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Jon Moxley has wanted to be Mick Foley his whole life. He talks in the book about loving Cactus Jack in WCW. And it continues with his attempt at being a New York Times bestselling author. And just like in everything else, Mox is good, but it's not "Have a Nice Day." It is very much a string of consciousness, and it very much could have used a ghost writer, or at least a better copy editor. The story isn't told chronologically. That jumps back and forth between incredibly interesting, and incredibly impossible to follow. Moxley also interlaces with recommendations for his favorite movies, and favorite music. Perhaps the best part is "Jokes Claudio told me" which my wife appreciated me telling her each day as I read them, sprinkled between storis of loss, of having sex and more F words than I've ever heard from a protagonist narrator. It's not bad, I'd read it again.

V: The Second Generation is an independent novel authored by Kenneth Johnson the producer of the original 1983 V Miniseries, the only part of the V "universe" that Johnson owned the IP rights to. Its written in a way that it should be able to stand on its own so if you've never read or watched anything in the V francise you should be fine to pick this up. However, if you have, I recommend re-watching the the original miniseries first. If you've watched "The Final Battle" or the '85 or '08 T.V. series, or read the earlier spin off books, it can be confusing following this. The Visitors never left Earth, the've been here for over 20 years and the lizard people have continued to control world affairs and are still stealing our liquid water and our second generation has grown up under their brainwashing "knowing" that the Visitors arent' only our friends but the only reason the human race still exists. Much of the original heros are still here, save Mike Donavan who has assumed killed in '91 during a raid in france, and much of the world wide resitance was destroyed in '99. For the most part I like this book, but it was written oddly. It started very interesting with new aliens shoing up in their rural hunting cabin and our fisherman super excited by their naked bodies. But I don't know why they had to kill them. Sometimes it is hard to keep straight because Johnons switches scenes/perspectives so quickly. Sometimes he adds the double line break to indicate and sometimes he doesn't. Its clear that he is more use to writing for T.V. than writing a novel. I appreciated the tension between Diana and the new Visitor commandant Jeremey and "The Leader" finally coming to earth. I was surprised how the "half-breeds" where treated as slaves and despised by most everyone but their own families. The descriptions of the new alien Zenthi and their are they with us or are they not was treated very well. The closer I got to the end the more I wondered if it was going to get all tied up or if this was intended to be the first in a series that didn't occur. It has a happy ending, if inconclusive.

The American Zone was a good way to end out the North American Confederate series. Nearly as good as the first. It really can stand on its own. Certainly no reason to read the rest of the series, particularly the barely even relavant books 3-8. That being said it is certainly a product of its time> Being written at the tale end of 2001 there is a more than mild obsession with terrorism and the possibility that the terrorist aren't who they seem but actually folks who want to create a laviethan state. I susepct that L. Neil Smith is, or at least was at the time, a so-called 9/11 truther. Regardless the story is entriguing. our hero Win-Bear is saved by his healer wife far more times than should be justified for any red-blood American. And even the open minded confederates start blaming the terror plots on immigrants, like those from the USA and other altenrate realities, after all they didn't have these issues before there was an "American Zone." A few thigs do seem a bit far fetched, like that one of our new comers finds a market for troll dolls because they never came to this reality, but somehow no one has thought to bring all the gold from all the other realities to debase their precious metal currency? Oh and of course there is Smith's regular obsessoin where we get more descriptions of a character's firearms than we do of the characters' character.