LIGHTS on the SEA

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

Wow, what an opening! A raging thunderstorm in the fictitious town of San Remo de Mar on the island of Brent knocks Harold and Mary Rose Grapes’ house off a hundred foot cliff into the ocean.Yes, that’s right. It slides all the way down into the ocean and sails off. Why didn’t the house sink? Because the house took some of the landscape with it and that was mostly porous volcanic rock, which floats. Sometimes I wonder how some authors come up with these ideas. Anyway, most of house took on substantial damage...but it floated on. The irony of the situation was that the house was scheduled to be knocked down the very next day. Why? Because over the last thirty-five years, the house was inching closer and closer to the cliff’s edge and was a threat to the beach below. As we follow the Grapes on their voyage, we find that they lost their only son, Dylan, in a similar storm thirty-five years ago.

Harold and Dylan (eight years old) were building a ship at an old shipyard with freebie wood when the storm struck. The row boat they were using to get home capsized. “It took Harold mere seconds to resurface. Coughing up salt water, he tried to shout, frantically looking all around, but all he could see was blackness. He managed to grab a piece of lumber that had fallen out of the boat, but he didn’t see any sign of the boat itself. Or of his son." Harold was rescued by a fishing boat...they never found Dylan’s body. Mary Rose never forgave her husband, Harold. Harold never forgave himself. Not for nothing, didn’t the couple ever hear the term, out of sight, out of mind? I know that sounds callous, but it becomes a vital point when the Grapes meet an inuit family later in the story. Anyway the boat they were building (which was going to be their home) was taken apart to build the house on the cliff.
 
So as the storm hit their house thirty-five years later, the Grapes had some bad memories, “If anyone in San Remo unable to sleep because of the storm had looked out their window toward the cliff, they would have seen something truly unbelievable. A three-story house tilted at a thirty-five degree angle toward the sea, suspended as if by magic. The yellow house, along with a section of garden attached to the foundation, began to free-fall toward the white-capped sea. The impact was brutal.” As the Grapes tried to fix all the holes in their floating house, The prime question asked between them was, “are we sinking?” and the answer was always, “I think so.” Many problems occur during their housewrecked odyssey, but I will not say anymore...buy your own copy to find out what transpires. The author, Miquel Reina, already an established filmmaker and graphic artist, did a credible job on his first crack at a novel. His character development was first class, as was his ability to elicit empathy for his characters.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I’ve done a few shipwreck reviews before, but this is my first housewreck (don’t bother looking that up, there is no such word) review. I do have two shipwreck reviews in my blog archive. The first one is Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe (I’ll bet you didn’t know that novel was written 299 years ago!) and the second one was Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, Life of Pi. The Robinson Crusoe review can be seen on my 1/1/2016 blog and the Life of Pi review can be seen on my 3/18/2013 blog.

Pi Patel survives 227 days stranded on a small boat with a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker, while Robinson Crusoe survived two shipwrecks before ultimately spending 28 years as a castaway on a tropical island.

ZOMBIE SCARE

  Halloween short provided by Pat Koelmel, Rick’s Reviews guest contributor:

                                 💀     ZOMBIE SCARE 👻

        Flashlight in hand, Harley lay underneath his bed reading.

The story terrified him.

Yet he couldn't stop turning the pages.

     “HARLEY!” screamed his mother as she entered his room. “Are you under the bed reading those horror stories about zombies again?”

Harley jumped at the sound of her voice, hitting his head on the bed frame. “Ouch, you scared me,” whined Harley.

“It’s no wonder,” said his mother. “Anybody would have the jitters reading about zombies getting their brains shot out.”

Harley crawled out from under the bed. “Are they true … the stories?”

“Of course not,” she said.

Just then a gust of wind whipped through a tree outside Harley’s bedroom window. The branches scratched at the window pane.

It sent a shiver down Harley’s spine. He asked again, “Ma, are the stories true?”

His mother sighed. Then she took a long, hard look at her son. “I guess you’re old enough to know the truth.” She nodded yes.

Harley’s stomach lurched.

“Now you understand the dangers that face us,” said his mother. “Why Dad and I have never let you go outside. We had to protect you until you were ready.”

“Ready for what?” croaked Harley.

She gazed outside into the darkness. “Survive out there on your own.”    

Harley gasped. A cold sweat covered his lanky body. Then he trembled with both fear and anticipation.

Suddenly, he felt a hunger like never before.

His mother grinned. "It's time boy. Time you caught your own dinner."

TILT

The author sent me an autographed copy of his novel to read and review:

Is it too difficult to get one of the five major publishers to publish your novel? From what I’m reading...it is very tough. So thank God for the Indies, because I just read one of the best original sci/fi novels that I’ve scrutinized in a long time. How can an author get the reader to root for the citizens of Tilt (the planet's name) and it’s attackers (the Swarm coming from light years away) at the same time! Well, first time author Todd Simpson did it...at least for me. This scenario reminded me of the 1961 Twilight Zone episode named The Invaders, starring Agnes Moorehead, who hardly said a word during the entire show. It’s the classic catch-22 paradoxical situation: Do I side with the attackers or the citizens of planet Tilt? The citizens believe their planet is only 590 years old because that’s all they remember. The attackers, called The Swarm, said they were on Tilt 750 years ago. Who does the planet belong to? Are they telling each other the truth?

Why do the citizens of Tilt  believe either a spark or a God (the Creationist) or a Reboot (the Continuist) started their planet? These two theories caused a lot of angst on Tilt. And what about the Central computer that controls life on Tilt? Where did that come from? Is it like Arthur C. Clarke’s computer, Hal, who controlled the spaceship, Discovery One, in 2001 A Space Odyssey? The Swarm turn out to be humans, just like the ones being grown by the Citizens of Tilt. Where did the citizens get human DNA? And what’s goo, the only food the citizens serve the human clones? And how and why do the citizens recycle some of the home grown humans? These are only a few of the question you will ask yourself as you read this brilliant novel. One of the few mistakes the author made was not having enough (just a few near the end of the novel) cliffhanger chapter endings. With all that goes on in this novel, it should have been a paramount goal. The other minor dislike for me was the somewhat annoying tech talk between tri-protagonists Ayaka, Millicent, and Brexton near the end of the novel (if you are rooting for the home team).

I personally had a soft spot in my heart for four of the cloned humans on Tilt...Blob, Grace, JoJo, and Blubber. There are many characters, but the reader doesn’t get confused as to who is who. You would think there should be a roster of characters in the front of book, but no...it wasn’t needed. I don’t want to tell you too much about this novel because I want you to go out and buy your own copy. I’ll leave you with these facts. The Swarm (a group of spaceships) were spotted many years ago and were heading directly for Tilt. The citizens of Tilt and the Central computer didn’t know if they were friendly or hostile. After many years, the Swarm is finally close enough to contact the citizens of Tilt. “A virtual screen popped up in front of Ayaka...the screen flickered slightly as the signal was locked on.” As you can imagine the citizens were shocked…"How was it possible that entities (Stems) that we had grown in our labs were broadcasting from a ship more than one light year distant?" A Stem is what the citizens called the DNA cloned humans on Tilt and the people on the spaceship looked exactly the same as Tilt’s Stems (were they?) “They were so similar that the odds of them coming from anywhere else were almost zero.”

The Swarm's opening salutation to Tilt was on video: “System FJ-426. Greetings. A Stem covered with strange cloths was looking directly at us and speaking - in English! We’ve been traveling a long time, and a long distance, towards you. We hope that we find you well, and that your experience on FJ - 426 is a pleasant one. It’s been many years since our last contact, and we are eager to catch up on new developments. With your permission, we’ll refine our trajectory to directly intersect with you, whereupon we can discuss topics of mutual interest. Please signal your consent. My regards. Remma Jain, Captain. Signing off.” Tilt’s Ayaka, Millicent, and the Central computer are stunned. “But...this is impossible,” Millicent said “We’ve only been growing Stems in the lab for a few hundred years (Tilt’s lab personnel believe Stems lack intelligence and speed). To my knowledge, we’ve never sent a Stem into space, let alone a Swarm.” Okay you got a review of the first 45 pages of this near brainiac sci/fi novel...I highly recommended.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I have so many favorite sci/fi novels that it would impossible to rank them in any order of fondness, but here are three:

Larry Niven’s 1970 novel, Ringworld, winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards. The novel spawned eight other related novels. A expedition of some very strange characters are sent to investigate the gigantic artificial ring that is a million miles wide.

Arthur C. Clarke’s 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama, winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards. A group of explorers are sent to study a thirty four mile long and twelve mile diameter cylindrical starship that entered the Solar System. Three other related novels were generated from the original Rama.

Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel, Cat’s Cradle. The children of one of the developers of the atomic bomb, the late Felix Hoenikker, possess their father’s invention of Ice - Nine, which freezes water on contact. And you can guess what happens to the world’s oceans. Ouch!

HOWARDS END

I did enjoy E. M. Forster’s 1910 classic novel, but it was kind of a sleepyhead read. It’s written in a way that makes the reader reread a lot of paragraphs...and sometimes this literary critic still didn’t get the crux of what the author was saying. This has nothing to do with the author’s known love of symbolism, per se. Although I never did find out what the "wych elm tree" with pigs teeth stuck in the trunk (at the Howards End estate) was meant to represent. “Do you think that the tree really did cure toothache, if one believed in it?” “Of course It did. It would cure anything...once.” While Forster used less descriptive writing than most authors of his era, his prose was impeccable, although I would have preferred less circling of the wagons and more of let’s get to the point style of writing. Forster was known to like writing about social class differences and hypocrisy (posturing and deceit) especially from the rich man towards the poor man, and his humanist attitude is full-blown in Howards End. Every so often, the author tried his hand at the English dry sense of humour, but unfortunately it came off as deadpan. I am aware that I’m playing a cat and mouse game (love that idiom) with a big time writer, who also published two other bestsellers: A Room with a View in 1908 and A Passage to India in 1924, besides Howards End (all three were adapted into films). My friendly taunting aside, I liked this novel that Wikipedia said compared thoughtless plutocrats (the Wilcoxes), bohemian intellectuals (the Schlegels) and the struggling middle - class aspirants (the Basts).

The novel is set in the turn of the century England when automobiles and horse and buggies still shared the muddy road. The focal point of the novel wasn’t about who owned the Howards End estate (for me anyway), but how three different classes of people interacted. By the way, I don’t use an apostrophe between the d and s in Howards End because the author didn’t use it in his novel. Anyway, the wealthy family is represented by Henry and Ruth Wilcox and their children: Charles, Paul, and Evie. Business is pure capitalism to Mr. Wilcox...It’s a variation of “it’s my way or the highway.” They have several places to live, but Mrs. Wilcox prefers her inherited property, Howards End. Next, meet the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, and their younger brother Tibby. They are sometimes advised by Aunt Julie Munt. You never find out what happened to their parents, or how they get 500 to 600 pounds each per year. They live in an apartment they call “Wickham Place” in London and enjoy the operas and artsy things of London (they belong to the famous Bloomsbury Group). They meet the downtrodden Leonard Bast, who is trying to get to the middle class from the repressed class, at (of all places) the opera. Leonard is trying to bone up on the musical and literary world in order to move his station in life up one notch. Leonard has his umbrella taken by Helen Schlegel in error at the opera’s end and follows the sisters home to retrieve it. The Schlegels take a liking to Leonard, but he is too overwhelmed and self-conscious to stay for tea. Are you excited yet?

The Wilcoxes and the Schlegels met while touring Germany (the Schlegels father was German, but was naturalized in England). While in Germany, Helen falls in love with Paul, but the brief encounter falls apart when Helen visits Howards End later in the year. We will meet Leonard’s mistress (not married yet), Jacky, later in the novel. I only bring her up, because on page 48, the reader gets his first look at Forster’s descriptive writing. “A woman, of whom it is simplest to say that she was not respectable. Her appearance was awesome. She seemed all strings and bellpulls - ribbons, chains, bead necklaces that clinked and caught - and a boa of azure feathers hung round her neck, with the ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double row of pearls, but her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again be detected at the shoulder, through cheap lace. Her hat, which was flowery, resembled those punnets, covered with flannel, which we sowed with mustard and cress in our childhood, and which germinated here yes and there no. She wore it on the back of her head. As for her hair, or rather hairs, they are too complicated to describe, but one system went down the back, lying in a thick pad there, while another, created for a lighter destiny rippled around her forehead. The face - the face does not signify. It was the face of the photograph, but older, and the teeth were not so numerous as the photographer had suggested, and certainly not so white.” Okay, so he is a descriptive writer after all (haha).

The story is too complicated to tell you any more. It is boring at times and full of surprises at other times. If you are working on building up your knowledge of early 1900s English novelists...then this is the kind of book you want to read. I highly recommend this novel, but have your sleeping cap nearby (haha).

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Besides the three novels I mentioned that were adapted into film, there are four other E. M. Forster works converted to film: a 1945 short film, A Diary for Timothy; 1987’s Maurice; 1991’s Where Angels Fear to Tread; and 1998’s Plug.

As I said in the above text, E. M. Forster was known for surprises and symbolism in all of his novels. One major question is always: “Howards End, the place, is clearly of value for other reasons than its material actuality. It stands for something. How would you describe what it stands for?” Unfortunately, I thought about that throughout the novel and couldn’t come up with an answer (same as the wych elm tree).

Nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 16 different years has to be an exercise in futility. E. M. Forster died on 6/7/1970 at the age of 91 in Coventry, England.