Mike Futcher (Author of Void Station One)

Mike Futcher rated a book really liked it The Dakota Cipher: Third Ethan Gage Adventure – An Indiana Jones-Style Napoleonic Thriller in the American West by William Dietrich (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I've come to the Ethan Gage series with my eyes wide open, so when I say that The Dakota Cipher, the third installment in the series, didn't match up to my previous two experiences, it's not said with any particular disappointment. I'm fully aware th ...more
Jun 22, 2026 03:53PM · like · see review
Mike Futcher rated a book liked it The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
One reason I love Michael Crichton, despite not being a lover of thrillers in general, is that both his writing and his concepts are a cut above your normal thrillers. However, I found that The Andromeda Strain strained (pun intended) to meet this hi ...more
Jun 11, 2026 03:58PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Mike Futcher rated a book it was ok Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources by Martin Lings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
An exhaustive but ultimately disappointing biography of Muhammad. Martin Lings' book endeavours to draw on Arabic texts to inspire his readers with a love and admiration for the founder of Islam, but I finished the book not the reverence Lings was as ...more
Jun 06, 2026 02:50PM · 1 like · like · see review
Mike Futcher rated a book liked it It Happened in Boston? (20th Century Rediscoveries) by Russell H. Greenan	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It Happened in Boston? had me worried for a hot minute. It started slowly and seemed to have little direction, while its overbearing protagonist and overly-clever prosing began to remind me of my experience with A Confederacy of Dunces, a book I neve ...more
May 24, 2026 11:57AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of It Happened in Boston? by Russell H. Greenan. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — It Happened in Boston? by Russell H. Greenan <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Mike Futcher rated a book it was amazing The Children of Húrin: A Legendary High Fantasy Prequel to The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It probably shouldn't have been a surprise to me that The Children of Húrin, written by an author who shaped the modern fantasy genre and whose name has become a byword for world-building, would be an exemplary act of mythological storytelling. But i ...more
May 18, 2026 12:07PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Mike Futcher rated a book it was amazing The Cauldron (PB Original) by Zeno	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The Cauldron, a novel of the Battle of Arnhem written by a former paratrooper who was actually there, is aptly named. It takes the ingredients of war and confines them in rough cast-iron and brings it to a punishing boil. As far as pure combat goes, ...more
May 11, 2026 02:14PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Cauldron by Zeno. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Cauldron by Zeno <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Mike Futcher rated a book it was ok Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Russian literature has a reputation for being overly long, dense and something of a great labour, but Demons, the fourth major work by Fyodor Dostoevsky that I've read, was the first time where, unfortunately, I felt that to be true. I had found Crim ...more
Apr 29, 2026 03:05PM · 3 likes · like · see review
Mike Futcher rated a book really liked it The Scaled Tartan (Quest of the Five Clans #5) by Raymond St. Elmo (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
While I confess that I've never quite had a handle on this series, I finished The Scaled Tartan, the fifth and final book of the Quest of the Five Clans, with a sense of satisfaction and warmth. Amidst the warped mayhem and outsized, flamboyant warpr ...more
Apr 16, 2026 02:24PM · 3 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Scaled Tartan by Raymond St. Elmo. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Scaled Tartan by Raymond St. Elmo <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Mike Futcher rated a book really liked it Runnin' Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers by Tom Petty	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A wonderful coffee-table companion to the excellent 2007 Tom Petty documentary Runnin' Down a Dream. Unlike Conversations with Tom Petty by Paul Zollo and Petty, written by this same book's editor Warren Zanes, the Runnin' Down a Dream book can't rea ...more
Apr 06, 2026 02:05PM · like · see review
Mike Futcher rated a book it was amazing The Best of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A collection of the 'best' Sherlock Holmes is, by its very existence, a self-evident delight. Anyone who has read Arthur Conan Doyle's creation knows its charm, and it will not surprise you to learn that I bought my copy of The Best of Sherlock Holme ...more
Apr 02, 2026 04:03PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Best of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Best of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Mike Futcher rated a book really liked it

The Dakota Cipher: Third Ethan Gage Adventure – An Indiana Jones-Style Napoleonic Thriller in the American West
by William Dietrich (Goodreads Author)

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I've come to the Ethan Gage series with my eyes wide open, so when I say that The Dakota Cipher, the third installment in the series, didn't match up to my previous two experiences, it's not said with any particular disappointment. I'm fully aware th I've come to the Ethan Gage series with my eyes wide open, so when I say that The Dakota Cipher, the third installment in the series, didn't match up to my previous two experiences, it's not said with any particular disappointment. I'm fully aware that these books are adventure pot-boilers; Flashman-lite, rakish historical fiction and treasure hunt. That the fizz had started to fade by book three was no real surprise.

In concept, The Dakota Cipher is every bit as interesting as Napoleon's Pyramids and The Rosetta Key; author William Dietrich does well to fashion an entertaining mystical romp out of the Norse discoveries of North America, and I've always been fascinated by the untouched American hinterland of the frontier days, so Gage's roaming through Louisiana back when it was still French territory was like catnip for me.

The problem is in execution. While it thrills, provides good historical research, and looks to invest us in the characters, The Dakota Cipher is just a step or two off its predecessors as thriller, as historical fiction and in character investment. Dietrich struggles to provide a clear throughline for Gage's quest through the sprawling American wilderness; the artefact Gage is seeking becomes all-but-forgotten during the journey and the final chapters when it is discovered are underwhelming, there being no real puzzle to solve or obstacle to overcome. Although the historical backdrop and context is compelling, Dietrich is not able to insert Gage into real historical battles as he was able to do to such good effect in the two previous books.

These would be flaws the book could ride out, however, if not for the fact that the characterisation is also a step or two off. Gage himself has undergone a bit of Flanderization, lacking some of the dimensions he was able to bring to bear in the previous books. More importantly, his supporting cast fail to spark; the villains, allies and love interests are all less-realised on the page than their counterparts in books one and two.

That said, the makeup of these books is still so well-suited for my own personal tastes – historical adventures, treasure hunts, mystical pseudo-history and roguish protagonists, all at an easy pace – that even in a lesser entry I am happy to leave my critical hat at the door and lose myself in the pages: the way I read when I was a child. The Dakota Cipher has been good company for a handful of warm summer afternoons. ...more

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The Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton

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One reason I love Michael Crichton, despite not being a lover of thrillers in general, is that both his writing and his concepts are a cut above your normal thrillers. However, I found that The Andromeda Strain strained (pun intended) to meet this hi ...more

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Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources
by Martin Lings

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An exhaustive but ultimately disappointing biography of Muhammad. Martin Lings' book endeavours to draw on Arabic texts to inspire his readers with a love and admiration for the founder of Islam, but I finished the book not the reverence Lings was as An exhaustive but ultimately disappointing biography of Muhammad. Martin Lings' book endeavours to draw on Arabic texts to inspire his readers with a love and admiration for the founder of Islam, but I finished the book not the reverence Lings was aspiring for, and not even with the opposite feeling of scepticism or criticism, but with nothing more than a sense of confusion.

The main flaw in the book, at least to me as an outsider, was its excessively devotional nature. While reasonably well-written, it gets bogged down in an excess of detail and loses narrative pace – for Lings cannot omit any event, no matter how small or narratively unimportant, if it is held in esteem by the religion to this day. And by drawing on original, uncritical religious sources, there's none of the critique an author should give to explain why and how this man rose to power, how he generated a following, how he won battles and spread his creed. Instead, everything happens because God wills it, without explanation, and my main interest in reading the book – to gain an overview of the religion's growth or an insight into the reasons for its military success – was left completely unsatisfied.

The book, then, quickly reveals itself to be more hagiography than sober biography. Uncomfortable events such as the Satanic verses debacle are omitted entirely even though it is clearly unscholarly to do so. Muhammad's enemies can become allies and converts merely by being invited to recite a devotional verse (apparently, its beauty dissuades them from their former course), and while this might be self-evident to a believer, it does not convince someone like myself who approaches the book from a different perspective. Other biographical details related by Lings are startling from the outside; not least the 50-year-old prophet's betrothal to the 6-year-old girl Aisha (married and consummated at 9), who becomes his 'favourite' wife. Lings relates Aisha being called in from the playground with her friends on her wedding day as though it was the most unremarkable thing in the world.

Lings also fails to deliver any sort of deeper philosophy or way of thinking that may be present in Islam. There's a narrative of the religion's rise that involves banditry, slave-gathering, concubines and executions of prisoners of war; deeds which unravel the humanistic teachings of previous prophets like Jesus – noted here as being a legitimate former prophet of God – and recall, instead, the bloody days of the Books of Moses. Where there is philosophical thinking, all that Lings gives us is how the Koran is a book of pure light and how there will be many tangible benefits in the afterlife if you submit to Islam, such as access to pure flowing water in Paradise.

This is not to say that Islam does not have that deeper thinking, or its deeds in history – only that Lings' book does not provide any of them. The book fails to show Muhammad's character as a man and a leader, which led to his veneration as head of a fledgling religion. It also fails to relate any philosophical wisdom beyond surface-level implorations to light and praise and submission to God, and fails to give any biographical or historical insight into the prophet's evident abilities as a general of an expanding power. Considering veneration of Muhammad is a core tenet of Islam, Lings' failure to provide any of this here means the book must be said to be a failure. ...more

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It Happened in Boston? by Russell H. Greenan

It Happened in Boston? (20th Century Rediscoveries)
by Russell H. Greenan

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It Happened in Boston? had me worried for a hot minute. It started slowly and seemed to have little direction, while its overbearing protagonist and overly-clever prosing began to remind me of my experience with A Confederacy of Dunces, a book I neve ...more

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The Children of Húrin: A Legendary High Fantasy Prequel to The Lord of the Rings
by J.R.R. Tolkien

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It probably shouldn't have been a surprise to me that The Children of Húrin, written by an author who shaped the modern fantasy genre and whose name has become a byword for world-building, would be an exemplary act of mythological storytelling. But i It probably shouldn't have been a surprise to me that The Children of Húrin, written by an author who shaped the modern fantasy genre and whose name has become a byword for world-building, would be an exemplary act of mythological storytelling. But it was. I remember being a bit cold on The Silmarillion when I read it a few years back; a work colleague who saw me reading it on my lunch-break recommended The Children of Húrin, but while I made a note of the title I never followed up on it until now. Aside from its thrilling conceptual coda (particularly the 'Akallabêth'), I had often found The Silmarillion heavy-going and over-indulgent in its lore, and I expected the same here.

Instead, aside from early chapters which establish the setting and dump some lore, The Children of Húrin is a lean and fully-realised story. Much credit must go to Tolkien's son Christopher, who compiled the final version from his father's various papers, but it is clear that there was a lot of movement from Tolkien himself to make The Children of Húrin a complete tale. If it had been published in his lifetime, it could not have emerged much different from the form it is now in.

For the version of The Children of Húrin that Christopher Tolkien has provided for us is, after a slow start, an excellent classic fantasy adventure with a deeply literary, Shakespearean tragedy at its heart. The main character, Túrin, is fascinatingly flawed, reminding me of the Bard's Coriolanus. Túrin hurts his friends as much as his enemies, and wiser characters left in his martial wake are not shy of remarking to the brave, proud and reckless warrior that perhaps the 'curse' Morgoth laid on his family is in fact caused, or at least exacerbated, by his and their own decisions ("The doom lies in yourself, not in your name" (pg. 170); "it is by lack of counsel not of courage that Húrin's kin bring woe to others" (pg. 203)).

You follow Túrin in the expectation that he will reclaim his family's legacy, defeat the dark lord and bring peace to the land, and yet while there are many of the trappings of conventional high fantasy – dragons, bandit hideouts and swords of named renown – Tolkien was far too astute and worldly-wise to make it this one-dimensional. Swept along by the author's vivid world-building but made robust by its character depth and plotting, the posthumous The Children of Húrin stands, surprisingly, alongside any of his other, better-known adventures; not as supplicant to the goodwill those stories have already generated amongst his fans, but as peer. If this lay of Beleriand stands in the shadow of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, those great feats of the Third Age, it is not due to a lack of quality. Instead, it may be because its darker tone and tragic end make it more naturally suited to be positioned amongst shades of grey. ...more

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The Cauldron (PB Original)
by Zeno

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The Cauldron, a novel of the Battle of Arnhem written by a former paratrooper who was actually there, is aptly named. It takes the ingredients of war and confines them in rough cast-iron and brings it to a punishing boil. As far as pure combat goes, The Cauldron, a novel of the Battle of Arnhem written by a former paratrooper who was actually there, is aptly named. It takes the ingredients of war and confines them in rough cast-iron and brings it to a punishing boil. As far as pure combat goes, I have scarcely seen it written so well: exhaustive, unsentimental, fast and chaotic and yet impressing upon the green reader just how much conscious thought must go into every movement; the negotiation of a house or ditch or defensive position; when to move and for how long; what position to take; how to maintain a picture of what's going on around you; whether to stand or crawl or run; whether to engage or not and from what angle; and, increasingly over the seven days of relentless battle, the mental exhaustion of all of these steps taking their toll.

Even after all that negotiation it might not matter due to a moment of bad luck, or the conscious movement of an opposing soldier (or even an ally); the men in The Cauldron die matter-of-factly or in the background or even just mentioned in passing, no matter if you have spent the previous 20 or 30 pages invested in their point-of-view. The opening of Chapter 13, which shows a full roster of the company with the names of those who have died crossed out, is sobering in its stark simplicity. What's more, the book contains one of the most apt metaphors for negotiating a combat zone that I've ever read, and over 300 pages evokes it in exemplary fashion:

"It was like being struck blind at a Cup-tie, and only being able to guess what was happening from the unintelligible roar of the crowd." (pg. 109)

And yet, while the punishment of relentless combat is brought to the reader without prejudice, this is not to say that The Cauldron is excessively bleak or a chore just because it is ungentle. The writing is of a high calibre, even if Zeno (the pseudonym chosen by the author) does occasionally force the issue in a writerly way by having his characters converse about their opinions on the soldier's psychology of death or the wider strategic failings of Operation Market Garden.

Zeno himself appears to have been an interesting man as authors go; his real name, so the Introduction to this new Penguin edition tells us, was Gerald Lamarque (although some knew him as Kenneth Allerton) and after fighting at Arnhem he wrote this novel in the 1960s while in prison for murdering his ex-girlfriend's new beau. While his writing is fittingly unsentimental for such a man, his book is thankfully not sour or dogmatic enough to be pushing an iconoclastic or counter-cultural message. If The Cauldron is ungentle it is only because the hell of Arnhem was, and if Zeno proved an ideal conduit for recording that hell for posterity it may well be because the war followed him home. ...more

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Demons
by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Russian literature has a reputation for being overly long, dense and something of a great labour, but Demons, the fourth major work by Fyodor Dostoevsky that I've read, was the first time where, unfortunately, I felt that to be true. I had found Crim Russian literature has a reputation for being overly long, dense and something of a great labour, but Demons, the fourth major work by Fyodor Dostoevsky that I've read, was the first time where, unfortunately, I felt that to be true. I had found Crime and Punishment tough but compelling when I read it a decade ago; Notes from Underground lean and restless, bursting with ideas; and The Brothers Karamazov exacting and illuminating, a seminal work of both literature and philosophy.

Imagine my disappointment then, as I made my way through the highly-regarded Demons with a growing realisation both that the pages were remaining a chore and that there would be scant reward at the end of the journey. Only my steadfast commitment to finish every book I start kept me from exorcising Demons after the first two hundred pages of nothing, and even with that iron-clad personal rule it was hard to keep track of what was going on in the burdensome mass of words.

Because the opinion I reached is that, for much of its 700 pages, Demons spins its wheels. It purports to tell the story of a group of political radicals who decide to kill one of their own, fearing he may become a snitch, with Dostoevsky weaving the various characters towards this fateful end in a commentary on the various political ideas that were capturing and corrupting society at that time. Demons was not a novel of the occult or the supernatural or of religion (at least, for the latter, not on the surface), and no demons or devils appear. As one of the translators, Richard Pevear, puts it in his Foreword to my Vintage Classics edition (as ever, the P&V translation is peerless):

"The demons, then, are ideas, that legion of isms that came to Russia from the West: idealism, rationalism, empiricism, materialism, utilitarianism, positivism, socialism, anarchism, nihilism, and, underlying them all, atheism." (pg. xix)

An interesting concept for a literary novel, you would agree, and one that would remain timely in our own era, with Western society, or at least its public discourse, arguably pulled apart by the various isms that the two sides of the culture war continue to blame for our ills (capitalism, feminism, racism, post-modernism, and back and forth it goes…).

The problem is that any concept Dostoevsky had in Demons is washed out by the unnecessary length of the narrative. The author spends 600 pages on a hard-to-follow noodling of his various characters in uninteresting social scenarios, lacking narrative thrust, believable dialogue, thematic coherence or even a tangible worthy literary thread. And yet – fatally – it proves to be replete with exhausting melodrama.

And yet, after said histrionics, when the book does finally reach its end with the murder of one of their own by the group of political radicals, there is no drama to it – not even the melodrama that had characterised the book until that point. It is dealt with passively, in a sort of summary, which is not only scant reward for a reader who has persevered through the long and unrewarding narrative but also robs the deed of any narrative weight or thematic profundity. It is remarkable that when labouring through Demons I kept returning to the same thought: this 700-page tome would have been much more effective as a short story. ...more

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The Scaled Tartan (Quest of the Five Clans #5)
by Raymond St. Elmo (Goodreads Author)

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While I confess that I've never quite had a handle on this series, I finished The Scaled Tartan, the fifth and final book of the Quest of the Five Clans, with a sense of satisfaction and warmth. Amidst the warped mayhem and outsized, flamboyant warpr ...more

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Runnin' Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
by Tom Petty

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A wonderful coffee-table companion to the excellent 2007 Tom Petty documentary Runnin' Down a Dream. Unlike Conversations with Tom Petty by Paul Zollo and Petty, written by this same book's editor Warren Zanes, the Runnin' Down a Dream book can't rea ...more

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The Best of Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle

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A collection of the 'best' Sherlock Holmes is, by its very existence, a self-evident delight. Anyone who has read Arthur Conan Doyle's creation knows its charm, and it will not surprise you to learn that I bought my copy of The Best of Sherlock Holme A collection of the 'best' Sherlock Holmes is, by its very existence, a self-evident delight. Anyone who has read Arthur Conan Doyle's creation knows its charm, and it will not surprise you to learn that I bought my copy of The Best of Sherlock Holmes from the museum gift shop at 221b Baker Street itself, on a trip to London last summer. There's just something about these adventures that inspires warmth and adoration from even the most jaded reader; an ease and excitement where even the formula itself becomes rather moreish. They are the very definition of comfort-reading and, as Watson remarks in 'The Man with the Twisted Lip', included in this book, "I could not wish anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the normal condition of his existence" (pg. 126).

The only question with such a collection then becomes whether it has truly provided the 'best' of Sherlock Holmes. This will always be disputed, as David Stuart Davies notes in his Afterword to this Macmillan Collector's Library edition, but there are few quibbles to be had. Davies states that he chose the stories which he believes best example Sherlock Holmes' abilities as a detective (pg. 532), and while this means there's no 'Final Problem' or 'Empty House' (and therefore no Moriarty), the decision is an understandable one.

If the goal were to abridge all of the mythos of Sherlock Holmes, then The Best of Sherlock Holmes would need to do more; it would be impossible to cover all the best parts of the Sherlock Holmes mythos without including the novel A Study in Scarlet, in which Holmes and Watson first meet, nor, The Hound of the Baskervilles and the afore-mentioned 'Final Problem' and 'Empty House'. But when the stated goal is to focus exclusively on the short stories, and selectively on those which show the best displays of crime detection, there's no quarrel to be had with this collection, for it carries it off well. You'll be left wanting more, but then again perhaps that's just the nature of the Sherlock Holmes stories. We always want more: the next line, the next page, the next story. ...more

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