Review: LEGO Creator Expert Detectives Office

Over on the Toy Photographers blog, Yours Truly has written a review of the Creator Expert Detectives Office.

TL;DR version:
Outside:  beautiful, detailed, and great for photography
Inside:  Amazing detail, not so awesome for photography
Minifigs:  Vintage looking, nostalgic but not expressive.
Recommendation: For the photographer: buy it for the outside.  For the fan, just buy it.

Check out the full review here.

Review: Ahch-To Island Training

After having seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi multiple times in theatres, I came away from the experience wanting to explore the new grizzly cynical old Luke Skywalker in my artwork. Of all the characters from the original trilogy, his story arc is by far the most interesting to me. So I went in search of a LEGO set that contained an aged-Luke minifig, and settled on the Ahch-To Island Training set.

Warning: Contains very minor spoilers, but nothing plot revealing.

When it arrived, I handed the building of the set off to my 8 year old son, Zeke, a proud LEGO and Star Wars fan himself, so I could get his opinions of the set from his perspective, as well as my own.

This is our review.

What’s In The Box?

The set itself is small, and at 241 pieces is a quick build. The model is essentially one of the stone huts that Luke resides in on the island of Ahch-To. Inside the hut are a lot of details that are interesting: a bed, cooking supplies etc. All of the things one would expect to be inside a small occupied hut.

There are a couple simple moving parts. The back of the hut is left open for access to play, but the roof also comes off for easier access to the internals of the hut. A small part of one of the wall collapses as well. I suspect both are intended to allow for the simulation when Rey's hut force-explodes. However it does allow for easy access for lights and smoke effects, which makes it intriguing for us toy photographers.

There is also a rock that can be split open. Remember the scene where Rey uses a lightsaber to slice open a large rock? I believe the rock in the set is supposed to allow one to simulate that. However this leads us to one of the many puzzling aspects of this model.

Cons

In general, this model looks very little like the scenes from the movie. Aside from the three minifigures of Luke, Rey, and a porg, it feels like the model was designed based on a vague description of the location, and not from scenes from the actual movie. Basically if you handed me the model without the minifigs and the box art, I would never guess that the model was from Ahch-To (I would likely guess a left over model from Force Awakens that is supposed to be from the planet Takodana). The model makes the hut look like it is built with large light coloured rocks, but in the movie it is made from piles of small dark grey stones. The door in the movie is an impressively solid chunk of metal, but the model has the door made from a flimsy piece of cloth.

Oh, may I complain a bit more about that rock that Rey slices open with the lightsaber? In the movie she slices thru a monolithic solid chunk of rock. The model gives a relatively small sphere, that is hollow and contains a gem inside. Where the gem fits into things is a mystery to me - maybe it is something from the director's cut, certainly not movie accurate. They could have easily made a model where that rock was realistic, and not attached to the hut so it could be located father away, but they didn’t, and that is a shame.

Pros

The true value of this set is in the minifigs. The Luke minifig comes off as the rough character that Luke has truly become.

Rey looks determined and ready to jump into action. Rey's hair piece has that cute little 3-bun combo, which is realistic to the movie. It does make it hard to turn her head for posing, but no more than is normal for any minifig with longer hair.

The porg is adorable - I just wish they included a couple more of them. Both Rey and Luke comes with there own staffs, and there is one blue lightsaber to share between them.

Conclusion

From the perspective of toy photography this set is a hot mess of inconsistency. The set does allow easy access to the hut so lights can be added very easily. However it would be almost impossible to get the look and feel from the movie by using this set.

So my advice for the toy photographer is to pick yourself up a set, pull out the minifigs for your own collection, and then immediately drop the rest off in your kids toy box. They are going to enjoy it way more than you are.

About that kids toy box, here are Zeke’s impressions of the set, presented in question/answer format.

How hard is it to build?Not very hard. Easy build. Fun to build.

What do you think of the set?It’s awesome!

What makes it awesome?
There’s a mechanism that makes one of the rocks pop up and also there is one of those pieces that spin so you can cut open a boulder.

Would you want one for yourself?
Yes!

What is your least favourite thing?
The door isn’t right, and the bed takes up too much space.

Rest assured Zeke received his own set, complete with minifigs, as thanks for helping with the review of this set. He is currently in his room exploring Ahch-To with the intense imagination that only an 8 year old can provide.

Note:  This review originally was posted on the Toy Photographers blog on January 20, 2018.  Reposted here for posterity.

LEGO Ultimate Collectors Series: Slave 1 Review

The Star Wars Universe has many unique style of ships.  One of the most unique is Boba Fett’s ship, which is called Slave 1. Of particular note iit lands in a different direction than it flies. It does not get a lot of screen time during the Star Wars series, but it does play an important role in the film as it is the ship that takes the carbonite frozen Han Solo back to Tatooine.
When I notice that LEGO has an Ultimate Collector Series version of this ship  I jumped at the chance to own one.

This is my review of this iconic set.

Overview

This set is one of the Ultimate Collector Series, which are the larger sets that LEGO produces.  This set, at 1996 pieces is no exception.  When built, the model is 7” high, 17” long, and 14” wide.  This size puts the ship is at minifig scale, which helps with the sense of play, as well as a more realistic sense of scale.  This will come in handy for us toy photographers.

Being an Ultimate Collector Series set,  it does come with a rather handy stand that can be used for display.

Included Minifigures

The set comes with 4 or 5 minifigures, depending on how you count.  Included is a Bespin Guard, a Stormtrooper, a Han Solo, and a Boba Fett.  The Boba Fett minifig is more detailed than the version of him that comes in other sets. The Bespin Guard and Han Solo are rather plain looking in comparison, but still perfectly cromulent. The 5th item that may or may not be counted as a minifig is Han Solo encased in a slab of carbonite.

The carbonite slab is hollow at the back, and contains a couple studs that the Han Solo figure can grip with his hands, essentially hiding Han behind the slab.  This isn’t over useful for photography, but sort of clever and worth mentioning.

Slave 1 

If you look at Slave 1 you realize that there isn’t a square angle on the thing. It is bulbous in certain places, and cylindrical in others, but never square.   I can only imagine how much trouble this gave the LEGO build engineers as they had to figure out how to recreate this ship.
They pulled it off beautifully.  It is a very complicated build, and uses the concept of SNOT (studs not on top) to an degree I have personally never seen. This allows for the complex shapes and structures that make up this ship. There are studs facing almost every direction.
The ship itself is very detailed.  It sports an expansive cockpit, which swivels to be appropriate for both landing and flight modes. The swivel guns on the tail look very accurate. It sports two hidden compartment on the sides that contain additional weaponry.  The tail contains a cargo door that is especially designed to hold the carbonite slab.

Hidden Benefits For Photographers

Unfortunately the base of the ship, while detailed, is not solid.  Consequently, it is not overly photogenic from underneath.  I don’t think this will cause too many problems in practice. The inside of the ship is fairly hollow.  This, combined with the non-solid base, makes it easier to slip small lights inside for that more dramatic photo.

I took this behind-the-scenes shot of my customized light inside the cargo bay of the ship:

And this is the resulting image:

The core of the ship is incredibly solid. However there are a lot of decorative bricks that come off fairly easily.  For example, while taking the above photo, I had to replace the round bits at the base of the tail several times.  As a result, I would be cautious taking this ship out into the field, however in a studio setting this doesn’t seem to cause many issues.

Conclusion

The Slave 1 model is a master class in creating complex shapes with LEGO bricks. It is a true work of art in and of itself, and is therefore worth adding this to your collection for that fact alone.  The ship’s detail, relative correct scale, and incredibly rugged build means that it will both look good in photos, as well as on the shelf.

I don’t believe this set is a must have for the toy photographer. However, if you are looking for an interesting model to add to your collection that is both a challenging build, and will look good in photos, this ship should be high on your list of sets to consider.

Note:  This review originally was posted on the Toy Photographers blog on February 17, 2018.  Reposted here for posterity.

Toy Photography Blogging

If you are a fan of  toy photographer, you may be interested in this kick-ass blog called toyphotographers.com.

I know it is kick-ass because some amazing toy photographers contribute to the blog.  I know you'll like it because I am also now contributing to the blog on a regular basis - I'll leave the kick-ass designation for Yours Truly as an exercise for you, the reader.

Today they published a review of a LEGO set I wrote with help from my son, Zeke.  It is a review of the LEGO Star Wars set based on Luke Skywalker's island called Ahch-To.  You can check out the post here: Review: Ahch-To Island Training.

I am also working on a series of posts called The Foundation Series. It centers on insights I've gained during my artistic journey so far, both philosophical and practical.  Hopefully others can benefit from them and help them along their own personal journeys.  The first post in that series can be found here: The Foundation Series: A Journey Begins.   New posts will drop approximately once a month.

I'll link to any posts I write for toyphotographers.com from this blog so if all you are interested in is the stuff I contribute, stay tuned here and you won't miss a thing.  However there really is some great stuff over there from everyone, so I suggest you follow them directly.

Garmin Monterra Review Part 6: Conclusions

To wrap this review up, lets summarize some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Garmin Monterra.

Strengths

• Relatively new Android OS
• Android side of things works great
• Workable display
• Power pack should save a lot of money on batteries
• GPS and GLONASS provide excellent accuracy
• Comes with international power adaptors and screen protectors
• Supports a virtual unlimited number of caches

Weaknesses

• Still have to reboot device for Garmin apps to see new maps and GPX files
• Large physical size
• Burns through power like a congressman burns through cash.
• Some subtle yet incredibly annoying UI apps on the Garmin legacy side.
• Expensive

Conclusion

Going into this review, and given the revolutionary aspects of the Monterra, I expected this device to be weak in some areas, and stronger in others.  What I didn't expect is that these areas were completely opposite.  The Android side turned out to be stellar, and the legacy Garmin side turned out to disappoint.

Despite how shiny and new this device is, and how convenient the Android OS makes the device to use, its downsides far outweighs its upsides.

At one stage during testing I had the Monterra, the Montana, and the eTrex, all ready to go in my pack, and honestly, every time I reached for a GPSr to search for a cache, my instinct was to pick the eTrex.

The Monterra is pretty, but I'd rather keep my current setup, all things considered.

---

Did I miss anything you wanted to see in the review? Drop me a line in the comments and I'll address it inline, or in a follow up post.

<<  Previous section: Power    |    Wrap around to the Introduction ^^

Garmin Monterra Review Part 5: Power

We come at last to the issue of power.  Battery life is one of the most important issues that a geocacher faces when going out in the field.

This is where the Monterra falls flat on its face.

I canna do it, Captain!

I have yet to see a GPSr from Garmin that will not last at least a full days usage in the field.  I have geocached for 12 hours straight with my Montana 600, a device which uses the same size power pack as the Monterra, with power at the end of the day to spare.

The Monterra gets nothing close to this.  The first time I took out the Monterra on a caching run I got just under five hours from it.  Five.  Take a moment to ponder that. This isn't barely a solid mornings worth of caching, let alone an entire day.  In Garmins defence, I did take the device straight from the charger, and did not do any of the normal power saving things one can do on such devices, like lower the display brightness, or turn off the radios.

I decided to give it a second, more fair, attempt, and gave it every chance I could:  Full charge overnight.  Turned off all radios except the GPSr, turned the backlight down to 0%. I shut down all Android apps, and only used the ones provided by Garmin.

I turned the GPSr on in the park I was caching in for the day, and cached for 3 hours, 25 minutes.  I found 12 caches.  When I was done the battery was at 45%.  To compare this to a device I know has great battery life, I brought along my Montana and let it run the entire time I was caching, with as equal usage as I could give it.  It was at 85% battery life by the end.

I hope you can see the problem here.

One handy feature of Android devices is that they give pretty decent stats about where the power goes.  As you can see it went mostly (64%) to Garmin Outdoor Apps. Luckily this looks like a software problem and could theoretically be fixed in an update.  However until then, stock up on batteries.  It takes 3 AAs each, and if they last the same length of time as they did in my Montana, you'll get about 3 hours from the set (I typically got 2/3rds of a runtime from AAs on the Montana as I did from the battery pack)

Charging Time

Garmin seems to also have issues with charging. For some reason the Monterra just burns power.  It can take 4-5 hours to get fully charged from the provided wall plug.  In contrast my smart phone takes about 2 hours.

The Monterra seems to have trouble getting charged from a computers USB port while its turned on. My phone charges just fine, albeit twice a slow.  I think Garmin needs to rework their power systems.

Note: I feel comparing the charge times between the Monterra and a Nexus 4 is a fair comparison. Both have roughly the same size batteries, do roughly the same things on the same general OS, and both charge via USB. If anything the smart phone should fair worse as it has a larger battery to charge, more radios, larger display, and faster processor, all of which should burn more energy.

Hopefully these power issues are a software issue and can be fixed in the future.  As it stands now the Monterra falls well short of acceptable power usage for the hard core geocacher.

<<  Previous section: Legacy Garmin Software    |    Next section: Conclusion >>

Garmin Monterra Review Part 4: Garmin Legacy Software

Let me start off by saying that, in general, I have been quite pleased with the software that Garmin puts on their GPSr devices.  I have very few complaints with how my personal GPSr devices work, and all of them are minor.

Going into this review of the Monterra I suspected that the Garmin side of things would remain as useful as it always has.  There did turn out to be a few problems.

UI Issues And Schisms

I ran into some serious user interface issues that nearly caused me to pull my hair out, for it is amazingly annoying.  The issue comes down to changes in how the geocache dashboard works.

On other Garmin GPSrs that I have used (namely the Montana 600) during navigation to a geocache I am presented with a map. On top of that map is a dashboard that has basic information: cache name, direction, distance etc.  When one touches the dashboard one is presented with details about that cache. Simple interface, and exactly the result I expect.

On the Monterra the navigation is, essentially, the same setup. Map screen with a dashboard on the top showing cache name, direction and distance.  However when one touches the dashboard one gets presented with a list of caches, sorted by distance.  This means that I have to then select the cache I want again before I can view its details. I already selected it once, which is the reason why the dashboard is navigating to it, so this extra step really grinds my gears.  It is made doubly annoying if the cache is not the closest cache as one has to scroll the list to find the cache first, they touch the entry to get the details.  Every time this happens I keep mentally screaming "Just show me the bloody cache!"

Update(2014-03-29): Apparently the above issue has been fixed in the latest Garmin Outdoor Apps update, 1.18.  Click here to get details on updating.  This does bring up a question tho:  Why the crazy update scheme, Garmin?  In a world that already has an app store, why force users to side-load your APK?

There is a third annoyance in that selecting caches from the list seems to require an extra hard touch, which doesn't happen at any other time.  Not sure if the Garmin engineers intended this bizarre behaviour, but its definitely a bug, and an annoying one at that.  This all may seem minor, but since selecting caches and viewing their descriptions is 50% of what I do with a GPSr, this is a serious black eye on the device.

Legacy Vs New

Another issue is more a result of the cross between the way Garmin traditionally loads data onto the device and the new modern world.

In an Android world, if an app wants to use a compass, it can provide its own, or use a signal called an intent to prompt the use of any other compass or compass like apps that may be installed on the device. This way a user can pick and choose which compass or map they prefer, and use it for most things.

I sort of expected this same function sharing from Garmins software as well. However I could not find a way for Android geocaching apps to be able to share Maps or cache listings.  I am not sure if this is a true limitation of Garmins software, or simply that the Android apps are not set up to share such data, but if any Garmin engineers read this: Making your compass and maps apps shared via an intent would be awesome.

This also means that if one wants custom maps one has to load them multiple times. Once for the Garmin side, and another for whatever Android device is being used.  This rapidly takes up space. Hardly ideal.

Data Loading

Loading data (GPX or custom map data) is also different, but not necessarily in a bad way, and it is Androids fault.  When plugged into a computer via USB, most other modern Garmin GPSrs mount their drives as USB drives, and data can simply be copied back and forth as it can on any other drive on the computer.  Since Android does not allow its drives to be mounted in this way, one has the additional step of having to install an app called Android File Transfer to copy data directly to/from the GPSr. Android File Transfer is free, and available here.  Use of Android File Transfer is standard fair for Android, so it shouldn't really come as a surprise, except that it now applies to your GPSr as well.

Of course one can simply use a program like Dropbox to copy data onto the device.  The Monterra still expects the data used by its apps to be under the /Garmin directory so one can simply save GPX or map files there and the GPSr will make use of them.  Bizarrely tho, it still requires the device be rebooted before the Garmin apps will see the new data.

Garmin Desktop Apps

Both MapInstall and BaseCamp seemed to work with the Monterra. I actually used MapInstall to put a set of OpenStreetMaps onto the device for testing purposes.  The one catch I had was that Android File Transfer started up as soon as I plugged in the Monterra to my computer, which caused the Garmin apps to not see the device.  The solution is to simply close Android File Transfer before using the Garmin apps, but it is one more thing that gets in the way, and may not be intuitive for the new user.  These problems were seen on an iMac, so Windows users may get different results.  Just something to watch out for.

<<  Previous section: Android    |    Next section: Power >>

Garmin Monterra Review Part 3: Android

So far this has been a typical Garmin GPS.  So lets get down to why it is special: Android.

I know many geocachers have had reservations about such a GPSr/android device.  The two biggest concerns are about being stuck on an old version of Android so their apps will not work, and the other being that the screen is not large enough.

Lets address these issues head on.

Android

The version of Android on the device is Ice Cream Sandwich (4.04).  While not the newest version (which is 4.4 Kit Kat), it is still quite modern.

Using Android on the Monterra feels just like getting any new Android device.  I was first prompted for my Google account information, and asked to set up the wifi connection.  It then logged me in to a fully functioning Android experience.  I even started getting new email notifications right away (an unexpected and surreal experience to do a Hangout on a GPSr).

I promptly started installing my favourite geocaching apps: CacheSense, Locus Pro, GCC, Groundspeak's Geocaching App etc.  All of them worked flawlessly.  There were a few minor issues with performance, for example Locus Pro took twice a long (60 seconds instead of 30 seconds) to process a 1000 cache GPX file, but in general the performance was not an issue.

You have full access to the Google Play Store, and the Monterra shows up as a device on the store so you can simply push apps to the device from the website.  Rather handy.

If you don't have any apps you want to use, the device does come preloaded with some apps.  All of the typical Garmin functionality is implemented as Android apps pre-installed on the device, for example.  The Settings app looks like typical Android as well, aside from a few additional menu options to configure features not normally found on phones (such as turning on WAAS, or selecting GPS/GLONASS options).

In fact Android works so well on the device I forgot I was using a GSPr at all. Except for the display and larger physical size, it felt like I was using my smart phone.

This conveniently segues us to the display, so lets tackle that now.

Display

So the display resolution is rather paltry sounding.  At 272x480 pixels it pales in comparison to the typical modern Android device. For example my Nexus 4 has a resolution of 1280x768.  So one would be understandably skeptical about how useful Android is on such a low-res screen.  One would, however, be completely wrong.

Now I am not going to sit here and tell you that the screen is amazing in all respects.  I would never want to watch a movie on it, for example.  However it is quite adequate for its needs.

I took side-by-side screen shots of Locus Pro so you can compare the difference between a modern smart phone display and the Monterra:

As you can see, the screen is quite adequate for all of its limitations. The Monterra is not as crisp as the Nexus 4, but most folks would not have any issues using those maps.

Some of the menus and buttons end up in different spots on the screen, but with a very small amount of exploration I had no problems getting used to how my favourite apps worked on the Monterra.

The display also looks great in the sun, and I had no problems reading it, even in direct sunlight, and with the backlight turned completely off.

I was completely blown away by how polished and usable the Android experience is on this device. I was about to declare the Monterra one of the best GPSr's I have ever used.  I was ready to toss away my old setup of using an eTrex 30 and a Nexus 7.  That would prove to be a premature conclusion however, as there are some critical problems with the device, and they are where I least expected them.

<<  Previous section: Technical Specs    |    Next section: Legacy Garmin Software >>

Garmin Monterra Review Part 2: Technical Specs

Whats In The Box?

The Garmin Monterra comes with the following things:

• GPS unit
• Manuals
• USB power supply
• USB cable
• Lithium-ion battery pack
• International power adaptors
• Screen protectors

It is a list comprised of exactly what you would expect, except the screen protectors are a nice touch.   It would have been nice if they had included some sort of strap, however.  The first thing I did when I pulled the unit out of the box is attach a small lanyard for carrying purposes.

Technical Specs

The full list of technical specifications are on the Garmin website (listed here) so I won't bother repeating all of the specs here, but I will list the salient details for convenience:

Size difference compared to a standard
pack of playing cards.

• 4" touchscreen,  272x480 pixel resolution
• Weight: up to 13.2oz depending on batteries used.
• Power: 3AAs, or the 2000mAh lithium-ion battery pack
• Supports custom maps
• 6GB memory with the base maps, 3GB with topo maps.  
• microSD card for additional map storage. (microSD card not included)
• Can hold an unlimited (where unlimited is the limitations of the devices memory) amount of caches.
• 8 megapixel camera.
• Wifi enabled.
• GPS and GLONAS enabled.

It is important to note that this device is huge for a GPSr. It is the largest handheld GPSr I have ever seen.  I added a size comparison photo to a deck of cards to get an idea of how big it is.  I still find, however, that it would get lost in a pack or pocket, so it is definitely manageable.

Touchscreen

The touchscreen is resistive, which means it works in the rain, and with gloves on.  For the most part the screen is quite responsive. There are some exceptions, for example the Geocache List window requires an extra hard press to get it to recognize a touch.  I have no idea why this is as other touches to the same part of the screen in other modes have no issues. 

In general if you have used any Garmin touchscreens, this one acts exactly the same.  

Camera

This seems as good a time as any to discuss the camera.  It is an 8MP camera, which is quite decent.  It does  not have any optical zoom, so its all digital, which vastly reduces quality when zoomed.  If you look at the camera as being a typical smart phone camera you have the right idea.  It is great for taking those quick in-the-field-memory shots, or photos of information for multi-caches or virtuals.  However if you don't consider your smart phone camera to be sufficient for your photography needs, you will find the same here.  Photographers will still need to being a proper camera into the field to get awesome shots. However, as I mentioned, it is more than adequate for those impromptu photos.

Accuracy

In comparisons with my other GPSrs (Garmin eTrex 30, Garmin Montana 600) I didn't really find any differences in GPSr accuracy.  This shouldn't be surprising since I haven't seen significant changes to this in quite some time. The GLONASS support will help in the future when the Russians fly some more satellites, so things will hopefully get better than they are now.  However now is looking pretty good as it is.

<<  Previous section: Introduction    |    Next section: Android >>

Garmin Monterra Review Part 1: Introduction

There is literally nothing more fundamental to geocaching than a GPS receiver.  There is also few things as much fun as exploring new tech, and the Garmin Monterra promises to be a revolutionary step in the development of GPSr units for the geocacher. As you can imagine that when I was offered the chance to review the Garmin Monterra GPS first hand, I jumped at it.

The following is my review.

Before we continue...

Now, a couple notes before I get into the meat of things.  Blogger, the system this site uses, works awesome for the smaller posts that I normally do, but it is not so awesome for longer ones.  As a result I am going to put my review in a series of posts released all at once, and linked all together.  Hopefully this will end up feeling like a unified review.

Second note:  I have never done a product review before, so its likely I may have missed something.  Please feel free to drop missing bits in the comments and I will do my best to get them addressed.

Note The Third:  I am an avid geocacher, and this review is geocaching specific.  This unit could be used for a great many other things, but those use cases will remain theoretical.  I am also assuming my readers are geocachers.  If you are not a geocacher and something isn't clear as a result, please feel free to drop a comment and I'll clarify things for you.

Fourth Note:  I am using a Garmin Montana as a comparison device to the Monterra in a couple areas.  The reason is two fold:  I've used the Montana to find over 1200 geocaches and am very familiar with how it functions in the field.  It is also a very recent model so there is not a lot (in theory at least) changes in the hardware.  I also compare it to the Garmin eTrex 30 as it is my primary caching device.

Whats the big deal anyway?

First question has got to be: why do we care?  What is the big deal about the Monterra anyway?  The Monterra is the first GPSr from Garmin (perhaps from anyone) that is based on Android.   Many geocachers have stated that the one thing they wanted in geocaching technology is the ruggedness and battery usage of a stand alone GPSr merged with the flexibility and functionality of a smart phone.  The Monterra promises this exact holy grail combination to a geocacher.

This device is expensive, at $650 USD for the base model ($700 with topo maps), so it has big shoes to fill.

The burning question is: does it live up to its promise?

You can find the rest of the review on these posts:

• Part 2: Technical Specs
• Part 3: Android
• Part 4: Legacy Garmin Software
• Part 5: Power
• Part 6: Conclusions

So on to the next section: Technical Specs >>

Cached Out: A Book Review

There have been several fictional novels released recently that use geocaching as part of the story. The one I have read most recently is called Cached Out, by Russell Atkinson. I enjoyed it so much I thought I'd give it a book review for the benefit of my readers.

The Amazon description sums up the novel better than I can:

"Newly retired from the FBI and alone after the tragic death of his wife, Cliff Knowles takes up geocaching. While looking for a cache in the mountains he comes across a human skeleton and reports it to the sheriff's office. Then a second body is found - a fresh corpse this time - right after Cliff found another geocache nearby. When it turns out the first remains are those of a fugitive he was supposed to arrest years earlier, he becomes a suspect in a multiple homicide investigation. He has no choice but to use his sleuthing skills to identify the mysterious cache owner, known only as Enigmal, and free himself from suspicion."

When I read a novel based on a hobby, my two questions are:  "Is it a good story?" and "are the references to the hobby (geocaching, in this case) accurate?"  A good story with bad geocaching is no better than a bad story with good geocaching, so it has to be good on both counts to get high marks from me (a bad story with bad geocaching is simply pointless).

Regardless of whether one is a geocacher or not, this novel stands on its own.  The story is fast paced, the situations plausible, and the characters are interesting.  It is a real page turner.  It is, truth be told, one of the few books I have read (and I read a lot) that I did not want to put down. When I got to the end, I wanted more.  If it was a TV show I'd already be checking the schedules waiting for the next season to start.

Geocaching does play a central part in the story, and it is intricately woven into both the plot and the character development.  However, the geocaching is explained enough that I believe someone who is not familiar with geocaching would have no problem following the story, in the same vein as one does not have to be a lawyer to understand or enjoy a John Grisham novel.

That leaves us with the question of the accuracy of the geocaching.  I am an avid geocacher, and I am also rather pedantic. Inaccuracies in caching descriptions quickly cause me forget about the story and concentrate on the errors.  As a result, accuracy is vital for my enjoyment of a geocaching themed book.  Fortunately there is good news on this front.

The author of Cached Out is a geocacher himself, and it shows. His depictions of geocaching are, essentially, perfect.  Both descriptions of geocaching itself, and how the geocachers think, are exactly what I expect based on my extensive experience with geocaching and the geocaching community.  Many times during the story, and especially during the climax, I thought "yep, that is *exactly* how a geocacher would react." As a result I found that the geocaching in the novel allowed me to get more enjoyment out of the story. Think of it like a delicious gravy spread over Thanksgiving dinner.

So, in summary, as a murder mystery novel it is a good read, fun, quick paced, and enjoyable.  As a geocaching themed novel it is even better. It would make a fantastic stocking stuffer for the geocacher on your Christmas list.

You can get more information about the book at http://cliffknowles.ackgame.com/, including links to Amazon, and details on obtaining autographed copies.