Ken Consaul (original) (raw)
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Ken Consaul
Goodreads Author
Champaign, Illionois, The United States
The fall of 2015 will herald the release of the third volume in the Bonner Family saga. The working title is "Hangtown" and will continue Josh and Elizabeth's adventures in the first days of the California Gold Rush. One reader commented in their review that I was cruel for leaving the reader knee deep in a freezing river. Sorry for that, Hangtown should be just what so many readers have asked for. Josh and Elizabeth will partner up with Duncan Shipwash, the Brit mining engineer, and with Jubal, their faithful friend. The family Van Volk will, as many emigrants to the Gold Country did, open a bakery and restaurant. We will meet a company of Argonauts who come to Alta California to seek their fortunes. Along the way, you will learn about gol The fall of 2015 will herald the release of the third volume in the Bonner Family saga. The working title is "Hangtown" and will continue Josh and Elizabeth's adventures in the first days of the California Gold Rush. One reader commented in their review that I was cruel for leaving the reader knee deep in a freezing river. Sorry for that, Hangtown should be just what so many readers have asked for. Josh and Elizabeth will partner up with Duncan Shipwash, the Brit mining engineer, and with Jubal, their faithful friend. The family Van Volk will, as many emigrants to the Gold Country did, open a bakery and restaurant. We will meet a company of Argonauts who come to Alta California to seek their fortunes. Along the way, you will learn about gold prospecting and the early, lawless days in California after the Mexican War and the California Republic.
Let me tell you how the first two books (The Platte River Waltz series) and this upcoming book came to be. I read, and highly recommend, the non-fiction book "Men to Match my Mountains" by Irving Stone. He chronicles the opening of the early west, the migration across the plains and the history of California. Once I'd finished Stone's book, I started looking for fiction about the migration west. Most everything I found was young adult fiction and I decided to create my own characters and pen a story for an adult audience. The Platte River Waltz books were the result. I might note several of the reviews criticized the book for some sexual content the readers deemed superfluous and not adding to the story. I didn't include the passages simply to be prurient. My two main characters were newlywed eighteen-year olds turned loose on a wild frontier. What can I say? That's what eighteen-year old newlyweds do.
At the end of "The Growler Brigade" the two main characters have arrived in the gold country and found early success. The story couldn't just stop so I started researching the history of California. The early days of the Gold Rush and the transition of Alta California from a virtually ignored Mexican province, to an independent republic, to an American territory is one of the most exciting periods in American history. What is now San Francisco was a tiny trading settlement on the bay numbering about eight hundred inhabitants. With the discovery of gold, the sleepy village of Yerba Buena was transformed to the most popular destination on earth, drawing fortune hunters, dreamers, visionaries and villains from every corner and country on the planet. The new arrivals tramped inland by the thousands and clamored over every riverbank, arroyo, and canyon of the Sierras. None were prepared for what they encountered.
I hope to announce the release of "Hangtown" in November of 2015 and hope you will join the Bonners and their friends and enemies along the way. You will learn a little history and a bit more about wresting "the color" from the wild rivers of the Sierra Nevada. Familiar characters come and go. New friends share the thrill and dangers of a wild and violent world. For those who have enjoyed the first two books, sorry for the wait. For those who have yet to meet Josh and Elizabeth Bonner, the adventure is just a click away.
In another genre, crime fiction, Consaul has just released 'Deadly Talley'. The protagonist, Dean Talley, is an Orange County sheriff grown cynical from years of exposure to the worst people can do to each other. Numb and disinterested, he is going through the motions....until his wife is the victim of a carjacking and is placed in a coma to save her life.
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Ken Consaul said: "I'm currently reading this early Koontz work and one thing for certain, Koontz has gotten a lot better at his craft. The story just seemed stilted to me, often burdened in detail of a visit to a convenience store and the size of the coffee cups. Some I'm currently reading this early Koontz work and one thing for certain, Koontz has gotten a lot better at his craft. The story just seemed stilted to me, often burdened in detail of a visit to a convenience store and the size of the coffee cups. Some of the descriptions are repetitive and cliched or overblown (lambent light is an example that flickers before me in the darkness).
The dialog is often contrived to the point where the reader thinks 'no one talks like that'. Koontz has honed his skills but this one reads like the work of a high school senior summer project. Yes, the premise is interesting and most of it is nicely paced but this one isn't working for me. I probably will stick it out just to see where it ends up.
Ken Consaul said: "Let me preface this with saying I'm not a big Dean Koontz fan. Usually his characters are pretty shallow and the villains all seem to be carbon copies (<-dates the reviewer) of each other. The killer thinks he is smarter and better than everyone else Let me preface this with saying I'm not a big Dean Koontz fan. Usually his characters are pretty shallow and the villains all seem to be carbon copies (<-dates the reviewer) of each other. The killer thinks he is smarter and better than everyone else and he is entitled to kill. It gets old quick.
Now, that said, I'm really enjoying this Frankenstein series. The protagonists are interesting. There are many points of view from a wide variety of characters and they are all well developed and compelling. I'm going to assume readers of this review have read through the first two books. If not, this might be a small spoiler: I have some difficulty with some of the points that require suspending belief in small things like physics. The main protagonist somehow possesses the ability to step through walls and to travel from one continent to another instantaneously. This is the kind of 'trick' used in sci-fi, fantasy, or vampire books. It detracts here where the setting is contemporary New Orleans. Usually if I come across something like this in a story, the book gets tossed in the round file. I'll forgive Koontz on this one because the flow of the story and the characters are compelling. Still going to dock this one and the whole series a star for requiring the reader to suspend belief. got to go now, I'm floating out of my chair and am suspended above the desk.
FINISHED READING: well done. There are five volumes to this saga and everything is pretty much wrapped up in Volume 3. Without doing a spoiler, the story picks up in the fourth volume and is every bit as good. Looking forward to the fifth.
“The streets were dark with something more than night.”
― Raymond Chandler
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