Table of Content
Sproul, had written anything but theology and a few children's books until I was organizing my parents bookshelves several weeks ago. I pulled this book out and at first wasn't sure how Sproul would acquit himself in the realm of fiction. Though it is quite unique in its genre, it passed my test with 5 stars. Johnny escaped the house fire that killed his family.
You jump around from character to character and really have to pay attention to avoid missing key details. As a lover of the graphic novel / comic genre too I was definitely able to appreciate what I think the author was going for but I feel that the market for this style would just be too narrow. It is not “Comic” enough for the comic readers or “book” enough for those readers leaving it kind of in no mans land. I can see what the author was going for but something just didn’t connect for me. The premise is very comic book based which is not a bad thing especially with the YA market the way it is and I have a feeling if the author could team up with a great Graphic Novelist this could become a sensation. The problem for me lies with the fact that this “feels” like a comic book / graphic novel trapped in the pages of a regular book and for me it didn’t quite make the leap to where it needed to go.
Genres
Not bad, and it seems unfair to hold Arnott to the insuperable standard of "The Long Firm". This is a pretty good crime story, not a great one. Try "The Long Firm" first, a novel you won't soon forget. I wish I had read this before The Long Firm, because then I wouldn't have been distracted by noticing similar shapes to the relationships and similarities in characters, but if anything I think I enjoyed this one more. As with that novel, and He Kills Coppers, the author takes a real story and turns the events into fiction. Sometimes people only have one book in them, and sadly that appears to be the case with Jake Arnott.
The fun begins as Weasel wakes up in the battered K-car (K-car…I love it!) they had traveled in and begins to press Johnny for answers as to why his friend would drag him to Midwich, of all places. When Johnny reveals just a small sample of his super-human abilities, his friend is hooked, and so are we. Author Tony Breeden lays a firm foundation for what I hope will be a series of novels centering around John Lazarus, a young man assumed dead in a tragic, but suspicious, house fire years earlier. Clearly against his better judgment, but driven by circumstances and a sense of duty he doesn’t quite understand himself, John returns to the town of Midwich with his long-haired, rocker wannabe friend, Weasel Hopkins. Weasel doesn’t know anything about Midwich or the powerful and omnipresent Titan Biotech, whose headquarters overlook the supposedly peaceful town.
My Book Notes
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He also served as general editor of the Reformation Study Bible, previously known as the New Geneva Study Bible. August 18, 2010 Edited by IdentifierBot added LibraryThing ID April 16, 2010 Edited by bgimpertBot Added goodreads ID. December 8, 2009 Edited by WorkBot add to work October 21, 2008 Created by ImportBot Imported from University of Toronto MARC record.
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A fresh look at the 70s that tries to capture the ideals that stirred that period and the previous decade, starting to break with the current mentality and conventions and opening the way in good and bad to a new age. Beautiful prose whose rhythm reflects the fluid unfolding of the events and sustains the currents of thoughts and feelings of the protagonists. I’m not particularly moralistic about sex in books but the sex in this seems gratuitous and served no real purpose. I get the feeling that Arnott’s publishers noticed he decline in sales since the Long Firm and told him to ‘spice things up and bit’.
Totally engaged by the characters, plot and setting, though. His target in Johnny Comes Home, is the sex, drugs and rock n'roll era of the seventies and he does a mighty good job of painting a grim picture of that depresssing decade. He does, however, treat the characters with a good deal of sympathy and left me thinking that the wretched characters are more victims of the times in which they lived rather than any shortcomings of their own. Really enjoyed this as my first book to try and get back into reading regularly.
About Noreen N. Gosch
The main character is a complex and evolving, sort of dark hero that evokes a sense of sympathy and identification in the reader. New characters are introduced in a way that keeps the story moving, without being confusing. This was a skillfully written story, revealing just enough to keep you interested. It would have been five stars, but the ending was weak and the POVs shifted inconsistently without warning.
My heart breaks for the victims and their family and friends. If he is indeed still out there and alive, I hope he's well. I do recommend this book if true crime interests you, if you have previously heard about or looked into Johnny's case and also if you can handle the sensitive material.
As the idealism of the 60s turns into the despair of the 70s, three lost souls search for meaning in their lives. The author is an acute observer of detail, and delivers an incisive view of England's downward spiral in the early 70s. His writing is remarkably unadorned, with the directness giving it a greater power. And while there were some definite flaws in the plotting, overall it was a worthwhile read. This was a very disappointing read from what I thought, upon reading the first of his books that I had tried, was a very promising author. The Long Firm was an outstanding read, and Jake Arnott was all set to be one of my favourites.
The setting for the book is the early 70s in England and he combines two different subcultures - glam rock and the Angry Brigade, a Weather Underground-like group of bombers. Like another of his books, The Long Firm the focal characters are queer. There's a burned-out artist who has recently lost his lover to an overdose, a bi-dyke alienated by separatist politics, and a glam rent boy who has a would-be glam rock star as a client.
I found myself wondering more about what went before it and what would come after, than engaging with the plot we were presented with. That said, it was - like all the author's other works - a well written story with a strong sense of its time and place. In this case, it was the hippie/glam rock scene of early 1970s London, but these weren't just pot-smoking open-toed sandal wearing hippies, these hippies were quite angry. What follows is an exciting adventure that I would describe as X-men meets James Bond with just a touch, believe it or not, of To Kill a Mockingbird thrown in.
Johnny Come Home is sent on the Glam era of the 70’s and three main characters a young male prostitute , a feminist lesbian and a gay art student . The story also includes am aging pop star trying to recapture his former glory by re-launching himself as a glam rock start and a copper engaged in countering the counter culture movement. When I first received this book to review I was unsure whether I wanted to read it as I was a bit put off by its science-fiction genre. However, from the first few pages I was drawn into Johnny's fast paced, dark and intriguing story.
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When you buy books using these links the Internet Archive may earn a small commission. Luckbane, the first title in the Øtherworld series, was published on September 13 of '13. Clean book sans profanity and questionable humor. Heavy subject matter is handled well without crossing any lines. Important issues such as racism are discussed in an open and honest way. After his parents perished in a house fire, Johnny vowed never to return to his hometown, to never again see the boarded up remains of his fire-gutted family home.
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