StandingWater Creations

A few months ago I picked up books two and three in the Zach Johnson scifi detective series. These are books that are not, inherently, a detective series and my not have been intended to be more than a single, stand alone, book: The Plutonium Blonde.

The problem I encountered, at the time, was that I could buy books two and three (Doomsday Brunette and Radioactive Redhead respectively), but book one had become quite scarce. Truth told, even though it had been printed less than four years ago, it appeared to no longer be in print. Amazon.com kept promising they were going to get it for me; but after several weeks (a couple of months) of waiting, and Amazon.com constantly lengthening the delivery estimates out (I get the impression they don’t like to say, “We aren’t going to be able to fulfill that order,”) I cancelled the order, placed a new one with an independent distributor who claimed to have a new copy of The Plutonium Blonde and had the book within a week.

That’s background. I bought the books because I liked the covers (think pulp covers) and I liked the idea of what it was I would be reading. At the same time, I was not willing to delve into books two or three until I’d purchased and read book one, so, I got to sit on these books I was a little excited about for some time before I actually got to read them. Being a full-time student did not help.

Then I went to Massachusetts. Before leaving I’d opened book one, started reading it, found myself pleasantly addiction to reading it, and, by the time I’d been in Massachusetts twenty-four hours, had devoured the book and loaned it to Erin’s dad. I then pulled out book two (Doomsday Brunette) and proceeded to read it. Again, a delightfully romp into old pulp-style storytelling and an addictively fun read. I was hooked.

By the time Erin and I were back in Utah I’d moved on to book three (hooked does not denote that I read all the time) and again found myself really, really, really enjoying the experience. The two authors, John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem, were doing a wonderful job AND before Christmas I’d purchased the fourth book (dropping money on Frost-Haired Vixen) to read when I was done with two and three.

So, quick recap, books one, two, and three were all good.

Basically, they follow a simple premise over a course of three-hundred (or so) pages. Specifically, Zach Johnson is the last private eye on the planet. He is occasionally hired to detect things in a world that is highly connected to a network of computers. The network of computers is also how television is broadcast. As a result of his position as the last private detective AND the gadgets he tests for one of his buddies, he is a semi-successful HV (think television) star who people are always trying to kill.

Enter the damsel in distress. One hot, tall, busty woman who needs Zach to do something for her. Find a clone. Stop some bad guy from destroying the world. Find the murderer of a nearly immortal sister, yadda, yadda, yadda. The story isn’t complex or hard to follow. They don’t, generally, offer enough clues to give you exactly who the bad guy is AND at the same time, the authors also make things pretty transparent. It is what they call a guilty pleasure. These books aren’t literature. Zach Johnson doesn’t come off as a real person. And the whole purpose in reading the books is the enjoyment factor.

Got all that?

In the end, this might be a surprise, Zach gets his man/woman/android/cyborg.

It’s all pretty simple. I like this kind of story telling. Seriously, guilty pleasure.

Now, there is some attempts at depth to the stories, specifically Zach has a girlfriend he is in love with who, in her turn, is jealous of the super-hot women he has as clients. She’s also a doctor who is a retired kickboxing champion (go figure) who has a niece who works for Zach who can read minds… oh, and did I mention the computer AI that is directly connected to his cerebral cortex through his eye? No? Well, then there’s HARV.

The books go from heavy action to slow drama back to heavy action pretty quickly. They are fun to read. They don’t take up a lot of the cognitive abilities. And the outcome is that you are done reading and feel okay about being alive.

Then you hit book four. I’m still reading this one. It occurred to me, as I was pushing things around last night looking for something on my floor, that I’d not picked it up in a while. The reason, it’s not very good. The first three books were done by two writers working together. You get to the fourth book and, even though one of the authors is still doing the writing, Zach and crew all feel… well… like the author is writing about different characters. It’s not as good. In fact, it pretty much sucks. Granted, there’s a part of me that is NOT done reading the book as I want to find out the who done it but I am not as interested. The characters (who you get to REALLY know over three previous books) don’t feel as alive and the writing, which was good in the first three books, is now sub-par.

Basically, this book follows the same pattern, it is holiday themed, but it follows the same pattern without succeeding. I have to admit that this reminds me a lot of what Disney has been doing for the past decade or more. They found a pattern that allegedly worked (for them) and then proceeded to kill that pattern by making people who may not have been strong-enough storytellers go in and tell stories based off of the pattern. In this case John Zakour, in losing his partner, lost something that was integral to the whole idea of the Zach Johnson stories.

I don’t have any idea who is supposed to be the bad guy. I have no idea who to suspect. I have no desire to really care about who to suspect and a part of me wants to skip to the end and find out the who done it ahead of the process simply because Zakour isn’t up to the task of keeping people interested in what he’s writing about. He’s a good writer, but not a great writer in this area.

That might be sad as I really enjoyed the first three books; but, sales and DAW publishing schedules may prove me wrong. However, if I were to be asked my opinion on whether someone else should read these stories I say yes, with a bullet, and strongly suggest that you stop at Radioactive Redhead and not fall into the trap of further Zach Johnson adventures.

Finished.