Lee Hunts

I just finished Redemption, a novel written by Will Jordan. Jordan is a Youtube critic known as the Critical Drinker. I've always enjoyed his takes on the various movies that he reviews, so I wanted to check out his books, this one being the first of nine, to see if it was any good. His book is marketed alongside David Baldacci and Lee Child mystery/thrillers. I haven't read Baldacci yet, but I have read one Child novel, which I rather enjoyed, so I think I naturally compared the two. And since I have also read the novels of various Youtubers—including Justin Little, David Stewart, and Daniel Greene—I will also be comparing this book to those. This book follows the protagonist, Ryan Drake, a British man who now works for the CIA. At the beginning of the book, he has landed a job in tracking down MIA operatives for the CIA, despite a problematic past he is ashamed of. In this novel he is asked to extract a highly trained MIA operative who is being held in a prison. The job is sh...

I just finished The Terror, a historical fiction novel, and horror novel, by Dan Simmons. I have not read anything else by this author, I was simply turned onto it by a horror novel suggestion video (I think). This book is based on the horrific Sir John Franklin expedition into the arctic circle, looking for the north-west passage. This historic event is an embarrassment, a failure, and a mystery, which has invited much speculation; as far as we know, the Erebus and the Terror (the names of the two ships) disappeared and all the crew died. At the very least, none were ever seen again. Simmons combines this dour historical event with fictional elements, like supernaturalism, to add another terrifying account to the rampant speculations made about the event. In Simmons' story, he depicts a mysterious beast that is stalking the crews of these ill-fated ships as they are iced in and unable to break out and return home. This story is rife with copious details about ship-life in those ti...