful title and a profound grasp of his subject. Despite its relatively short length, it is a thorough introduction to the philosophy and significance of Ortega y Gasset (1883-1935) and a very interesting read. Sobrino gives us Ortega with a clarity of thought and in words that are simple enough for even a neophyte like me to understand.

Freedom and Circumstance elucidates Ortega’s methodology, his philosophical tenets, his significance for the modern age and our time. The book focuses on the basics of Orteguian philosophy, translating into English Ortega’s beautifully written Spanish and making copious use of footnotes that, surprisingly, are a delight to read.

Freedom and Circumstance examines the Ortega y Gasset’s early influences, especially the German philosophers, Ortega’s departure from Descartes and subjective Idealism, and Ortega’s most important works. These include “What Is Philosophy?” a seminal work of the twentieth century published in Madrid, Spain (1929) where Ortega was born, taught, and died. Madrid, Sobrino reminds us, is at “the heart of Spain and on the edge of Europe, both physically and culturally.”

For me a memorable part of the book was Sobrino’s reminder that Ortega did not have a philosophy or hold to a set of philosophical beliefs. Rather, Ortega was a philosophy, that philosophy for him was “a making in oneself a place and a space where the Universe can be known and known again.”

The author also reminds the reader of Ortega’s meaning of word, circumstance “. . . as crucial to our self-identity.”

Another personal favorite in this book was the picture Sobrino painted of Ortega teaching on a quiet morning in a sunlit park in Madrid at the turn of the twentieth century, lecturing to a rapt audience of students.

This kindle ebook has 1070 locations. That’s about the size of a novella.* Whatever its size, I highly recommend the book. It is a bargain at 99¢, and gave this reader many Eureka Moments.

About the Author: Oswald Sobrino holds an M.A. in Theology, an M.A. in Economics, and a Juris Doctor degree. He is fluent in Spanish and teaches biblical studies and Latin. Philosophy was one of his undergraduate majors—and his favorite. Madrid, Spain, the home of José Ortega y Gasset, is his favorite city. Like Ortega, he received a Jesuit education. Sobrino has ten books for sale on Amazon, including Freedom and Circumstance.

*A “location,” Amazon tells us, is 128 characters, smaller than a 140-character-Tweet. A location contains about 25 to 28 words, depending, of course, on the number of spaces between the words. So there are, very roughly and ballpark speaking, somewhere between 22,000 to 30,000 words in Freedom and Circumstance, making it the size of a novella.

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Eric is having none of it. Keen to get away, he checks himself out of the hospital and soon discovers he’s been suspended from his civilian job as a paramedic. Intent on wallowing for a while in his “crappy, aimless life”, Eric hits a local bar and quickly finds himself back in violent trouble – and in the local lock-up. The duty sergeant tells Eric he was rescued by “a buddy”, one mysterious Antonio ‘Tony’ Montenegro – Business Consultant, according to his card. Intrigued, Eric meets Tony for dinner. Recognizing a man of useful talents, and a fellow Venezuelan, Tony recommends Eric for a job with Corso International where he is hired as a computer security expert and quickly relocated to Venezuela.

Eric soon realizes he’s being watched. He thinks he’s being followed, he knows his cell phone has been hacked, and someone is persistently trying to access his laptop. Is it a Corso competitor? The Venezuelan government? Or maybe even the NSA? Moreover, he can’t figure out if his gorgeous colleague, Trishna, is friend or foe. One evening, Eric attends a technology symposium where the Venezuelan President is giving a speech. As the speech unfolds, Eric is suddenly struck down by a migraine. He excuses himself and heads for bathroom where he assaults a security agent and takes his gun. On his way back, Eric intercepts the President who is now working the crowd. He shoots the President dead. Then he runs…

Henry Mosquera’s Sleeper’s Run unashamedly borrows its premise from The Manchurian Candidate, and owes a fair chunk of what follows to the spirit of Jason Bourne, but it still manages to cook up a reasonably complex and original story. It blends exotic locales, an assassination plot, memory loss, mind control, CIA conspiracies, and feats of derring-do. Half the fun of this genre is suspending disbelief, and Sleeper’s Run encourages it wholeheartedly, pushing the limits of credulity and at times going well beyond. It’s a high-concept tale that could easily form the basis of a Hollywood blockbuster or season-long television narrative, such as 24.

That all counts in its favour. As a story idea, it’s fine. But as a realised novel in the action-thriller genre, I was less convinced.

The issue for me is the writing style. An action-thriller must immerse the reader in the world of the novel. It must make the reader feel as if they are there. This is most effectively done with detail: the careful depiction of physical settings, the way characters look and sound, the size and shape of objects, etc. The prose should be functional, lean, unadorned, striving to be invisible. It also needs to move with an almost musical rhythm that pulls you across the page and makes you forget that you are reading. The result is a world vividly realised in your imagination. Sleeper’s Run occasionally does this – some of the action sequences are strong – but it often reads less like a novel and more like the treatment for a screenplay. By this I mean it flies over the action at 30,000 feet, preferring rapid synopsis and exposition to the detailed rendering of scenes. It’s as if the author can’t wait to get to the next chapter. This creates the strange sensation that the novel is moving very quickly and covering plenty of ground, but not really going anywhere. Pace comes at the price of characterisation, engagement and suspense.

When we do get detail, it often lacks originality. For example, Eric’s arrival at Tony’s house in Chapter 6 is described as follows:

This is very nice, I say to myself again when I step out into the garden. The first sight that hits me is a group of gorgeous women sunbathing topless by the pool. Tony’s idea of a small BBQ at home seems to come straight out of “Playboy.” His definition of a few friends means two dozen scantily clad people accompanied by a bartender juggling a full bar, a DJ spinning tracks, and a cook handling the grill.

Rather than describing an original scene, Mosquera simply instructs you to recall the generic “rich bad guy’s pool party” we’ve seen in dozens of Hollywood movies or every third episode of CSI: Miami. In another scene, Tony and Eric sit down for dinner and this is literally how it’s described:

Soon we’re sitting at the best table in the house, with a bottle of their finest red, and a doting waiter at our beck and call.

Ever seen that moment before? Ever heard those lazy phrases? I understand the temptation to use familiar scenes and stock phrases – you want to give your story a kind of narrative authenticity through its resemblance to other stories. However, the result is quite different. It pushes the reader out of the moment as something real because we see that we’re dealing with clichés. I had that feeling quite often throughout the novel, with many sequences feeling either derivative or too superficially handled to be involving. Again, they felt like sketches for scenes in a movie; gestures towards scenes the author wants to include but doesn’t quite know how to execute in prose.

The novel sometimes goes so far as to make explicit references to movies as a substitute for description, e.g. “I must look like Ed Norton in that scene with his boss in Fight Club”, and “My eyes are kept open like that guy in [A] Clockwork Orange”. One setting is described bluntly as looking “like the set of a horror film”. All of this would be fine – perfect, in fact – if our protagonist were an everyman movie buff in a comedic novel. But he isn’t that. Fleeing his enemies at one point, Eric says, “I Jackie Chan my way through an opening”, and he later reflects on his “John Woo move”. But think about it. Is this really the way a highly-trained solider and devotee of Jujitsu, Eskrima and Krav Maga, would describe what he just did? I’m all for characters being three-dimensional, and I know Eric is part IT geek, but those phrases just didn’t ring true.

Of course, film/television and genre fiction sit in something of a virtuous circle these days, with each feeding the other. Hollywood films and episodic television are the story forms we’re most familiar with – in the West, at least. So it’s no surprise that genre novels, especially by emerging writers, pretty closely resemble what we see on the screen. But a novel is still a novel, and how you tell the story on paper is very different. I’d have liked Sleeper’s Run more if it demonstrated a deeper understanding of these differences and their implications for storytelling.

And I suspect the author is, on some level, aware of those differences because sometimes he pulls it off masterfully. For example, in Chapter 43, Eric describes a sniper attack on a convoy. The way people’s heads are exploding and limbs being torn off suggests, to his soldier’s mind, that the attackers are triangulating and using .50 caliber rounds. In his escape from capture in Chapter 52, Eric’s thrillingly clinical description of knifing his way through his tormentors is obviously informed by his paramedic’s knowledge of anatomy. I winced at every slice. The descriptions in these passages are detailed, vivid, imaginatively original, and consistent with the character making the observations. My only complaint is they were too short. It’s great stuff! I wanted more there, and more of it throughout the novel.

But enough of what I didn’t like. Sleeper’s Run has a number of strengths, and one is its depiction of Venezuela. I can’t think of an action-thriller that uses Venezuela as a primary setting, or uses it without overt reference to the drug trade. Many readers probably consider Venezuela indistinguishable from Colombia or Panama – “just another of those Latin American countries”, characterized by violence and drug trafficking. Mosquera shows us instead what Venezuela actually is: a vibrant and contemporary society wrestling, like many, with urbanization, class warfare and political corruption. We’re treated to a potted history of Venezuela in parts. Some of these passages do read a little like downloads from The Economist and could be better blended into the action or dialogue, but for the most part they’re informative without being political or didactic. Mosquera chooses some great locations and really brings them alive. (This is another example of where he does deploy detail quite well.) These depictions appear to be based on real-life experience or some pretty exhaustive research, which is to be commended. This is the first novel I’ve reviewed on an e-reader (Kindle for iPad), and I found myself constantly flipping over to Google Earth to find the exact locations being described, they sounded so intriguing. The same applied when the action shifted to Qatar and other locales.

Eric Caine is also a strength of the novel. He’s a remarkably talented – and endearing – man. He was a pararescue jumper in a counter terrorist unit where he saw multiple combat missions. He’s a deadly force in hand-to-hand combat, has a genius-level IQ, is a phenomenally skilled computer hacker and, best of all, has the INTJ psych profile in the Myers-Briggs typology (like me). Dazzlingly multitalented protagonists – with useful flaws, of course – are a staple of action-thrillers, but what gives Eric originality is his heritage. Born to an American father and a Venezuelan mother, he grew up mostly in Venezuela but attended MIT and served in the US military. He has a foot in two worlds from the outset. This gives him great versatility in moving between cultures, and it also means he’s not necessarily at home in – nor unthinkingly loyal to – either. I’d be interested to see how Mosquera uses this refreshing ambiguity if Eric reappears in later novels. It could be a rich element of many stories, especially in a world increasingly dominated by economic and political globalization.

Finally, I can’t end this review without remarking on the narrative voice. For the most part the novel is told in the first person, in the voice of Eric Caine. Suddenly, at Chapter 16, it flips into third-person omniscient and covers scenes in which Eric does not appear, and of which he cannot have knowledge. The subsequent chapters mix the two perspectives, plus at least one that uses free-indirect narrative to get closer to Trishna. I found these changes jarring, initially. Up until Chapter 16 I felt aligned with Eric, and was enjoying being just as much in the dark as he was. However, the multiplicity of perspectives does allow Mosquera to advance the plot in new ways. Tension and anticipation can be more effectively built if we know more than the protagonist and see threats he doesn’t, and Mosquera uses the device to good effect. It’s a smart and surprising choice.

In summary, I found this a frustrating novel. It has a strong premise. I liked the originality of the settings and the central character. But the writing didn’t involve me. It didn’t hold my attention and demand I come back for more. The author clearly knows what he’s doing at a conceptual level. I hope he continues writing – and I really hope he reads widely in the action-thriller genre, which I doubt he’s done to date. The anxiety of influence will always be there, of course, but making a close study of a few successful thriller writers will reveal a lot about their techniques and why their novels are so engaging. (Lee Child would be a great place to start, as his prose is relentlessly spare yet amazingly visual.) My hope is not that Mosquera would ape their style, but that he would develop a technical appreciation of why their work is strong and thereby expand the possibilities of his own. Henry Mosquera is a thriller writer with potential. He has the gift of imagination, and knows all the elements required for a story to work. He just needs to hone his craft. I look forward to seeing how his work evolves.

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www.sleepers-run.com