The Mad Professah Lectures

Leviathan Falls is the ninth and final book in the bestselling space opera series called “The Expanse” written by James S.A. Corey (which is a pseudonym for the writing duo of Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham). The Expanse has been adapted for television and has become a hit show with the same name on Amazon Prime that recently concluded with its sixth and final season in January 2022. It’s an amazing feat that the authors were able to write and publish all nine books in the series in roughly 10 years: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Caliban’s War (2012), Abaddon’s Gate (2013), Cibola Burn (2014), Nemesis Games (2015), Babylon’s Ashes (2016), Persepolis Rising (2017), Tiamat’s Wrath (2019) and Leviathan Falls (2021). Most of the titles of the books in the Expanse have always had a somewhat Delphic quality to them, since they don’t seem to directly relate to or describe the events that occur in them. But the authors were pretty direct when they titled the last book Leviathan Falls in a clear echo of the first book’s title Leviathan Wakes. Another interesting aspect of the book series is that the nine books can be thought of as a trio of trilogies. This last impression is bolstered by the fact that the final three books take place nearly 30 years after the events of the first six books so that Persepolis Rising, Tiamat's Wrath , and Leviathan Falls work together as a separate trilogy to conclude the story that began in Leviathan Wakes . The great thing about Leviathan Falls is that even though it’s the last book in a 9-part space opera series it still tells a self-contained story. Just like every other book in the series, at its core this is a story about a chosen family of four characters: Amos, Naomi, Alex and James. Of course the crew of Rocinante has been through a lot since we were first introduced to them in Leviathan Wakes but they are still the hooks on which the principal story in The Expanse hangs thousands of pages later. In Leviathan Falls the family the reader has come to know so well over the first eight books is expanded to include other characters, such as adopted family members like Elvi Okoye and Teresa Duarte and actual family members like Alex’s son Kit, Kit’s wife and their newborn child. There are even some new characters introduced in Leviathan Falls that have significant impacts on the outcome of the series’ overall plot. Chief among those would have to be Aliana Tanaka. Tanaka is a Colonel in the Laconian Intelligence Directorate who is tasked with tracking down the head of the Laconian government, Admiral Winston Duarte (Teresa’s dad).   Duarte had a mysterious interaction with an alien entity in Tiamat’s Wrath that left him physically and mentally capacitated but in the beginning of Leviathan Falls he seems to have recovered and used some kind of mysterious alien technology to leave Laconia.  Since Laconia is basically an authoritarian empire with Duarte as it’s head, that he was incapacitated and that now he’s missing are two incredibly important (and sensitive) pieces of information that the de facto head of the Laconian government, General Anton Trejo, is trying very hard to suppress. He’s the one who gives Tanaka her carte blanche to track Duarte down by whatever means necessary. In Persepolis Rising, Laconian forces burst out of their ring gates with protomolecule-fueled spaceships that were far more technologically advanced than anything in the Galaxy and quickly took over control of the solar system, which even 30 years after the events of Babylon’s Ashes still contains a plurality of the entire human population in our galaxy. Eventually Laconia takes over all of the Ring gates, and in doing so, maintains control over all 1300 potential systems where humans have been settling since the gates were discovered by James Holden in Abbadon’s Gate. Due to their alien-enhanced ships, Laconia has superior military firepower to any other human government and Duarte has basically declared himself Emperor of humanity. The Resistance to Laconia has been run principally by Naomi Nagata, Bobbie Draper and Alex Kamal for decades. As the story in The Expanse has advanced, the plot of the struggle for supremacy between different factions of humanity during the race to colonize and control the solar system has slowly been subsumed by the greater mystery of what happened to the alien intelligence who created the ring gates and the protomolecule and the other alien intelligence who eliminated the ring-builder aliens. The ring-builder aliens are long gone but their vanquishers remain, and it has become clearer and clearer they are very powerful and very pissed off at the latest intelligent aliens (i.e. humans) to use the ring gates. They have the ability to alter the physics of space-time temporarily in localized regions, and this sometimes results in all human consciousness being affected for brief periods of time. Literally every human being stops thinking for say 15-20 minutes on multiple planets simultaneously. If they could eliminate all human consciousness by making the effect last permanently, it seems like they would. And the blackout periods are becoming more frequent. Thus in Leviathan Falls the stakes of the plot have been raised to the highest possible level: it is about the survival of humanity itself (or at least humans as self-aware individuals). But even as this story unspools, the author(s) keep(s) the focus on our four main characters, with each of their arcs being resolved by the end in ways that seem incredibly well-aligned with how each has been depicted through the entire series. And so the story ends. Or so the reader thinks, but then there’s an epilogue, which like icing on the cake or a cherry on a sundae, is really the perfect ending to an enjoyable experience. There are reports that Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham knew the last sentence of the last book multiple years before it was published and I believe (and want to believe) that this is true. It definitely left me with a smile on my face, and I believe it will leave everyone else who reads the entire series with one as well.

Title: Leviathan Falls (The Expanse, #9).
Author: James S.A. Corey.
Format: Hardcover.
Length: 528 pages.
Publisher: Orbit Books.
Date Published: November 20, 2021.
Date Read: December 25, 2021.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0 /4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

Shards of Earth is the first installment in a brand new space opera trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky, one of the most prolific and creative science fiction authors working today. Space opera is my favorite genre of book so discovering a new entry is always an exciting treat.

Shards of Earth has aliens, spaceships, space pirates, planet-destroying machines, motley crew, genetically modified humans, multiple political factions and incredibly advanced technology nearly indistinguishable from magic. The premise of the story is that Earth (and several other planets colonized by humans) were physically manipulated by mysterious gigantic alien vessels/creatures called the Architects into bizarrely artistic, lifeless shapes, rendering them uninhabitable and killing billions in the process. These apocalyptic events happened a full half-century before the time period the first book is set in but the now-scattered human diaspora still lives in fear, wondering and waiting for the return of the Architects to complete the extermination of the species.

The main characters in the story are Idris Telemmier (an Intermediary, i.e. a human who has been biologically modified to enhance his ability to access unSpace and propel vehicles across vast distances) and Solace (a parthogenetically created soldier who has a history with Idris and is on a secret mission). Both Solace and Idris had a role in the last battle which ended the Architects War 50 years ago, but the time has affected each of them differently.

Idris and Solace are two members of an eclectic crew of a salvage vessel called The Vulture God. The crew of The Vulture God contains a number of different aliens and differently-abled humans. Tchaikovsky is a true master at thinking up and depicting aliens in a way that readers can relate to, despite the physical and cultural peculiarities they possess. It’s amazing how he can write characters that are so different from humans but whose actions, beliefs and motivations are so familiar and compelling to readers. 

In fact one of the most enjoyable aspects of reading Tchaikovsky’s work in general (and Shards of Earth in particular) is becoming immersed in the worlds the author creates. For example, the setting of Shards of Earth includes the political situation of different factions of humans competing for supremacy, each of whom is convinced their ideology is the best choice for humanity. This, combined with at least a half-dozen alien species, can make the book a little hard to follow at first, but eventually the reader gets our bearings and it’s this level of complexity and attention to detail that illustrates the depth of Tchaikovsky’s world-building.

In addition to the world-building and the setting, the plot is a key highlight of Shards of Earth.  While on a seemingly routine salvage mission, The Vulture God finds a surprising artifact that could upend life for all humans in the galaxy by indicating that the Architects have returned. However, after this happens, there are many different entities which very much want to obtain what their ship has found and the crew has to do whatever it takes to protect their ship and its contents. This involves a number of action-packed sequences that have significant consequences for many of the characters that we have recently encountered (not everyone survives these dangerous and exciting events, which is probably the way it should be). Eventually the chase is resolved in a way that doesn’t leave everyone satisfied but the original problem is overwhelmed by the stakes involved in more recent developments. The story has a scale which is both galactic in nature and intimate: the relationship between Idris and Solace is one of its key elements.

Overall, Shards of Earth is an exciting standalone space opera novel as well as the first entry in what is sure to be a compelling trilogy about the fate of humanity in a Universe where there are existential threats to its survival and prior episodes of genocidal trauma.

Title: Shards of Earth.
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Format: Hardcover.
Length: 548 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: August 3, 2021.
Date Read: September 30, 2021.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

The Doors of Eden is the third book by Adrian Tchaikovsky I have read. The first two books are Children of Time and Children of Ruin and these are some of my favorite books of all time. Tchaikovsky is impressively prolific, but generally I have only taken notice of and consumed his works of hard science fiction. Both Children of Time and Children of Ruin, in addition to being critically acclaimed works of startling imagination, cover somewhat similar conceptual territory. This involves following the discovery and development of alien intelligences that happen to be related to creatures familiar to us on Earth. These kinds of books are sometimes referred to as “uplift” after the now-famous books by David Brin in the Uplift Saga. Evolution and a keen and sympathetic outlook on creatures that most people find “icky” is a common feature of Tchaikovsky’s books (at least the ones I have read so far). He often depicts a surprising developments caused by quirks of evolution and eons of time.

Something similar animates a good portion of The Doors of Eden, but this time the central characters are all decidedly human. In fact, one of the most surprising elements of the book is the author’s choice to center his book around a lesbian romance and the depiction of a trans woman as the ostensible hero who is tasked with saving Life As We Know It. (I'm not complaining, of course, I'm just remarking at how unusual this is for a mainstream science fiction novel.)

The main characters in The Doors of Eden are Lee and Mal, who are two girlfriends with very different backgrounds and views of the world. Lee and Mal have known each other since childhood, and have common (rather odd) interests, that involve seeking out and attempting to document paranormal activity. While on a trip together to Bodmin Moor, Mal disappears after what appears to be actual paranormal activity. Then suddenly four years later, Mal contacts Lee again, but she seems very different. In addition to Lee and Mal, we are introduced to Kay Amal Khan, a mathematical physicist who is working on a theoretical extradimensional model of the universe that the Government seems extremely interested in. Two of the intelligence agents who are tracking Kay Amal Khan are Julian Sabreur and Allison Mitchell, who are colleagues and friends who might want to be more than friends but they are married to other people and their job commitments.

The structure of the book is that it alternates chapters moving forward the plot with relatively short chapters that purport to be excerpts from "An Essay on Speculative Evolution" by Dr. Ruth Emerson that goes into numerous other possible ways intelligent life cold have evolved on Earth. It becomes clear that the "theoretical" extradimensional model of Dr. Khan is actually our reality, and in these other dimensions Earth life evolved in very different ways. Now, for some reason, the separations between the dimensions are getting less rigid and creatures from other realities are entering our reality, trying to address a threat to all existing realities that only someone like Dr. Khan can understand.

Lots of other reviewers were not enamored of the central story and said that they actually enjoyed the intervening excerpts more. My experience was exactly the opposite; I found the evolution passages tiresome and regularly skipped them, to get back to the plot. But this was primarily because I wanted to know how the story ended. I agree with other reviewers that I was not overly enamored with any of the main characters in the book, but I was definitely interested in the overall story.

Overall, I would say that The Doors of Eden should not be the first book you read by Adrian Tchaikovsky. (If you haven't read Children of Time, stop reading this review and immediately obtain a copy of that book and read it--you'll thank me later!) It's a book I appreciate more than I admire. I am glad that the characters are diverse and I'm glad that I read it, but I find it hard to imagine a scenario where I would recommend it to go to the top of anyone's TBR (to be read) pile.

Title: The Doors of Eden.
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Paperback: 445 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: August 20, 2020.
Date Read: January 29, 2021.

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: B+.

Peter F. Hamilton is definitely my favorite science fiction author, and since since science fiction is my favorite genre, he is probably my favorite author overall. He is on my short list of must-buy authors that also includes literary mystery writer Tana French, epic fantasy writer Brent Weeks and British speculative fiction noir aficionado Richard K. Morgan. My must-read list of authors is much longer and includes people like Louise Penny, Peter V. Brett, Alastair Reynolds and many, many mystery-thriller authors whose series I’m making my way through methodically and contentedly. Hamilton has a special place in my heart as the author of the Night’s Dawn trilogy, which is probably my favorite science fiction work. But his duology Pandora’s Star/Judas Unchained is not very far behind that classic at the very top of my list of most esteemed reads. Hamilton’s books are huge sprawling works, often thick tomes running into page lengths of 4-digits, peopled with large casts of characters and featuring mind-bending technologies and bizarre physical phenomena. Hamilton’s latest work is another trilogy, intriguingly called The Salvation Sequence. (This is intriguing because maybe this sequence of books won’t end at three? Hamilton has written many books in what is called the Commonwealth Universe but none of his prior book series using a majority of the same characters and/or same timeline has ever had more than three entries.) The third book in The Salvation Sequence is The Saints of Salvation, which follows Salvation and Salvation Lost. As I have mentioned before, there are certain themes that often reappear in Hamilton’s works and many, if not all, of these are also present in the Salvation Sequence. Some of these themes are: a futuristic/utopian society, disruptive technology (often involving novel transportation methods), culturally opaque aliens, incredibly wealthy and powerful tycoons, secret/double agents and extinction-level threats to civilization. In The Saints of Salvation, the two timelines of the plot from the previous books in the sequence (one plot line depicts the invasion of Earth by previously benevolent aliens and the other plot line is 10,000 years in the future where technologically advanced humans are planning to strike back against the aliens after the surviving human refugees escaped into the empty spaces of the galaxy) eventually intersect in a surprising way. Time, especially the manipulation of time as another feature of the physical world like gravity, becomes an increasingly important of the story in The Saints of Salvation. The animating reason behind the alien invasion of Earth is that the aliens claim to have received a message from the future from a being whom they call “The God at the End of Time” telling them to bring as many sentient creatures to him as they can. The aliens’ response to their God’s message is to seek out intelligent civilizations and place individuals in life-preserving cocoons in their ships and take them to their secret enclave until the end of time. The aliens have been doing this for literally millions of years and are often an order of magnitude more advanced than the other civilizations they meet/cull/kidnap and bring back to their enclave, whose location is their greatest secret. We learn that the aliens have the ability to slow and accelerate the passage of time, which they use to maintain the alien civilians they have collected in stasis. Humans eventually also learn how to manipulate time as well, which makes travel at relativistic speeds over vast distances possible within a human lifetime. Hamilton’s books are often peopled with huge casts of characters, many of whom don’t make it to the end. The Salvation sequence is anchored around a group of five main characters, called the Saints. One of the key plot points in the first two books when we’re experiencing the story told in two time lines set thousands of years apart is to try and figure which characters in the earlier time line become beatified as Saints by the surviving humans in the later time line. In The Saints of Salvation, we follow the Saints for a large part of the story. The other main thread in this books follows two advanced humans, named Dellian and Yirella, who lead a cadre of humans in the far future that are trying to finally get revenge on the aliens who forced humanity to abandon Earth and go into hiding millennia before. One way that The Saints of Salvation and the other books in the Salvation sequence is very different from prior Hamilton works is the depiction of gender. As an indicator of technological and sociological advancement, Hamilton has characters who are non-binary and uses specialized pronouns (like sie, hir) to describe them. This occurs in the earlier timeline (which is set in the early 23rd century), where humanity has started forming habitats with their own cultural and social standards. In addition to non-binary characters, there are also characters who cycle between more male and more female presentations. In the beginning these depictions of gender can be somewhat distracting but eventually the reality of non-binary or (literally) gender-fluid characters becomes pretty standard. None of the main characters are non-binary but several of the important/pivotal ones, especially in the last book, are. A definite gap in the diversity of Hamilton’s characters is the lack of any openly LGB characters as we would perceive them, although there is some same-sex attraction (and perhaps bisexual sexual activity?) portrayed. Interestingly, he often does go out of his way to indicate racial and ethnic diversity in his books, and this is true here as well, although white British people are (unsurprisingly) over represented. Overall, The Saints of Salvation is a fantastic final entry in another amazing, mind-bending space opera written by a science fiction grandmaster operating at the peak of his powers. If you have enjoyed his other similar, equally impressive works, such as Pandora’s Star / Judas Unchained, the Night’s Dawn trilogy, Great North Road, and A Night Without Stars / The Abyss Beyond Dreams, I am very confident you will enjoy the Salvation Sequence as well.

Title: The Saints of Salvation.
Author: Peter F. Hamilton.
Pages: 528 pages.
Publisher: Macmillan.
Date Published: October 20, 2020.
Date Read: January 17, 2021.
OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.0/4.0).

The 11th book in the Logan McRae series written by Stuart MacBride set in Aberdeen, Scotland is one of the best. The Blood Road has all the elements we’ve come to love from a Logan McRae novel: irrepressible humor and awfully funny jokes, ghastly images of murder and mayhem, and extensive details of police procedure as they try to solve truly horrific crimes, some committed by the dregs of humanity and some by people Just Like Us.

The Logan McRae books have quickly become some of my favorites in the genre of British police-procedural, murder-mysteries. They have all the feature of other similarly labeled books but somehow MacBride is also able to successfully include humor, in multiple forms. The Logan books feature macabre jokes, awful puns, ridiculous encounters, and truly farcical situations. I’m shocked the series hasn’t been adapted for television yet like other series (which are also quite good but not nearly as amusing) Peter Robinson’s DCI Alan Banks, Val McDermid’s Tony Hill & Carol Jordan and Elisabeth George’s Inspector Lynley.

What really makes the Logan books extraordinary is while they are often hilarious they are also suspenseful thrillers and interesting mysteries. The very first book begins with Logan returning to work a few months after being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach and experiencing a near-death experience. In fact, Logan earns the nickname “Laz” (short for Lazarus) by his boss, the astonishingly horrible DI Roberta Steele. Steele is one of the great fictional comic inventions in British mysteries. She’s completely without shame or scruples; she regularly takes credit for Logan’s excellent detective work and is a walking H.R. and P.R. disaster. The interactions between Logan and Steele are the primary sources of comic relief in the books, but there are many others as well; first among these are the antics and descriptions of their eccentric police co-workers.

In The Blood Road, the Scottish police are dealing with multiple major (high-profile) crimes simultaneously: several young children have disappeared recently and the public is increasingly anxious about their whereabouts and safety. The book begins with the body of a Scottish police officer being found in a car—the problem is that same officer had been found dead and buried in an official funeral two years before after a supposed suicide. This means that not only was the officer (known by the sobriquet of “Ding-Dong”) a rotten cop, someone (likely Ding-Dong himself) must have killed someone else two years ago to produce a body that could be mistaken for him and now he’s been killed himself! As usual, Logan gets up to his eyebrows deep in solving multiple crimes (which is odd because after the events of the previous book In the Cold Dark Ground Logan now works for Professional Standards, not Major Crimes).

Overall, The Blood Road is one of the best entries in the series, reminiscent of some of the very best which cemented its appeal for me (books 4-7, in my humble opinion). It has multiple laugh out loud (LOL) moments while simultaneously being legitimately suspenseful. Logan gets put through the ringer again physically and the reader isn’t really sure he’s gonna get out of peril without permanent serious consequences (like death!) All of the best sidekicks from the previous books make appearances in this one (Steele, Tufty and of course Rennie!) and even the though the central crimes are truly appalling the book is quite engaging and enjoyable. The sad part of finishing The Blood Road is the knowledge that now there’s only one unread entry in the series remaining: Book 12’s All That’s Dead.

Title: Ancillary Justice.
Author: Stuart MacBride.
Paperback: 496 pages.
Format: Kindle.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Date Published: June 14, 2018.
Date Read: November 25, 2020.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

Tana French is on my short list of must-buy authors. These are the authors who when you hear they have a new book coming out you think, “I must buy that!” It is a rather short list: French, Peter F. Hamilton, James S.A. Corey and Richard K. Morgan. My must-read list of authors is much longer. The reason why Tana French is one of the authors that I am willing to put down my hard-earned cash to pre-order their latest book is because she always produces reading experiences for me that are engrossing, exciting and extraordinary. All of this is to say, I’m very happy to have a new Tana French novel to read and review. You’re in for a treat!

In her new book, The Searcher, French again eschews producing an entry in her Dublin Murder Squad series; instead she has written what is presumably a stand-alone mystery novel with a new protagonist in a new setting. In fact, she’s moved even further away from the series that brought her fame, fans and fortune in The Searcher than she did in The Witch Elm, which at least was set in Dublin, even though that book didn’t contain any characters from earlier novels, which had been French’s signature story element prior to its publication in 2018. The Searcher, however, is set in a tiny fictional Irish village (named Ardnakelty) and the main character is not Irish but American: Cal Hooper, an ex-Chicago P.D. detective who, following a bewildering divorce and sudden retirement, has bought a pile of land and decrepit fixer-upper in the middle of nowhere Ireland.

Just like The Witch Elm was very different from any of French’s previously published books (by not using a previously introduced secondary character as the primary character in a subsequent book) so is The Searcher different from all her previous books. One of the constitutive elements of her stories has been a view of the interplay between the police protagonist and their fellow detectives as well as between the protagonist and their profession. Plus all of French’s previous books were set in Dublin or its suburbs, with urbanized living as a feature of her characters’ lives. In French’s new book she throws out all these familiar aspects of her previous work and strikes out in a new, unfamiliar direction. It’s a brave (and rewarding) move.

The Searcher is set in a remote, rural village that has at its core a pub cum general store and one gas station and a police station with one cop. Most of the inhabitants earn their meager living from the land as farmers. Ardnakelty is the kind of place where all the kids who graduate from school are expected to leave for better opportunities elsewhere, with only the unsuccessful trapped behind, with only distant (or not so distant) relatives. Cal has moved here precisely because it is remote and sparsely populated. He was also interested in Western Ireland when he was looking for places to retire to on the Internet because the weather doesn’t get too cold or too hot. French is clearly enamored by such places, and her typically lyrical prose waxes poetic as she describes the weather, landscape and scenery.

The book starts with Cal making friends with a local tween boy named Trey Reddy who has learned that the new American neighbor is some kind of cop and wants him to find out what happened to his older brother Brendan, 19. Trey last saw his brother nearly six months ago when Brendan left their house in a hurry with a backpack and a worried expression. Cal really doesn’t want to take the case, because as a cop he is pretty sure what a 6-month-old missing persons case means (Brendan’s dead, right? Or run away to the big city to seek his fortune). He’s also unfamiliar with the terrain (literally) and because he’s new to the area, he doesn’t know where the bodies are buried or what the criminal undercurrents in the village are. Cal’s neighbor Mart has generally been his guide to acclimating to life in Ardnakelty but he is definitely not in favor of Cal sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. He doesn’t even want Cal to look into what or who is going around killing local farmer’s sheep in strange and disgusting ways. Are these cases related? As an experienced mystery reader, I was pretty sure they would be.

As others have noticed, basically, what French is doing in The Searcher is that she is writing a Western disguised as a mystery novel! Cal is the taciturn stranger new to town who is convinced to try to resolve an injustice that the townspeople have been living with for a longtime. Trey is the sympathetic local resident who convinces the outsider to act. And the current powerbrokers don’t react well to the newcomer trying to disrupt the status quo. It’s a brilliant move, and French puts a fresh twist on a familiar tale. As the plot unwinds, she slowly ratchets up the tension higher and higher, while simultaneously revealing secrets about the quiet, remote village and its inhabitants who shows themselves to be as potentially dangerous as those in Cal’s old stomping grounds on the South Side of Chicago.

Overall, I though The Searcher was very good, but not as good as French’s two previous books, The Witch Elm and The Trespasser, which I think are two of her very best. Of course, French at her very best means these are some of the best mystery novels in the entire genre and obviously no one can reach that level all the time. Even merely sublime Tana French is extremely satisfying, and The Searcher is one of the best books I read all year. (I still hope that her next book is Dublin Murder Squad mystery, or perhaps follows one of the minor characters from The Searcher or The Witch Elm!)

Title: The Searcher.
Author: Tana French.
Format: Hardcover.
Page Length: 451 pages.
Publisher: Viking.
Date Published: October 6, 2020.
Date Read: December 27, 2020.
OVERALL GRADE: A+/A (4.16/4.0).

The winners of the 92nd Annual Academy Awards were announced last night, and I correctly predicted 6 of 8 of the Top 8 categories, missing the big wins for "Parasite" in the Best Picture and Best Director categories, which I am quite happy about. Elsewhere I picked 17 of 24 categories correctly. Parasite ended with the most with 4 while both 1917, Once Upon a Time..in Hollywood and Ford v Ferrari ended with 3 Oscars each.

Longtime readers of this blog know I have  a "thing" for Brazilian boys (of any color!) Many  have appeared here over the years (several from MundoMais and other websites) such as Maxs Souza, Jones Tamar, Alan Taurus, Guilherme Rofino, Erasmo Viana, and Diego Barros (to name a few)!

Robert Oliveira has been one of my favorite Eye Candy models, having appeared 3 times already (July 16, 2018; September 3, 2018; November 5, 2018). He has 286,000 followers on Instagram (@robert.officiall).

As this blog comes to an end (or a pause?) I want to leave you with these beautiful images of beautiful men. Enjoy!

Mike Thurston is still one of (if not my very top) favorite male models. He has appeared as Eye Candy the most frequently of any model on my blog (December 31, 2018; June 4, 2018; August 31, 2015; October 19, 2015; December 28, 2015. In addition to having a ridiculously muscular body, he is devilishly handsome and if you have seen any of his YouTube videos (like his 850,000+ followers) you know that he has a delightful British accent and is a successful entrepreneur.

Adrian Conrad makes his 5th appearance at this blog in a short time (January 14, 2019; January 11, 2018; December 11, 2017; November 27, 2017). He is the most recent addition to my list of all-time favorite male models (which includes Simeon Panda, Mike Thurston, Raciel Castro, Robert Oliveira). He has several hundred thousand followers on Instagram (@adrianconrad_)--you owe it to yourself to do so!