Adventures of a Continental Drifter by Elliott Hester

After the events of his previous book "Plane Insanity", author Elliott Hester was looking for a more meaningful way to spend his life. With the airline cutbacks after September 11th, he was given his chance. He took a voluntary one year layoff and used it for a chance to travel around the world. He left his apartment, sold his worldly possessions, and set off to journey six continents.

Hester begins in South America, finding himself the center of attention in Argentina as the darkest face in the crowd. He moves on to brave soccer riots and the first of many bouts of travel sickness. In Marquesas, he inadvertently befriends a local cattle rustler and witnesses his first and second animal killings. By the time he leaves for cooler climates, Hester is bloody, sore, bewildered, and thankful that he wasn't mugged by a group of burly drag queens on a late night bus.

He scuba dives near Australia, finds himself alone in Brunei's largest amusement park, and temporarily adopts a street kid in Ethiopia. He spends time in an underground community mining for opals. He impersonates Samuel L Jackson, and inadvertently flirts with a muscleman in an erotic museum (while perusing inflatable love companions).

The book doesn't read so much as a biographic adventure as an absurd travelogue. Hester gives you the flavor of each of his visits: the people, the food, the climate. If you're looking to know more about Hester by the end of the book, you'll be disappointed. If you're able to hold on for the ride and just enjoy the sights, you'll find Hester, the Continental Drifter, as an amiable companion and astute tour guide to the places you've always wanted (or feared) to go.

There Will Be Dragons by John Ringo

I'm not a hardcore Fantasy reader, but I like me some monsters, trolls, and swordplay every few months. So, when I saw a book featuring not only a sexy elf with a bow, but a huge red dragon AND a spaceship on the cover, well, I thought... this could be interesting. Much to my chagrin, there must have been some fine print on the cover I didn't see. Perhaps the book was titled There will be (slight mention of) dragons (but they won't affect this story!). Or There Will Be Dragons (in that other book you passed by on the shelf).

And yet, I made it through the whole book, so it wasn't bad enough to put down (or toss through the window). Ringo does a good job of world building, sometimes with too fine a brush. I'm interested in how feudal society works, but not so much in how they plan to bathe, fell trees, or set up farms. These can be covered in passing detail. Ringo seems to be trying to meet a minimum word quota at certain points in the story.

The action, when it does come, is great. Military knowledge gives Ringo an edge in painting the battlefield for the reader. The rest of the story boils down to: World Loses Power, and only RennFaire re-enactors can save the world!
You know those guys: the chunky ones with pale skin and scruffy beards and bad long hair? The chicks with the corsets who probably shouldn't be wearing the corsets? Yeah. They're saving the planet here. And the thing is, I like RennFaires. I like it when people dress up. I've been to plenty of RennFaires, enough to know that girls with the "tapered waists and ample bosoms" with which Ringo endows several of the female characters, are nowhere to be found, possibly accounting for only .8% of the crowd.

Why did this review turn into a rant? Apologies.
NO! NO APOLOGIES! I trudged through 500+ pages. Don't make the same mistake. I'm positive Ringo has other amazing stories in him, but he's off his game here.